An alternative to composting hogs

Yesterday, or the day before, they're all flowing together these days, we spotted some very young goslings along with the Canada goose and gander. Seeing signs that life goes on despite COVID-19 and the #OrangeIdiot in the White House offers hope for better days. I'm more than a little angered at stories  like "Wood chippers employed to help compost thousands of excess hogs near Worthington plant." The Robin Wall Kimmerer book Braiding Sweetgrass describes what's referred to as an Honorable Harvest. Part of that is to use what you take. Taking lives of livestock and composting their bodies violates both the Honorable Harvest ethic and a sportsman's ethic of not wasting game reduced to possession. It's wrong and made worse by the number of people still going to bed hungry these days.

it's a gosling time of year

Photo by J. Harrington

As we personally move toward a more honorable system, tomorrow is baking bread day (again) to accompany the Better Half's (leftover) kale soup tomorrow night. The kale came from last week's CSA share. We'll pick up this week's share later today and then tomorrow go and get a "quarter hog" from a farm that pasture raises them sustainably. For years I've been sticking my toe into the edge of the locavore pool and now I'm looking forward to wading into the shallow end and checking out what's available outside traditional channels. The farm raises primarily heritage breed Mangalitsa hogs and a quarter hog should provide:

• 1 spare rib (1/pkg)
• 2 fresh ham roast (1/pkg)
• 5-6 smoked bacon (16 oz/pkg)
• 1 pork shoulder roast (1 pkg)
• 8 pork chops (2/pkg)
• 3 Smoked hocks (1 lb/pkgs)
• 4-5 lbs ground pork (1 lb/pkgs)

The Better Half has accumulated some sausage recipes that will be used with some or all of the ground pork. The roasts might induce me to get a smoker and try my hand. This is at least in part our response to the "lock down" orders and the need to do something new and different. Supporting alternatives to the current industrial food system helps us feel better about doing more to reduce green house gases. It also helps me feel as though I'm finally finding an alternative to the meat I used to put on the table when I more actively led the life of a hunter-fisher-gatherer, and it certainly beats just sitting around and complaining about the state of the country.

Today's poem comes from an anthology edited by James Lenfestey, titled Low Down and Coming On, published by Red Dragonfly Press. We commend it to your attention in its entirety.

Left to Herself
A Pig Will Be a Pig

Sharon Chmielarz

She saw most clearly with her snout.
She wandered under the Tree's green
cloud of miniature red moons and
hoggily snuffled the fragrant windfall.
God heard her snorting, her grunting
gorging on the delicious; that swish
in her waddle caught His great ear,
before He wept over the handfuls of air
where His apples used to be. He called
her a pig, a hog, a get-out-of-here.
On the run she devised a muddy Hereafter
with a wavering scent of the divine.

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