Bringing Home The Bacon

I've been away for a while on my annual sojourn to Shetland to hunt rare birds.  It's a bit different to The Fens up there, though the islands are windswept, full of smallholdings and there are Shetland sheep everywhere... so maybe not so different after all!

But just before I flew north, I sent a pig off to piggy heaven. If you follow this blog, you may be confused as I've not actually had any pigs on the smallholding this year.

Sue and I have found that one pig is quite enough to feed us for a year. However, pigs are intelligent, social animals and are best kept with at least one other of their own kind. So this year we were part of a pig co-op. A fellow smallholder raised three pigs, one of which was destined for our freezer. We only ever met our saddleback twice, once when it was just a nipper and then, a couple of weeks ago, to load it into our trailer and take it off to the abattoir.

We are fortunate to live just a few miles from a small abattoir who always give us an excellent service. But finding a butcher to process the carcass for us has been proving tricky. Both this abattoir and another nearby have butchers attached, but they both put your sausage meat into a big batch along with that from all the other pigs they are processing. The result is that, as far as the sausages are concerned, you might as well just buy some good quality sausages from the supermarket.

We did have an excellent arrangement with a very small butchers just a very short walk from Sue's school. They would pick up the carcass direct from the abattoir and cut it according to our wishes. They made an excellent sausage using just our pork. It was sometimes a job to persuade them to produce any more sausages for us than the standard amount produced from all the offcuts, but overall it was a very good arrangement.
However, the butcher who used to do the cutting for us has been poorly for a while and has now left. So the job has fallen to the one who makes the sausages. Unfortunately he clearly does not want to take on this job - our lambs last year came back not even labelled! His default answer to any request seemed to be "no".
And so we came up with a different plan for this year's pig. A real character we know who lives down in the central fens is also a butcher. In fact, it's the same person who transformed Daisy into sausages last year.

The third time I met my pig!

The downside is that it's quite a journey and I have to transport the carcass to him in the back of the car. The upside is that I get to help out and I really enjoy his company.
So just before I left for Shetland I took our pig along to him. It took only a couple of hours to turn half of it into chops and joints, as well as a box full of tasty sausages and a long string of boiling sausages.
The sausages are so tasty that we will not be selling any this year!
The other half of the pig was prepared for bacon and placed in a brine bath. When we started keeping pigs, we dreamed of sausages, ham, bacon and gammon. But there is an art to making these products and so far we have never really been happy with our own attempts, especially at bacon. Paul still uses traditional methods to make bacon and gammon.
It's not really a complicated process, but a skilled curer's experience can make all the difference, judging things just right between under and over curing. Paul has come up with a great way to achieve this on a small scale. After cutting half the pig into about four great lumps, these went into a cooling box which was filled with a brine mix, containing salt, a very little saltpetre, herbs, spices and sugar. A few milk cartons of frozen water help to keep the temperature down and weigh down the meat to keep it submerged.

And so I headed off to Shetland, half a pig in the freezer and half left at Paul's to cure. There is no waste either. The bones go to Boris or will be boiled up for stock, along with the skin. The flare fat from inside the carcass will be used to produce more of that wonderful leaf lard which makes such excellent pastry and lardy cake.

Sue will hate me for publishing this photo,
but the main subject is the smoked bacon

Fast forward two weeks and today we went back to Paul's to pick up the bacon. It had come out of the brine and been smoked in Paul's home-made smoker, made from a hollowed out upside-down fridge.
He showed us how to use his slicer and we set to work slicing while Paul cut up the large leg ham into more manageable gammon joints for us.
Fast forward another few hours and we've just enjoyed our first taste of the bacon, along with a few of the sausages, a couple of our own eggs and some fried mushrooms. All I can say is that we most definitely won;t be selling any of the bacon either!

Lardy dardy - making leaf lard from flare fat

It's a bit of a cliché, but they do say that the only part of a pig you can't eat is the oink.

Working with the butcher when Daisy was being turned into sausages gave me the chance to try a new product, for he presented me with what is known as the flare fat. This is the fat from inside the pig, around the kidneys and inside the loin.

The flare fat can be rendered down into leaf lard, the highest grade of lard. I never before realised that there were grades of lard, but then why should I? I'd only ever seen the one grade of supermarket lard.

So I decided to have a go at making my own lard. It's a bit out of fashion these days, but it is still the product to use for classic short crust pastry and flaky pie tops. It will certainly come in useful at the Blokes Baking Group.

Making lard from flare fat really couldn't be more simple. All you need do is cut the fat into cubes and heat. As it cooks down, pour off the fat into containers and then just wait for it to set solid. It does need to be kept in the fridge or frozen if you want to store it for long.
I decided to use the microwave method. I filled a plastic bowl with chunks of flare fat and set the mike for 4 minutes, at the end of which the chunks of fat had softened and reduced considerably. I poured off the liquid lard and then returned the bowl to the microwave for a further 4 minutes, repeated the same procedure and then went for a third go in the microwave. Here's what happened!

One very hot plastic bowl!

So my advice would be to always use a Pyrex dish, or switch to the stove top method in a saucepan, which is the option I took.

While I did this, I had all Daisy's bones roasting off in the oven. These went into a giant pot along with a few old vegetables, a couple of handfuls of herbs and a couple of pieces of skin to help jellify the stock.

Several hours later the whole lot had reduced down nicely. We (Sue) separated out the stock juice then boiled it down further. The end result was a rich, concentrated stock which turned nicely to a jelly and is now sliced up and stored in the freezer. There's plenty of it too.
Those winter casseroles will be even more tasty now!


Back to that leaf lard. The saucepan method worked well. I gradually poured off the rendered fat until all I was left with was a small pile of crispy fat pieces - tasty but very unhealthy!

I left the lard to cool and it gradually set to a pure, white colour, then into the freezer. I can't wait for an excuse to make some short crust pastry. I sense a steak and kidney pie coming along.

The end product
Premium grade leaf lard, plus a few unhealthy nibbles.

Daisy, Daisy!

Daisy was a good pig. She came with the farm when we bought it and it wasn't long before she had her first litter. She was always a brilliant mother and gave us 30 piglets in all. The sound of her contented grunts is sadly missed.

But she was in danger of turning into a pet rather than livestock. If we carried on like this, we would pour an awful lot of food into her and then, one day, we would find several hundred pounds worth of pig passed away, leaving us with a big problem to deal with.

But our options for Daisy were limited. Our small butchers would not be able to deal with turning such a large sow into sausages. The best they would be able to manage would be to turn her into an awful lot of mince. And the butchers attached to either of the abattoirs I have used, so I'm told, just out all their sausage pigs in together. If I out Daisy in, I wanted Daisy back, not somebody else's meat reared goodness knows how.

So when the Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group were planning their sausage making demonstration and Paul the friendly butcher suggested using Daisy, it seemed like a perfect solution for the old girl.
We would be able to make her into all sorts of sausages, plus a few other well chosen cuts of meat - an old sow like this is no longer suitable for the most tender cuts - and everybody, not least us, could learn how to make sausages thanks to Daisy.

I've already written about the adventures of getting Daisy into the trailer and off to the abattoir. Well straight after lunch last Thursday I headed off to pick up Daisy's carcass. (Sorry to be so matter of fact about it, but that is the best way to deal with these things. I have no problem looking after animals, even naming them, then eating them. In fact, I have a problem with people who are not willing to face the fact that they are actually eating what was a living animal.)

It was, however, pretty disconcerting to be given Daisy's head first. It did still look like Daisy, but if you've ever seen a dead body you'll know that there is something missing from it, the spirit is gone. When the heart stops beating, the essence of a being leaves it. Nevertheless I determined to make sure that Sue didn't have to see this.
We then loaded Daisy into the back of the car. She really was quite a size. The carcass had a lot of fat on it. Usually, if this were a weaner, I would be ashamed at such poor rearing, but I guess this was a sign that Daisy had become more of a pampered pet.

I met Paul at 2:30 and we proceeded to get the room ready to start the mammoth task of turning Daisy into meat. As Paul says, "livestock is deadstock". This is a good thought for all smallholders to hold on to.
Our task was not helped by the malfunction of Paul's mincer - he had lent it out and it seemed the smallest piece had broken off rendering the whole machine useless. Emergency phone calls were made and a couple of non-commercial mincers duly arrived.
From nowhere, too, reinforcements arrived to help with the task.
I'm sure we slowed Paul down considerably, but he is a very patient man and was keen to teach us as much as he could.
The sausage making was actually quite straightforward, though there were a few techniques to be mastered. I had purchased ready made mixes of spices, herbs and rusk. These were mixed with a little water, then about 20lb of meat was minced and the whole lot was mixed, kneaded and pummelled by hand until we had sausage meat. This was loaded into one end of the sausage making machine and by turning a handle the meat was forced out of the other end into the waiting casings. We used natural hog casings, which we had washed and loaded onto the nozzle at the end of the machine.
The person stationed here had the job of trying to make sure the sausages remained the same thickness and the skins did not split. Obviously there were a few misshapen souls, but on the whole we ended up with some decent sausages. Paul showed us how to twist and tie them and voila!
You'll have to imagine the finished product, as this is when my phone ran out of battery, so no more pics.



When I say that we ended up with some decent sausages, we actually got about 160lb of sausages in the end! In fact I was so busy mincing, mixing and trying to bag everything up and label it that I never actually got a go at the business end of the sausage making machine.

We also made a boiling sausage, made from leaner mince mixed with red wine and garlic, ideal in cassoulets or to use for meatballs. In addition to the sausage, Paul cut the back legs (the front ones are actually referred to as hands and not legs) into quite a few lovely gammon joints and a few roasting joints for us. We got spare ribs too, a couple of strips of loin, plus a whole load of mince and diced pork.

In the evening the rest of the Self Sufficiency Group turned up for the demonstration and a barbecue. They were all amazed by the shear quantity of meat which had come from one pig. Some chose to have a go at the various sausage making activities, others were content just to observe. Everybody enjoyed the barbecue and the Daisy sausages went down very well indeed, as did the bunny burgers supplied by Mick.

The only pity was that we were kept so busy turning Daisy into sausages that I didn't really get to socialise or enjoy the barbecue. But it seemed more useful to get Daisy processed (sorry that sounds harsh) while we had the help and the machinery at hand.

Overall, I felt this was a fitting end for Daisy. I was immensely proud of Sue, too, for coming along and helping out. She hadn't been sure if she would be able to bring herself to, but in the end I think it helped her.

I was determined not to waste anything. This would have been disrespectful to Daisy. As well as all that meat, I had six bags of fat and bones in the car. Making the best use of this would be my Friday task.

Meanwhile, if anybody wants to buy any Daisy sausages, please email me. You will know that they come from a pig who was treated well and had a good, long life. You will know too that they contain no dodgy ingredients, no factory sweepings, no eyelids etc. You will know that they were hand crafted by expert sausage makers!

We have available, at £3.80/lb:

Lincolnshire (sausages and sausage meat)
The Great British Banger
Cumberland
Chilli and Coriander
Old Dubliner (peppery, sausage meat)
Romany (herby)
Hickory Smoked

 

Thank you Daisy.

Goodbye.

Thick-billed Pork Burgers

Gratuitous use of the oil painting setting on my photo software.

If you don't want to see graphic images of a butchery nature, please close your eyes and scroll down enough to get past the next picture!  (Seriously)

GOARY, but strangely fascinating.
If you're going to eat an animal,
I firmly believe you should be able to look it in the face.

The title of this post reflects the total panic which reigned last Friday.

In fact this post is a strange mixture of butchery, burger-making and birding. A strange mixture which I have chosen to make my life.

For two weekends ago our last piglet went off, leaving us with just Daisy.

Trailer in position, ready for loading

 

Daisy: The survivor

I was planning on keeping this one till after Christmas, mainly because of shortage of freezer space. But when someone expressed an interest in buying half of her for bacon / gammons / hams, I decided that I could just about manage the other half. She was growing very quickly anyway. Could be something to do with a certain lady upping the pigs' rations without telling me! Anyway, she (the piglet, not my lady!) spent her last month on a diet, topped up with oodles of apple pulp from our cider making activities. At this time of year we get many donations of windfalls for the pigs - all most welcome.

So, back to that total panic on Friday. As usual I had picked up the pig from my butchers on Thursday afternoon. Half had gone off to a happy customer and the rest was for me to sort out. We still had quite a lot of pork joints left in the freezers, which really were bulging with the summer's harvest, so I decided to get the majority of our half pig turned into mince. This gave me the opportunity to ask the butcher to take out the whole tenderloin - something of a luxury.

And so it was that, on Friday morning, I set about the task of turning half a pig into pork burgers. I had an ambitious plan to make at least half a dozen varieties, and an even more ambitious plan to somehow find room in the freezers!

I set about peeling, chopping, cooking, measuring, mixing and shaping. First came Red Pepper, Chili and Tomato burgers, then Curried Potato burgers. All the ingredients (bar some of the spices) came from the garden. Fortunately, I think, I tried one of the chillis before committing them into the mixture. Just the tiniest piece had my tongue tingling for the next hour!
Everything took time, but I carried on through the morning and by lunchtime I had knocked out a batch of Thai style pork burgers too.

Red Pepper, Chilli and Tomato pork burgers

I was doing OK, though I was a bit worried about the tiny amount of space left in the freezers. I would surely need to take an hour out of burger making just to reorganise the freezers and make some space. I started the next batch - Fennel, Apple and Coriander - when suddenly, and most inconveniently, the pager wailed into action.

THICK-BILLED WARBLER

... on Shetland Mainland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was it. My industrious day at home was turned upside down. The phone started ringing and I went into blind panic, running around like a headless chicken. I hastily worked out my options and booked a flight from Aberdeen. My phone was then pretty much non-stop for the next couple of hours - all while I was now desperately attempting to get the last two batches of burgers made. This might have been a little bit easier if it weren't for the fact that I have to go outside to get any form of acceptable signal here.

I don't quite know how I did it, but by the evening the burgers were done, in the freezers and I was getting ready to drive to York, where I would meet up with a fellow birder and head northwards towards Aberdeen airport, via Tebay where we would pick up another two mad souls.

I should say that Sue and I were due to be entertaining on Saturday evening. Fortunately everybody we know has come to expect this type of spontaneous behaviour from me at this time of year.

If all went to plan, while Sue was cooking and entertaining I would be getting on the overnight ferry from Shetland back to Aberdeen, hopefully having seen the bird.

And that last phrase most certainly could not be taken for granted. For, of the four previous Thick-billed Warblers to be found in Britain, none had been twitchable on the second day. Add to that the fact that I'd already made two unsuccessful trips to Ireland during the previous week, and you will see why us twitchers sometimes get a little twitchy!

I had intended this blog post to be exclusively about burger making, but as usual my best laid plans have been interrupted by a bird. So here's my account of the twitch. I'm afraid there are no photos - I wanted to avoid having to check any luggage onto the plane so the camera had to stay at home.

I won't describe the drive up to Aberdeen - it takes a long time but I was at least able to get a bit of sleep. I did my fair share of staying awake to keep the driver going too.
We arrived at the multi-storey car park at the ferry terminal at about 6.30am. The plan was to get a taxi from there to the airport, which we had booked en route, so that we would be able to get straight off the ferry and into the car when we returned. However, £45 for parking just over 24 hours seemed like a rip off so we cancelled the taxi ( for which they seemed to have no record of the booking anyway!) and drove to the airport car park. The one small benefit of booking last minute is that you always have to buy the expensive (but exchangeable) tickets, which gives the perfect opportunity to lower the tone in the executive lounge! I hit the espresso coffee machine and the cakes while Danny Boy started his celebrations a little early!
But this was nothing compared to when the north-eastern twitchers arrived. They did their best to recoup their air fare in cakes, biscuits and miniature drinks cans! It was very good to see so many familiar faces. It's a funny old game is twitching. You meet the same group of people from all over the country, but you never know where or when you will all meet up next. It is usually on a plane or a boat though.
Everybody was excited, though I have to admit I was slightly in fear of a third major dip in a row. So it was with relief that we received a phone call before boarding the plane that the bird was still present.
The night before it had been seen by quite a few birders already on Shetland, but apparently most views had only been of the bird in flight. Although Thick-billed Warbler is large and distinctive as far as little brown jobs go, it's still not ideal to see any lbj only in flight. We also knew that the bird was skulking in an oat crop and that no access to the crop was being allowed. So we most certainly were not counting our chickens... or our TBWs for that matter!

As we landed it was a race to get off the plane, through the airport and into our hire car, before Dan raced the few miles to Geosetter. We left the car parked as sensibly as we could and approached the field where maybe thirty or forty birders were already looking to get views of the bird.
For maybe an hour or so there was nothing. This sure would be a major hit to take if we had made it all the way here and failed to see the bird, especially knowing that it was in the field in front of us. We had been told in no uncertain terms that the farmer would not allow anyone to access the field so, having waited patiently, Plan B was put into action. As soon as the drizzle stopped and the sun almost came out, a recording of Thick-billed Warbler was played and OOOMF!! It wasn't long at all before the bird briefly flew above the oats towards its perceived fellow lost soul. It was fairly obvious what it was - it couldn't really be anything else, but a better view would most certainly be appreciated.

We then stood for a further 90 minutes with nothing to entertain us apart from an occasional flight over the oat crop by a blackcap and a couple of diminutive yellow-browed warblers flitting around. This really was very frustrating indeed.

But then the rather brash, self-appointed organiser of twitches on Shetland appeared having spoken to the farmer. He had permission for two people to walk through the field.
An anticipatory crowd headed up to the far end of the field and waited with bated breath. It wasn't too long before the quarry was flushed out and again made a short flight over the crop.
This happened a few more times, until I had what I refer to as a 'jigsaw tick'. I had seen enough bits of the bird on my various views to piece the whole thing together. The bird did at one stage leave the field, only to dive into the thick willow growth which filled the adjacent burn. Unfortunately the crowd was too twitchy and 'edged' forward too impatiently, which resulted in the bird heading straight back into the field!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, with patience we eventually got extended views of the Thick-billed Warbler in flight and in the binoculars. The stubby, thick bill, the open facial expression and beady eye and the long, graduated tail all combined to make it a most distinctive bird, even with only flight views.
It would have been nice to explore a little more of Shetland and to see some more of its birds, but this bird was a skulker which had led us a merry dance all day and before we knew it we had to head back to the ferry terminal in Lerwick. There was just time to burn my tongue on a hastily consumed fish and chips in the harbour before we boarded the ferry and began washing our meal down with a few celebratory drinks. Some were thirstier than others, Dan!!!

So that was it, from burgers in a fenland farmhouse kitchen to a thick-billed warbler in a far-flung corner of Britain.

Turning Piglets into Pork

There have been comings and goings at the farm in recent days. Most obvious goings were the two piglets at the weekend. It still seems strange when we go to feed them and only two pigs emerge from their hut for food.
But today the two piglets came back, just not quite as they went away!

I was impressed by their eventual weights. I usually send the pigs off at just over 50 kg, but leaving them that bit longer gave us some much more chunky chops. By my crude reckoning, the extra feed costs were more than compensated for in the extra meat.

The extra growth gave us some lovely, traditional style chunky chops too and we also had the leg cut into steaks. The leg joints are always the leanest, but our customers know their pork and know that this makes the meat slightly drier too. When I discussed this with my butcher, he suggested steaks and very nice they look too.

Mind you, with the piglets weighing in at 68 and 63 kg it's no wonder I couldn't get them off the trailer!

It was interesting to chat to the butcher for a while too. The sisters of these two piglets, which I sold to a new smallholder just around the corner, grew much quicker than ours. So much so that, when their owner came and asked me if it was time to go off, he was obviously surprised at the size difference. It made me doubt our pig-rearing too. Could it be that I was not growing our pigs fast enough? Although I take pride in the amount of space they've got and in producing slow-grown pork, could it be that I've been keeping them too long and spending out far more than I need  on food?

I wrote a post on how much to feed a pig some time ago. I didn't give any numbers, just advice to keep an eye on the piglets' condition and not be lured by their persistent squealing for more food. Could it be that I got it wrong?

Of course not! For my butcher informed me that those two piglets which had grown so quickly were insulated by a very thick layer of fat. Some fat is good, maybe up to a couple of cm, but any more than that and you have just been turning expensive food into a layer of blubber.

So, if any of you want any perfectly reared pork, the likes of which you'll never have tasted before (unless you're old enough to remember what good old traditional pork is supposed to taste like), just take a look at the Pork and Sausages tab on this blog and pop in to see us on the farm. 

Bringing home the bacon

Bacon!

When I first thought about keeping pigs, I dreamt of bacon, sausages, gammon and ham on tap. For these were the products which lured me away from veganism many years ago!

The sausages came, but the other products weren't so straightforward. So up till now we've been eating a lot more pork chops and joints than we ever used to. Not that they aren't totally tasty.

From our second litter, though, we kept two girls to the grand old age of almost one year. Their fate, to be salted and cured.

Unsuspecting

The morning they went away

Safely delivered to the abattoir

And on the afternoon before I jetted off, they came back from the butchers.


I managed to get the 150 or so packs of sausages into the fridge and freezer, but I had to leave poor old Sue to deal with the rest of the two pigs. T
here were four whole sides, which she cut along the length to separate the loin from the belly. These were destined to become back bacon and streaky bacon. Pork belly has proved very popular with our customers, so some of that went into the fridge ready for collection. This was fortunate as all four of our freezers are bulging at the seams!

There were also four gigantic legs to be turned into smaller gammons.

That's a lot of meat to sort out.

Sue spent the rest of the evening cutting the meat into manageable chunks and she then set about the ancient art of curing the meat.

We had ordered two prepared dry-cure mixes from Surfy's Homecuring Supplies - one traditional curing mix and one smoked. We thought that for our first effort it would be safest to rely on a ready-mixed cure.
Essentially a cure is a careful mix of salt and sodium nitrite. The latter gives the cured product its pinkness. To this are added the ingredients which give the distinctive flavours and characters to be found in the vast range of hams, bacons and gammons.
The drycure mixes are carefully weighed out and rubbed all into the meat. We chose to do this in tupperware boxes, but zip-lock bags supposedly work very well, if you can find big enough bags. A vacuum packer is the professional's choice.
Each day the meat is turned and rubbed again. How long this is done for depends on the thickness of the slab of meat.
The instructions that came with the Surfy's cures were excesslent, as was the e-mail support Sue received when she asked them about wet-cure procedures.

We decided to take off the skin on this occasion. Not only does the cure take longer to penetrate the skin, but the rind is a real obstacle when it comes to slicing the bacon. We have plenty of crackling from our pork and can't really see the point of rind on bacon.

For the gammons, Sue followed a Hugh F-W wet-cure recipe - curing salts plus lots of sugar, juniper berries, spices...

And now, on my return from India, the bacon was ready.

And so began the job of bacon slicing. I borrowed a slicer from a friend and we proceeded to massacre the meat!
Well, it didn't take long to get used to it. The first lump of cured loin came out a bit ragged, but we ended up with some rather rustic slices of back bacon plus a good quantity of bacon scraps - they'll be delicious in omelettes - and a couple of wedges we've called bacon steaks.

But by the end Team Bacon was running like a well-oiled machine and we now have a mountain of fine bacon in the freezer, enough for us for the next year. We ended up with a much wider range of bacon slices than you find in the shops.

And for a late dinner, of course, bacon sandwiches. DELICIOUS!

Pulled Pork

Friday 30th November 2012
Woodpigeons flight at dawn

When it's cold, snuggle in close.

Daisy and the piglets are doing very well indeed. Despite the cold, all eleven are growing fast and have become real little chubsters.
But before you get too googly eyed over them, we must remember that they are not pets. So meanwhile, pork sales trundle along at a steady pace. This is important as Daisy's life depends on it! We have run out of sausages again, but there are still plenty of chops and leg joints left in the freezer.

We continue to try out new ideas for cooking pork, and today's little project was pulled pork. I started by taking the skin off a small shoulder joint, seasoning it and browning it. Then a long, slow cook at 160 in milk with added herbs and lemon slices.

I was not convinced by this recipe, as the lemon would surely curdle the milk. And it did, a little. But all those fresh, zingy, herby flavours actually percolated nicely into the pork. After cooling a little I took two forks to it and shredded it. The succulent meat fell apart.

Along with a few knobs of crackling I had made from the skin and a good, hearty chunk of seedy wholemeal bread, we had a very simple, very tasty meal.

Piglets' progress

Hiding in the straw.
How many can you see in this picture?

Wednesday 28th November 2012

  

It's amazing how quickly piglets grow.
I estimate they double in size every week.

And with it grow their characters. In the early days they are helpless little bundles of wrinkled skin, totally dependent upon their mother. But it's not long before these intelligent creatures begin to wander and investigate.

Next comes playfulness, spurts of energy and a natural wariness.
But Daisy knows me well now and is happy for me to spend time with her young family. The initial bolting and yelping when I appear at the door are quickly replaced by a line of inquisitive noses all edging closer to nudge my hand. Then there are those that prefer to creep round the back, nibbling at my trainers or tugging at my back pocket flaps as if they were mum's teats.




If, like me, you are looking at these cute little piglets and thinking sausages, chops and slow-roast shoulder, then they will be for sale in about a month's time. Girls are £45 each, boys just £35.

 

Just call me to reserve one.

 

Or you could sponsor one of them. If taking on a pig is too daunting, I'll look after it, feed it and raise it for you until it's ready to go on its final journey. But you'll be missing out on a whole lot of fun.