Grinding your own field corn seems like a good way to save money but I think I would find a way to run the corn sheller mechanically as turning it seems like a lot of hard and unnecessary work. That home-made corn crib though is pretty neat and sounds like it works well for storage and drying of field corn. I'm actually very impressed by this small scale homestead operation.
Free-ranging allows pigs to satisfy their curious natures and engage in fulfilling activities. They can improve land fertility and diversity, assist farmers in their work, and provide tasty and nutritious food. These benefits require good management of well-adapted breeds that can thrive outdoors with the minimum of intervention.
Running pigs in the woods is an interesting idea, especially when you have a lot of underbrush and invasive crap to clean up and want to really tear up the soil. Goats are good for some purposes, especially chewing away at brush but they won't tear up the soil like pigs will or restore it with lots of rich organic matter.
Through a crafty program of crossbreeding, Danish farmers tried to create a new breed of pig that faintly resembled their beloved home’s flag. It wasn’t terribly difficult, they decided to use biology as their secret weapon. The banner of Denmark is relatively simple—a flat red background covered by a long, white Nordic cross — so all the pig needed was a coat of red fur and one or two prominent white belts. They named it Protestschwein, the Danish Protest Pig.
The Danish Protest Pig is a rare breed of domestic pig. Due to its red color, its broad white vertical belt, and a trace of a white horizontal belt it resembles the colors of the Flag of Denmark. It originated in North Frisia in Southern Schleswig in the beginning of the 20th century, when Danes living in the area were not allowed to raise the Danish flag and kept and displayed the Protest Pig instead, making it a symbol of their cultural identity.
Bacon. I’ve avoided bacon over the past few years after an incident five or six years ago when a package of bacon got put in the wrong bag while shopping and didn’t get put in cooler and went rancid by the time I cooked it in the morning. I don’t know why I decided to try to cook it but I figured as a cured meat with the cooking process I would kill off any bacteria, but it still was gross. I was not sad to see the bacon in the plastic wrapper shrivel up and get burned that evening in the fire.
Since then I’ve avoided bacon like the plague. Bacon for a while was quite expensive and honestly despite the grease doesn’t have that much taste. Maybe if you raise your own heritage hogs on your land and make your own bacon like Cam Edwards but not so much the store bought stuff.
This past weekend I bought some bacon, made it up with eggs and also grilled cheese sandwiches. Came out pretty good. The grease also helped reseason my cast iron skillet which had gotten damp and had some rust. Honestly, I think I like bacon as an occasional treat.
Maybe eventually when I do own land and my off grid cabin, I’ll buy and raise a heritage hog like Cam Edwards does. Pigs are smelly dirty animals but who cares if you live in the country and have land. I’m sure I could put some very good bacon and the many pounds of lard to good use. Recycle my food waste into something quite profitable, keep it out of the burn barrel where it’s not going to burn very well. Composting is great but bacon is even better.