Mid October

The leaves have mostly turned here in southern Wisconsin and many have fallen already, though there are still a lot left on the trees. The forests and copses of trees here are at that "thinning" stage.... kind of like my aunt Margie's hair.

There was a touch of frost on the grass as I walked to the barn this morning. Red ripe apples on the ground, the smell of damp leaves and I could hear a bluebird singing somewhere along the fence line. I have to savor moments like these, because they are so few and fleeting. I think Fall days like this are perhaps our shortest-lived season. We seem to go from late Summer, which lingers for several weeks, to late Fall where all the leaves are gone,the ground is starting to freeze up, the cold winds are blowing but we don't have snow on the ground yet. As someone who has to contend with keeping animals comfortable, water liquid, and driveways and access lanes cleared, I will not vote for what's next as my most favorite time of year. Best to enjoy this as long as it lasts!

Full Circle

Today was another milestone for us here. We took another load of pigs in to the butcher today, but this time it was the pigs we had farrowed here ourselves. This was our first home-raised litter. We'd been through a lot with these girls. It really feels like quite an accomplishment to have reached this point. In fact, it was almost exactly one year ago that we brought our two gilts home to our farm. It's really something to think about how far we've come in the last twelve months! Wow, have we ever learned a lot, too! Now with our third litter on the ground we almost feel like we know what to expect, heh.

Just a note: we still have a side or two left that can be purchased whole. This is the last opportunity to get pasture-raised Berkshire pork cut to your specs this Fall. If interested in a side, contact us at Prairiefirefarmwi@gmail.com ASAP! Of course,we will always have retail cuts and bundles available any time.

We will have more pastured Berk available in December!

Thank you to all of our customers. We wouldn't do it without you!

And Now, Pictures of Pigs

It's Done!

What I Did For Indian Summer

Sunny and warm, 72
Seems like the amount of rain we got during the year has been matched lately by a string of dry weather. It's getting downright dusty around here, but that's not altogether a bad thing. It's allowing the corn and soybeans to dry well and farmers are not having to rush and try to squeeze harvest in between bad weather. Better for the soil, too.
I'm enjoying this perfect Indian Summer weather, it certainly isn't responsible for holding me back from getting things done. I can only blame myself for that!
Over the past few days, I or we have put the bottom ring back on the grain bin and moved it over behind the pump house, moved the grain drill out of the pasture, but need to replace one tire on it. Flipped the pig hut back over so I can fix it backup and make it ready for habitation. Picked up a bunch of fence posts and mowed some of the pasture. Went to the feed mill and to Farm N Fleet, what farm break is complete without a trip there? We've been harvesting most of the garden, including all of our pumpkins, yay! We also harvested the bird house gourds, and some real big beans that have wild, splashy colors.
I went to town and got about two yards of mulch. Our friend Jason came over and helped put a lot of the mulch on the perennial garden, and we also did a lot of end-of-year weeding and trimming in our borders, then put lots of mulch on them as well.
I've also been spending a good bit of time working in the stone barn, building new quarters for the Berk gilts that will be here at the end of this week. I've pulled out wall coverings, swept, scraped, dug, pulled out stanchions, removed wheelbarrow loads of gunk, and have tuck pointed the walls, set posts, and poured about 3 yards of concrete in there, and I'm not even half way through in there. Plenty more work ahead in there. Coming up- putting up a hoop barn!

I wish the weather was always like this!

Mostly sunny, 68 degrees
More beautiful weather here on the farm.
Had the last few days off. Been working on getting the yard into shape for Fall -picking up walnuts, walnuts, walnuts!!! Mowing ,weeding. Went and got a big load of free mulch from the local municipal yard to go on the borders, flowerbeds, and the perennial garden.
Smoked up a pork shoulder on the Weber Smoky Mountain (WSM) yesterday for a delicious pulled pork. I served it with a thick, slightly sweet and spicy St. Louis style sauce on the side. Wow, soo good! Karen made a batch of scalloped potatoes from our own home grown yukon gold potatoes, kale from the garden, and an apple crisp for dessert.

That shoulder came from one of our crossbred feeder hogs. It developed a nice 'bark'in the WSM and also a nice smoke ring, which is that pink ring around the outer layer, caused by slow smoking. It's the mark of meat smoked just right.
We sure do eat well!