Winter's Arrival

With our Spring-like winter thus far, it was nice to wake up this morning to a light dusting of snow clinging to the landscape of the homestead.  Do not let the clear sky and bright sun rising fool you. Today, for the first time this season our temperatures are falling and it is truly cold.  It was a perfect morning for moving slowly and binge watching a little Mozart in the Jungle.

The girls have been completely non plussed by the ice turned slush on the ground this week.  They love to root around in it to the dirt below.  With frigid temperatures forecast for most of the next week B and I mucked out their indoor pen yesterday and bedded it down with a couple of bales of fresh dry straw.  I have got to say it was good to be back out in the yard doing something physical.  We are months from the growing season, but it was nice to have a big job to get the heart pumping.

There were lots of happy pig sounds when they were let back in and started to spread out and roll in their new straw.  I swear pigs are really just 400 pound dogs!  We will be inseminating Mabel in about two weeks, so once spring truly is here there will be babies on the farm!

Pampered Pigs

A co-worker of our has a black walnut tree, that drops a prolific number of nuts each fall.  This year B decided that he wanted to take them off of their hands to use as pig fodder.  Black walnuts are pretty protected and you have to work quite hard to get to them.  When they fall they are covered in an almost tennis ball size husk.

B dumped said husk covered nuts on the drive and proceeded to run over them with the tractor.  Then you have to pull the nuts out of the husks by hand.  The inner husk has a green colored dye like substance so you have to wear gloves for this part or you will be carrying remnants of your adventure around with you all week.

What we are left with are loads of black walnuts drying out.  Pigs are supposed to be quite partial to all kinds of nuts.  We have been a bit disappointed in how picky Mabel and Penelope are when it comes to kitchen scraps, so I remained skeptical.

Yesterday, B began to crack some nuts for them and they absolutely love them!  We haven't been able to get them to crack them on their own yet.

As with raising many an animal, it is a labor of love, and the gleeful pig sounds as thanks were worth it!

Freeze Tag

Fall with all of its beauty and activities also hits you with the urgency brought by the change in seasons that every living thing seems to feel.  Wild animals have an urgent need to put up their winter stores whether it be the squirrels going like crazy collecting and burying nuts or mammals like raccoons, foxes and coyotes trying to pack on a little extra insulation.   If we are going to have a predator problem it will be in the fall.   We have been fortunate in the last several years, but this fall we have had a pesky raccoon (we think) that has culled our egg laying flock by four in the last month.  The most recent a straggler who didn't head for the coop to roost last night and was inadvertently locked out.  Fall is the time of year when extra little tasks, like re-fortifying small flaws in the chickens' fenced in yard, get piled on the list of busy harvest and closing down related chores.

Today, we have the added frenzy of freeze tag.  Our first and season ending freeze will happen this evening.  I do not remember having a freeze warning this early before.  We have certainly had frost advisories this early in the past, but the term freeze warning makes gardeners do double time.  We have been pretty close to done with the garden for a little while now, grabbing a straggling tomato for a sandwich from time to time.  But today, TAG, we are it!  So off we went to harvest the remaining green tomatoes, those peppers that we let continue on for fresh, and though perennial, our abundance of delicate sage.

So, mowing or weeding be damned!  In today's little game of tag, plans are changed up a bit because once you harvest certain things, they just cannot be left to sit.  So I spend time bundling sage to hang and dry in the basement, and also put together a few smudges.  As with any game of tag, freeze tag does leave you invigorated and perhaps a little more motivated to push on.  Oh!!  And Mabel went in to heat yesterday for the first time.  So perhaps in about 18 days or so, we will see if we can't inseminate her and have our first farrowing experience this winter!

#100HappyDays :: Day 89

We had to take down the electric fence that enclosed the pig pasture last weekend to accommodate parking for the chili cook off.  Yesterday morning, we re-installed it and the girls immediately ran out to nestle down in the cool dirt under the big pines in the pasture.  

Our temperatures have been in the mid to upper 80's for the last couple of weeks and very humid.  Yesterday as B topped off the waterer, he decided to spray the girls down.  Look at the glee on Penelope's face as she is sprayed with the water!  Who would have thought that raising pigs would bring so many happy moments to days?!

#100HappyDays :: Day 84

We began yesterday morning with mischievous pigs.  As part of our morning chores before work, I went into the barn to say hi, then went around back to put some fruit in their 'slop' trough.  By the time I got back, Penelope had decided to dump their watering drum over, which broke the nozzle off and began to pour water everywhere.  Thankfully the nozzle did not actually break, B was able to get it repaired, but as the water was draining she began to roll around and frolic in the water.  I guess she had decided that she wanted a bath.  Though a frustrating situation, watching her made us smile, despite the mess.

#100HappyDays :: Day 75

When it is so hot outside there is not much to do but find a place to hold up and not move.  The pigs have rotated their time between the barn floor and the holes they have dug themselves under the giant pine trees in their pasture.  With a few sporadic downpours, they have indulged in a little mud bathing as well.   Happiness is a cool floor with an arm draped over the water cooler.

#100HappyDays :: Day 39

Both of our girls have tons of personality, but Penelope is the most dog like.  She follows us everywhere and loves to come up to us and rub next to our legs...in fact she decided to rub her side against my leg like a scratching post yesterday and she's getting so big it was everything that I could do to stay upright.

 We have a trough in the pasture that we put all of their veggie, fruit, and bread scraps into.  Though they enjoy that, they tend to quickly dump the scraps so they can play with the trough, flipping it and rolling it around the grass like a big toy.  Not so dissimilar to children choosing to play with the wrapping more than the gift.  Pigs at play, a happy spot in the day.

Adventures With Porcine

Yesterday evening B discovered that Penelope was lame.  She had cut her foot on a piece of glass.  The interesting thing about living on the farm, is that there is a tremendous amount of history buried around the place.  Much of what the girls have rooted up has been bits of metal buckles and the occasional glass that looks much like sea glass.  Yesterday Penelope found what appeared to be a very old bottleneck that was much too perfectly preserved, as it had not dulled at all.

Thankfully, we have access to what is needed to treat minor problems, yet as it is not what B does day to day, it was a learning experience and the first Ag animal procedure that I was involved with since he was in vet school.....uh when that bull with the open abdomen decided to head butt me :)

She did very well, yet we learned that the sedatives wear off very quickly on pigs, and her somewhat oafy pen mate need be no where near her.

It went relatively uneventfully, yet not something we want to do with any frequency.  Oh, and she got her bandage off even before the sedation wore completely off, so no access outside, clean straw and a few antibiotic injections will be the course of treatment.

Just another day on the homestead.

#100HappyDays :: Day 22

Mabel and Penelope are growing like crazy.  As we walked around last night we went into their pasture area.  When B calls them they come bounding out of the barn.  They can be skittish animals and if they hear a certain noise or sense a movement, even from one another they will take off running.  I can totally see how in a very short time with the momentum they reach that they could run into us and knock us over! I find that I am already bracing myself as they come toward us in case they cannot spatially gauge their stopping distance.  They are always right together, and last night enjoyed munching on grasses and feathery dandelion seeds.  You cannot help but smile while you watch them navigate the world around them.

#100HappyDays :: Day 10

Our pigs are set up pretty nice.  A large section of the granary is theirs.  They have a bedded sleeping area and separate feed and water area inside, then outside they have a fenced area for rooting.  As they have rooted around we have found this area is pretty sandy, what a bonus!  Yesterday Morning, B got the fencing up in the front pasture so that the pigs could roam and graze.

When they first got out they were cautious, but it only took about two minutes for Penelope to run, buck and frolic like a big dog.  As we sit and watch them, they come up to us freely now for scratches.  We found out that a special favorite of theirs was dandelion flowers.  Happy today for free range pasture pigs.