A Page County Grown Trifecta, Part 2

On my second stop last week, I went over to Public House Produce in Luray.  David had earlier told me that the final portion of the pork was ready - this was some side meat that I had requested to be salt-cured, because my mother asked me for some fatback.  David had also offered to show me what was going on around the farm, so I made the stop on the way back from dropping Tessie off for grooming.

First things first.  The family was out taking care of business when I stopped by, so I had to take a rain check on the spring update.  Mary and I went back over on Saturday with another friend who was visiting.

The fatback.  Well, I forgot how big the cuts of side meat I put aside for this were.  I am guessing that there is easily five or six pounds of the stuff.  David's dad had salt-cured both of the hams he took from his pig back when we did the butchering, and they cured this fatback along with the hams.

In any case, that's going to make a lot of "church social" green beans.  I left the meat in the cooler, with the intention of going back and getting it as soon as I can borrow Chris's vacuum packer again.  I'll cut the big slabs down to smaller size and we'll get her done, just got to figure out how to get the stuff down to mom.

Now, this spring has featured some unpredictable weather.  After early season heat and a fear of a dry season, it turned cold and there have been some late frosts, and then we've also had copious rain in the form of storms.

For that reason, they've set up hoops and covered many of the crops that could be damaged by the cold.  I think this is lettuce under the cover here in this photo, but Public House Produce also has some tomatoes and the earliest sweet corn under cover as well.

Finally, the girls were out of the barn and came over to see me while I walked around.  Here's Delilah and Butterscotch - keeping a respectable distance from the electric fence.  They're good girls.  It seems like Delilah's ear is always flying away in this carefree pose whenever I see them.