the 'pulled pork' portion of this published public porcine practical post..

the day dawned cold and clear. but not too cold, no gloves needed for the work ahead, but cold enough to see your breath, you know the type of morning. anyway, variable skies, 40's, no wind. good stuff. today was the day of days for our porkers, and we were ready as we could hope to be. all the books, read, videos, watched, lessons absorbed(hopefully).. ready to see one of our livestock dreams through to it's inevitable conclusion: the harvesting of the investment that we'd poured so many mental and physical hours into, not to mention the capital needed to securely house and feed three pigs, that were now, by my estimates, over 400lbs each! 

pre-work jitters.

read on to hear and see how the weekend went, but be aware, there are some graphic photos in the post.. 

on pulling pork and pulled pork..

with our recent move from our place in thorndike to our new place in jefferson, our pigs needed a new home as well. there wouldn't be space for them at our new digs, and so thankfully, our friends ashlee and josiah offered to foster them their remaining time on this earth, which at the time of the move, would be just over a month, into mid to late november. their new home secured, all that was left was to move them, right? just load them into a trailer, take 'em for a drive, open the door, bang, their moved, right? easy.. right?

not so easy, turns out, to convince three stubborn, solid, strong animals to go into a dark trailer to points unknown. i'm not going to go into the details of the comedy of errors that was 'pig moving day', except that my brother wound up riding a pig backwards for 50 feet or so, one pig dragged three grown men, myself included, through the toilet-area of their pen in a half-baked attempt to wrestle the beast into submission, and sometimes escaped pigs just wanna' have mud.

pinky, spotty, and jessica reassessing the situation.

all's well that ends well, i s'pose, and sometimes you just gotta sit back and take stock of the lessons learned that day. so many lessons. no one, human or porcine, was injured in the process, and later that evening, jessica and i were even able to laugh about it. much later. after the pen was built. and the electric line checked and adjusted. and the trailer was hosed out. and the truck was cleaned out. and the trailer, returned. and the truck, returned. and we headed for home. then we could laugh about it.

big 'thank you's to stephen, ashlee, josiah, jason, kara, jessica, pinky, runt, spotty, percy..

next adventure: harvest weekend.

some other stuff.

here are some random photos:

atlas moth.

longhorn beetle.

another photo of those chickens we raised. just liked this one.

jessica on seargent mountain, acadia NP.

sunsets form our deck.

#nofilter

take care!

alex, frank, and pinky.

we're raising pigs now. something we've always wanted to do, and now were doing it. feels pretty good. i'll spare the details, and get to what all of my 6 or so followers want, piglet photos.

 

dug, sarah, and the elusive reverse waterfall..

a bit ago, our friends dug and sarah came up to maine to visit. they stay just outside of portland, a once or twice a year vacation for them, at a property her family owns. jessica and i were able to take a  rare day off together and meet the two of them in owl's head for a day of cycling, hamburgers and sightseeing!

one Owl's Head Light. two dugs.

we spent the day riding around owl's head, an spit of land just south of rockland on the midcoast, known for it's lovely beaches, lighthouse, and the owl's head general store, which serves the voted 'best hamburgers in maine'. i've only had a few burgers in maine thus far, but i'd have to agree on the quality of this one. we all ordered the '7 napkin burger', though they offered a few special burger options that day, including a breakfast burger(with fried egg and bacon) and a pb&j burger(?). 

one of the several beaches visited that day.

i was told about a few local sights to see while down there by man-about-town mike hartley, and to make a long series of misunderstandings short, i thought he said 'gig store and reverse waterfall', but we found the 'keag store and a submersi-bal' maybe? maybe not..

all yellow an' everything!

i found out later that 'keag' is the shortened version of weskeag, the name of a river that empties into the bay here, and 'keag' is pronounced 'gig', and there is indeed a reversible tidal waterfall mere yards from where we were standing, but it's only rippin' at highest and lowest tide. which we missed by a mile. moving on..

still a lovely day, and we finished it off with a walk out the rockland breakwater, and pizza and ice cream at the thorndike creamery! what more could you want!

snow, schmow.

it's summer now! time for livestock operations, cycling, enjoying the outdoors, and plants on the deck!

purple shamrock, another philly transplant.

our first outdoor dinner.

stay tuned!

winter wonderland!

jessica and i moved to maine for many reasons, not the least of which was the promise of reliable snowfall, and all of the winter-time activities that require it. snow-shoeing, downhill and xc skiing, winter hiking, fatbiking, endurance shoveling, and the age-old pastime of betting on when the plow will come to the rescue.. and boy howdy, did we land up here in time to experience a winter to remember! bangor, me, our nearest metropolitan neighbor, had it's second snowiest season on record with 132.7 inches, thus far.

i write this, now officially spring, looking out my window at shoulder high snow on the lawns of our property. not where the plow shoved it, mind you, just as it fell. it's getting hard to tell where the snow berms end and the dirt begins on the shoulders. by most local's accounts, the soon-to-be mud season should all but dry out just in time to get ready for next winter's first snows..

while it's here, might as well enjoy it, right? i intended to. i got out as much as i was able, but not as much as i'd like to have, and not in as many ways as i'd hoped. a few aborted hiking trips in the whites and a stalled ski project, as well as all the times that i was just lazy..  now that the temps are rising, the snow receding, and folks are talking about, and prepping for, spring events and activities, i feel a sense of loss at the missed opportunities, though in a lot of ways, this winter was a crash-course in maine winters for the both of us, and we'll be better prepared for the next. in tribute to personal winter exploration and new experiences, i will continue this post with two of my most memorable local activities: the (unexpectedly) longest xc ski trek i've ever done and my first fatbike ride.

the frye mountain ridge.

more adventure here!

Visit the other blog i'm working on with staff from Maine Sport Outfitters, my place of employment, called Maine Sport Adventures! this blog will be a chronicle of outdoor exploits undertaken by the staff at the store, hoping to showcase our piles and piles of collected experience and interests. it's pretty new yet, but you should check it out here!

yeah!

-josh

xc skiing weekend!

Well, my weekend, anyway. tuesday and thursday of this past week played out as fantastic days for xc skiing, and i intended to take advantage of that as much as possible! tuesday, Jessica and i went to a xc ski area/4H campground called Tanglewood in the lincolnville area for a 4 mile loop through the woods. a little iced over from the winds that we had the previous sunday, but still a lovely day.

Wednesday, i spent the morning breaking trail and exploring the snowmobile network around thorndike, dodging sleds when necessary, and then joined my brother, Jason for more exploration in the farmland around Moody Mountain. through orchards, down a frozen stream bed, and over a saddle between the peaks, finally ending up skiing down the icy shoulder of a dirt access road back to the main road. 

looking north, towards the Moody Mountain ridge..

.. and south towards Camden Hills, Bald and Ragged mtns.

Thursday, jessica and i had plans to head to Mt Desert Isle to ski the carriage roads in Acadia, but were thwarted by high winds and snow. i was pretty pooped from the day before, so i was fine with taking it easy as our weekend came to a close..

-josh

missouri tribute

here is a recent painting i'd done as a late christmas present for my aunt. eastern bluebird and hawthorn, missouri state bird and flower, respectively.

-josh