As our betters jet back from Paris, with bellies full of artisanal French food and exciting business contacts that allow them to both profit and “save” the world, our thoughts on the farm have been on Delores. She of the wandering tribe of swine that seldom saw a fence without seeing an opportunity. She who after a gallant effort to artificially inseminate and an arranged marriage of four weeks to a neighbor’s boar is still not pregnant.
We are now faced with a classic small farm dilemma: do we keep her for another try at motherhood or convert her to sausage? Back in August, during her matrimonial date with Old Red, Delores was what is euphemistically described as “pleasingly plump.” She has now been on an owner-imposed diet and slimmed down to what we hope is a good breeding weight. (Yes, hogs, as well as other livestock, can be too fat to conceive.)
There are so many small farm models to follow in this world. And we do not offer ours up to any but ourselves: a three-way contest between profits, sufficiency, and fulfillment. Last week’s post on taking time out from the first two to sit in the woods and do nothing but meditate and smoke a cigar spurred one online reader to call me a slacker.
The conclusion I drew was that, in his mind, the monetary profits of the farm stood superior to sufficiency and fulfillment. An imbalance, if applied mindlessly, that has contributed greatly to this world of rapidly diminishing resources and a climate rollercoaster. Which reminded me of a another recent commenter who seemed to take issue with the notion that achieving sufficiency was anything other than a weigh-station toward profitability or a path down the road to abject poverty.
So, as we watched the old classic set in the Scottish Hebrides, “I Know Where I’m Going,” last night, I chuckled when one of the characters took umbrage at being told that the villagers were poor because they had no money. What poverty of imagination, she said, that would imagine us as poor because we lack money.
Hers was an outlook actively at odds with the modern mindset, the one that devalues the wealth derived from family, community, and being a part of the earth, the one that feeds on the acquisitive and that can, if not moderated, create a life out of balance.
It is this mindset, I think, that led to conditions that energized our betters — a convening of corporations, governments, and nonprofit agencies — to spend a week dining in Paris. Now, with their bellies bloated and their backs sore from congratulatory pats, I have the sneaking suspicion that all of their grubbing around for money will result in a climate plan for more of the same.
We, meanwhile, spent our weekend on the farm. We dined on produce from our gardens and meat we raised. We worked hard, relaxed, and gave a favored sow another chance.
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Reading this weekend: Animate Earth by Stephan Harding
Poverty of imagination indeed. Methinks that money as the sole measure of wealth is such a grave sickness in the minds of many that, even as a means to grant freedom and opportunity to explore and/or enjoy the world (or just one tiny region of it), money has no value except as an arbitrary number on a ledger or on account somewhere. I’m also astonished that your commentators and correspondents have the temerity to sit in judgment of your idleness or lack of hustle to maximize profit — the only goal worth having, natch. Are any of them gentlemen farmers?
I don’t know what the takeaway from the COP21 conference might be. But I suspect that you’re correct that it will only award players enhanced means to consolidate their profit and power. The real antidote to the problems we face is far too scary in its simple to contemplate: wind down industrial civilization and reduce global population to a number that corresponds to carrying capacity w/o fossil fuels. I predict it will happen perforce. The question is whether the biosphere will be so degraded by the time our numbers are cut down that it can still support large mammals like us.
“Wind down industrial civilization”. Yep, we both know the odds on that one. I started off on a piece about my inner hypocrite, after I found myself giving career advice to a twenty-something. When what I wanted to say was forget about it. But, who am I to park those dark clouds over someone else’s head.
Cheers,
Evidently your reader who thought you were slacking doesn’t understand the power and necessity of resting…the mindful pause that allows the body, spirit and, yes, soul to be recharged. In Biblical terms, it’s called Sabbath rest and it’s as counter cultural as living a life of sustainability.
Harriet,
Thanks for the comment. And I agree, of course. BTW how did your curing of the jowl come out? We just had some of ours in a spaghetti carbonara on Friday. And, if I may say, it was terrific.
Cheers,
Brian
He’s right: it was terrific!
By jowl, do you mean guanciale? I made some, and we had carbonara—but we have a lot left.
A problem we have, as we try to preserve more things in more ways, is that we don’t have the habits or culture of eating those foods.
So, I have a friend who says if he is left unsupervised with a crock of sauerkraut, he will eat it all over lunch. Whereas my family struggles to incorporate it into our diet. Not that it isn’t delicious, it is. But it is not our habit.
Guanciale is similar. It is a little weird. It is not quite like bacon. We don’t quite know what to do with it. And so it sits in our fridge…
Ruben,
Indeed, I mean guanciale. This my favorite gate-way charcuterie to teach people about home-curing. Because it is easy, safe and relatively quick (other than making lardo).
We do use the guanciale for carbonara, which we make maybe once a month. But after it is initially cured and cut into the first time I toss it into the freezer (wrapped). We use bits of it for recipes calling for salt pork. We cook a lot of French based food so it manages to get used up.
The kraut we often add to any recipe calling for cabbage (good in stirfry), or we eat it by itself, like your friend. It is also a great and surprising special addition to Hungarian goulash. But my favorite recipe for using up kraut and the guanciale, among other pork cuts, is to make the show-stopper Alsatian Choucroute.
Thanks for the comment and the new blog topic suggestion,
Brian
If memory serves you had a couple guilts from another farm in the pen with Delores and the boar from the neighbor. Did Old Red successfully cover either of the younger females? You also have one of Delores’ daughters to breed – or is she still too young?
Delores has lived in relative isolation from other mature females, no? I wonder if this too might matter. Though the weight angle is certainly the first place to start. Ironic that if slimming down should fail, you’ll want her to put a few pounds back on before sausage becomes the answer.
Ha, that would be ironic. It does appear the other two gilts are pregnant. We are borrowing a smaller and younger boar in January to cover both Delores and Petunia. So, hopefully he will get the job done. On the plus side that means they would both farrow in April-ish.