About three thousand pounds of pork is busily rooting through the rocky soil of our island, if you figure on 20 pigs dressing out at about 150 pounds each, plus or minus. Two of those pigs are in our backyard, turning up the patch of ground where we plan to set out raspberries next year. Twelve other households are raising pigs this summer, too, and pork is the major edible meat produced on-island.
About a year ago my husband, Jamie, conducted a poultry census because we were curious about how many eggs were laid on Islesboro, on purpose, by chickens. Within a couple weeks that count was outdated by the addition of 100 chicks who are now hens faithfully cranking out eggs, practically as we speak. It occurred to us that since several other households were raising pigs, and that there were more horses than ever living out here it might be interesting to see how much domestic livestock resided on Islesboro. So Jamie counted snouts and noses. Here is what we learned.
In addition to pigs, there are ten sheep. Five are regularly shorn. There are seven goats, of which five are cashmere, also raised for wool. None are milked, and even though mutton and chevon are perfectly good meats, Islesboro sheep and goats are not being raised for food. There are 25 rabbits destined for the freezer and cook pot, and seven more who will hop out their pampered lives as pets.
There are ten year-round horses and an additional nine summer horses brought here for a seasonal riding program. We don’t think of horses as food, though of course, strictly speaking, they, too, are edible.
This summer, there are no cattle, though a calf apparently wintered here, and in past years there have been a steer or three fattening up in shed and yard. In fact, a couple of years ago I was privileged to visit a family here who raised a sheep or two and a goat, had two beef critters, several pigs, and flocks of turkeys and chickens. They were pretty much self-sufficient in meat. And they had a large, well-fertilized garden, as well, altogether a very admirable operation.
Compared to a century ago, this is a paltry number of animals. The island used to have dairy farms and milk was delivered by horse-drawn wagon. Other households had milk cows, and most had horses for transportation or work. There were draft horses and teams of oxen, useful on farms, in woods and in shipyards; and beef animals and many, many pigs. From time to time people kept large flocks of sheep.
The summer colony created a need in the early 20th century for a livery service, and many more horses with men to drive them. One livery business provided living accommodations for their drivers upstairs over the stables. (The more things change, the more they remain the same: today the island riding program provides its barn manager with an upstairs apartment.)
Even within the past 60 to 70 years, our island produced a great deal of its own milk, butter and meat. Our present great lack is local milk. In 1954, Grant’s Dairy made its last door-to-door delivery on the island but that was off-island milk. Our neighbor, Midge Welldon, recalls Fanny Trim’s Jersey cow, whose cream was so rich that Midge’s mother could whip it even after she cut it half and half with milk. Ruth Hartley remembers her family shared a cow with her uncle’s family; one family used the morning milking and the other family got the evening’s milk. She remembers her father coming in with the pail full, and her mom pouring it into agate milk pans so the cream, from which she made butter, would rise.
As a child Ruth loved visiting the animals. Because her father was a caretaker and they lived on an estate, they couldn’t keep the animals, but her Uncle Ralph could. She remembers the pigs whose hams and bacons later hung in a cold room at her family’s home, dining at Ralph’s on elegant slops from the summer cottage’s kitchen that her dad took down to them. She recalls the cow hitched to an iron stake driven into the ground, grazing in a circle, and then moved to a new spot. Quieter than a lawnmower, I think.
Even then, some animals went off-island for butchering, as will most of the island’s current pigs, though men who cut up many a deer had the skill to cut up a steer or pig. A butcher shop was attached to the market down island, and sides of meat were brought up from Boston in the summer, along with S. S. Pierce groceries for the summer trade. Ruth recalls the meatloaf her mom made from some of that ground beef.
A couple years ago, a pair of enterprising islanders decided to acquire a sow so now we have island-born pigs. Now we need an island butcher, and a smokehouse wouldn’t be bad. We also need someone who can cut and bale hay, and I long for a cow so I can make my own yogurt, cheese, and butter. I’d even be happy to have goat’s milk for cheese. With all these horses, there is a growing supply of the substance in need of composting, but one has to be assertive to get a share.
We do our own butchering with the help of a mainland professional who comes over for the morning to stick and scald the pigs with Jamie’s and my nephew’s help. Then a few days of cutting up and wrapping for freezing and salting and brining and sausage and scrapple making ensues. We love our own meat, and apparently so do some of our neighbors.
Sandy Oliver cooks and writes on Islesboro.