Hog Heaven

The tricky business of disposing of around a ton of pressed apple pulp has been made considerably easier this year with the help of the nice people at Keythorpe Rare Breeds.

Smallholding dynamo's Serena & Adam are the driving force behind Keythorpe Rare Breeds, producers of high quality pork and lamb at a smallholding on the Leicestershire/Rutland border. Amongst the menagerie of (mostly!) domesticated animals living happily at Keythorpe are a sizeable stock of rare breed porkers, and as we know, pigs absolutely love apples. So once we've extracted the important bit from the apples, the dry(ish) pulp, or pomace as it's known in ciderland, goes over to Keythorpe to supplement the diet of these pampered porkers.

I was a little worried at first that the pigs wouldn't be able to keep up with the quantity of pomace we've been producing, but it turns out I was way off the mark. Demand is outstripping supply, and the arrival of each fresh batch of pomace causes quite a stir on the smallholding. Here's a message I received from Serena today...

'...One of my fatteners OD’d on the other lot of apples the other day, and spent most of yesterday sleeping and looking very sorry for itself, needless to say Adam and I went out of our way to make as much noise as possible, and to constantly wake it up. Serves it right for spending most of Saturday with its head in the apple bag.'

Appley over-indulgence... Sleeping all day and looking sorry for itself... Serious lack of sympathy from loved ones... Hmm! Sounds rather too familiar to me...