Here it was, March 5th, and the first blizzard of the season was in full force.
(Not until March 5th? That’s pretty good for Minnesota!)
But they were safe inside the barn and inside the nice plywood walls of their farrowing pen.
Now here it is, over a month later and look how big they’ve gotten!
Perhaps you noticed on 2 of those piglets, their ears look weird.
For whatever reason, within hours of birth, their ears started looking funny and then eventually fell off.
Their tails also cropped as well.
But don’t worry too much….they never appeared to suffer and all the way along, they’ve been robust and lively like the others. They just look funny. 😉
Since then, we’ve had 3 batches of piglets….that’s all for the early spring groups…the next 3 sows are coming due in later May.
It’s just amazing how they start out looking like that and before you know it they look like this…
What’s in the farm kitchen?
We are having a big family gathering coming up soon, so I have prepared a number of pork roasts into pulled pork.
I decided to smoke them, but when I smoke meat, especially roasts, I cheat a little….I put them all on the smoker for several hours and then take them off and put them into a roaster for the remainder of the cook time.
Why do I do this?
Several reasons…
- I generally don’t have time to babysit a smoker, but I still want the yummy flavor.
- The longer meat stays on a smoker then more dried out it could get, so generally serious smoker people will wrap meat in aluminum foil or put into a covered pan. This goes back to number 1….I generally don’t have time to watch it and make sure it’s progressing right… 😉
- The large roaster (or a crock pot is perfect too if I have less meat) works great for finishing out the cooking process, all the while keeping the meat tender.
- Good pulled pork (getting the meat to fall off the bone and shred well) takes a LONG TIME on a smoker. Like maybe 12 hours, depending on the smoker, the amount of meat, the outside temp, etc. The meat has to get to 204 degrees to fall off the bone. Sometimes I will smoke the meat on one day, put the meat into the roaster, put into the fridge, and then continue cook time the next day.
What do I put on the meat?
I have make homemade BBQ sauce and added other seasonings, but my favorite (and fastest) is this Famous Dave’s Rib Rub. YUM!
