We had our first frost a couple weeks ago. The night before the frost, I grabbed my kids, armed them with plastic bags and we picked as many tomatoes and peppers that we could find by the light of the moon. Sure enough, we missed a lot. I honestly hate to see all of the goodness go to waste but due to my busy schedule it was inevitable this year.
In order to complete this story, you must know a little history. I for some reason have become the go-to person to find needed items and homes for animals. This year alone, I have found good homes for several wonderful dogs, a couple cats and 3 pigs. Yes pigs. I have to give props to my circle of friends who always seem to come through with finding homes.
Towards the end of September, My friends at
Quakerdale were having a festival that involved three donated piglets. They hinted to me before the festival began that the piglets either needed to find a home or the old farmer was going to make them ground compost. Find a home I did and the three little pigs were swiftly moved to an acreage and where they are now happily living with chickens, rabbits and a horse. Apparently these pigs LOVE what we would consider inedible, nasty, frost bitten, mushy, stinky produce, especially tomatoes. The pig owner knew the frost had arrived and hit me up for some of what the frost decided to leave me. The first bag that I gave him was full of those nasty tomatoes, frost bitten green beans, swiss chard, egg plant, and mushy peppers. The pig ate every last bite and of course wanted more.
This was kind of a blessing in disguise, I no longer had to feel bad that my busy schedule took me away from preserving what remained in the garden. The three little pigs have been enjoying their goodies for a couple days and with our large load that we will be delivering over the weekend, after we clean out the garden, they will have quite a few enjoyable meals ahead of them. In return we will be getting windows for cold frames, composted manure for the garden and when the time comes, farm fresh bacon.
I guess that the saying is true, when one door closes another opens. Everything works out in the end and this truly is working out much better than I truly anticipated. I love being able to add to my circle of people who are willing to trade goods for other goods just to help each other out. It's good to have people like that.
