Month: October 2018

Bye to Penelope, Hello to Ham

October 22, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

For many, many years we have been breeding pigs, keeping an offspring to perpetuate for the next round, and then selling the rest.

Well, the Lord in His wisdom decided the line would come to an end. The last one we kept was Penelope from back in 2013. In 2014, we bought a pig we named Odysseus, and put them together. Sadly, this produced no offspring.

So we tried again with a young one from the neighbors, but he got out and ran back to their pig pen. And so we tried again, and this one ended up being one we named Ardy in 2016.

By around mid-2017, I decided that he either had done the job or hadn’t, and so we took him in to the processor.

Well, after 4 months, there was nothing. I debated about what to do, with such a nice line, and being somewhat sentimental to all of the years and generations. But eventually figured it was time to call it “end of the line.”

However, that wasn’t the quite the end. The processor was busy, so we needed to make an appointment in the future.

And we tried to get her loaded, and she would just not go in, even with the cattle trailer backed up to an opening in the paneled fences right at her normal feeding area. She had lost her appetite because of the heat I figure, so she wasn’t very motivated. And so we had to cancel the processor reservation a couple of times.

Well, we tried one more time, with the trailer parked there for 5-6 days before, and the day before really worked it, even by building a temporary fence around the loading area. It was rough at points, where she tried to lift up the panel and get away (she was a big girl and not pleased at all!), and then I had to put in t-posts, but finally, but God’s graces, we got her into the trailer:

And here she is her last morning. She tore up the cross pieces in the trailer, and then getting her out of the trailer and into the processor was again something of a chore, but thankfully we were able to say goodbye and bring her to her final place where she would, Lord willing, become our daily bread:

Here is a video recapping the 1 1/2 to 2-hour loading adventure, and a goodbye the next morning:

And finally, here are some of the provisions God has granted from her:

Ham:

Bacon:

And lard:

We’ve also had pork steaks, which are very tender, including for one of our Lord’s day’s fellowship meal — very yummy, and a real treat!

We are grateful to the Lord for the granting of the provisions from Penelope and all of the generations before her. We are thankful no one has been hurt by the pigs over the years, and we pray for direction for next steps.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Olivia’s 2018 Turkey Chick

October 11, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

With us not really having a great way to manage the turkey flock we have now, after a rogue Black Turkey heritage breed hen just showed up at our homestead one day, it becomes difficult when the females start getting broody. They often find quite remote places to nest, and sometimes just hide in the grass somewhere in a field. Although we have lost one to that situation, the Lord’s been gracious to allow us to usually track them down as they perhaps come back in the morning to eat or drink or what have you before returning to their nest, and then we can follow them.

Now though, we try to make sure to collect any turkey eggs we find, and then, if we find a turkey on a nest, haul her in and any eggs in the nest, and put them in the summer kitchen, and add any other eggs we have.

Well, we did that this year with Olivia, the female from last year’s hatching, who had quite a few of her own eggs.

And while she had 5-6 under her, only one hatched out, but by God’s graciousness, this little turklet (I call them “turklets”, like “chicklets”) 😉 made it all along, is still going today, and is almost adult size! We believe now it is a “she” turkey, and she is our first grand-turklet!

Here she is with her mommy back in August, obviously a little older than just a hatchling by this time:

As you can see, the turklet liked to walk all over Olivia 🙂 :

Another of Olivia & Her 2018 Turkey Chick

One sad note: we did the same “grab and put in the summer kitchen” with one of our other hens, Tasha, and she hatched out 2 turklets, but not long after they were born, each disappeared. We assume a snake got them, but I never found the culprit in there, and often we do. It’s still a mystery, but it was not the Lord’s will they continue, and we agree whole-heartedly with Him in His sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness!

And here is the video of Olivia and her hatchling, which progresses from the pictures above to when we permanently let them out of the summer kitchen to just this week! The video does include the other mama and one tiny little turklet that was left at the time:

And as always, we are very thankful to the Lord for His graces and mercies and the perpetuation of the animals!

— David

Community Singing – September 2018

October 4, 2018 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

This past Lord’s day we gathered together to record the next set of Psalms from the psalter we use. It is our prayer we learn His word better, and that perhaps others might be able to participate in Psalms singing as well with these.

Here are the latest:

(If the above player doesn’t work, you can click the Listen link below; or if you would like to save any of the files locally to your computer, you can right click on Download and click Save As in the popup menu.)

Psalms 69A-71D

Bye to Penelope, Hello to Ham

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Olivia’s 2018 Turkey Chick

Community Singing – September 2018

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