Those of you who've been following us on Twitter or Instagram have watched the fall accomplish and watched our pigs make their way from their babyhood at Hasselmann Family Farm to happy explorer piglets rooting in the woods, to mature, communal wonders And, now, to delicious pork!
It has been an amazing summer, full of learning and love. We have toted their water and organic food, blazed new pastures for them out of deep, cool woods, and petted them of a summer evening. We marveled at their habits and shapes, enjoyed their play in the rain, and admired their fierce uprooting of invasive plants.
Early in November, it was time. We borrowed our mentor farmer's trailer and let them get used to climbing in--a bucket of feed in the back. We took a last opportunity to thank the pigs, to look them over each individually in the pens and count them one last time. And we took the pigs to Eichmann's--our wonderful processors. We are grateful for their happy lives and for their deaths which provide food for so many people we care about.
Yesterday, Root and Sky Farm was pleased to welcome our family from New York. They came in for Thanksgiving to celebrate our first pig harvest and to give thanks with us for God's good gifts. Our first night, in keeping with family tradition of tacos the night before Thanksgiving (pie-making night) we served Root and Sky pork: Nena's Pineapple Pork Tacos with pulled pork from a shoulder roast and shoulder steaks. And yesterday, as we ate Amish pasture raised turkey, we paired it with Root and Sky sage sausage dressing. It was so great to give to our beloved family the pork that we've been caring for for months, trying to bless them with the work of our hands.
We made cloverleaf rolls with little slips of paper in them on which we'd written things we were thankful for (kind of like a fortune cookie, only rolls and thank-yous instead of cookies and fortunes). As each one was eaten, another thank you rolled out.
So many were about the farm. "The land," cousin Ryan unrolled. "The pigs/Phantom," cousin Wesley read out. And when we did our out-loud thank-yous, pop corning around the table, Josh was grateful for our family's sacrifice in moving away from our homestead in Glen Ellyn to start this lovely experiment. I was grateful that the pork tasted good--and that we, thanks to friends and family, finally have a working kitchen in which to fashion a Thanksgiving!
We are so thankful for all our friends and family who have helped and supported us in this journey--with moving, with meals when we had no sink, with cleaning work days and with the risk of ordering from us even before we knew (though we do now!) that the pork would taste good. We are thankful to be able to live in this big woods--to try and make a pasture, to make good lives for animals and good food for people we care about.
We're also grateful to be able to offer pork packs for sale--from small "we-don't-have-a-big-freezer" packs to "trunkful" size, and even custom pork packs. You can order by sending an email to rootandksyfarm@gmail.com.
Today, Josh mowed our baby pasture (with our riding lawn mower--which was an adventure, as the pasture's 4 and 5 feet high in places!) and we dreamed about next year--adding a few beef maybe, a few sheep. You can let us know if you'd like to be involved in THAT venture by reserving some beef at rootandskyfarm@gmail.com.