An Unintended Break

We are deviating from "regular programming" to bring you a special message:

Yeah, my life was a little upside down last week - I was absent the last week for good reason. It was Operation Christmas Child time and as a Year-Round Volunteer I was very busy being all things OCC...kind of like OCD, but different...but the same...

A little history -

Our church became involved with Operation Christmas Child almost at the very beginning of the project. Operation Christmas Child is a Samaritan's Purse Project and exists to spread the Gospel through a simple shoebox gift. This year was the 25th anniversary of the project and in that time over 150 million shoeboxes have been delivered to boys and girls in 160 countries world wide. In each box the child will find school supplies, hygiene items as well as toys and sometimes clothing items.

We have learned that children in other countries are not allowed to attend school unless they have school supplies...so those pens, pencils and sheets of paper are a precious gift to a child who wants to learn.

Vancouver Church brought in 798 shoeboxes! 

What was my function? My official capacity with Operation Christmas Child is Community Relations. So - when I can I should try to make contact with community groups, businesses, clubs etc to help the program grow. More boxes = more kids reached with the gospel. I do have a full-time job, so it is hard for me to get out and make those contacts. However, now that I have been a volunteer for a year, I think I am starting to get how I can reach more groups/people to join the project!

National Collection Week started on November 12th and continued each evening through November 17th. There were two long day which were November 18th (all afternoon)  and all day on November 19th.

So, with all of the busyness of the week and needing rest - because sleep was elusive - I did very few projects on the farm. The big thing that I did was to get the pigs new paddock set up and get them from the other side of the driveway and across the lawn to where the chickens once spent a lot of quality time - like all summer. Fiona girl was good and followed me all the way into the pen. Mr. Rexy-Pants was distracted by all of the lucious grass available in between the old garage and our previous parking structure. I figuired out a long time ago that you cannot get a pig to do what you want. So after I tried to get Rexy's attention - I decided instead of getting aggravated I should just go over and incentify him by slapping his rear end a couple of times. That seemed to work and he made his way into the paddock with Fiona. Stinker. They are so happy with the grass! That makes me happy too.

This area is just the first move of many that will come in the months to come. There is a lot of grass on this side of the property that was previously occupied by the chickens. It's been about a month since the chickens have been moved and the grass actually looked pretty good in the spots furthest away from the old parking stucture. Once the pigs eat down the grass here we'll set up the second fence and get them moved on to another part of the field.

The garden is still a hot mess, but then I knew that it would be. I'm running out of time here and I'm pretty sure that the flowers will remain for a while since the rain will be returning soonly. I may have to get out and just dig up everything else even if it's mucky out there.

So I'll be working today and tomorrow and then I'm off for 4 days!! I do love me some time off from work!

While I rest up from all the activity over the past week...I will reflect on the goodness of the work that has been completed and give thanks because of it.

Farm Life...is the BEST LIFE :)

Slowing down...

Now that fall is here and Daylight Saving Time has ended we are doing the bare minimum during the week and doing projects around the farm - weather permitting. 

Last weekend I was feeling extremely tired and actually napped. I did a couple of things outside, but then decided that rest was more important. Mostly because starting this weekend I'll be a little busy doing Operation Christmas Child activities. Go HERE to check out this Samaritan's Purse project if you are not familiar with it. 

Anyway...

I was able to get some veggies in a couple of planting spots. The garden has been mostly pulled up..still need to pull up the flowers. The sorghum that popped up is HUGE and I can't get the plants up now that they are spent. Also have a couple of cabbage left, the kale and a few onions. Hoping to get things cleaned up a bit while I am off work next week. Then the tarps need to come out and the sand bags. However, I could let the chickens do the final clean up before the tarp goes down. We'll see.

Another project I hope to accomplish is to move Rexy & Fiona to the other side of the former parking structure. I am hoping to make that old structure into their new home. Once they breed (and we are hopeful) it would be nice to give Fiona a space for her and her piglets.

Question of the day:  Have they mated? 

Well, just a couple of days ago Tom did witness Mr. Rexy putting some moves on Miss Fiona and she wasn't pushing him away...

We'll see - maybe it will happen before the year is over. Missy is now 8 months old and it's time for her to get to work...hahaha. I was told a couple of months ago to watch for signs of mating. Since I'm not home all of the time I wouldn't know. However, it was encouraging to me to know that Tom had witnessed something. Since I like to research stuff...the American Guinea Hog Association says:

"Males can breed as early as approximately 6 to 8 months of age. Gilts (young females) can come into their first heat (estrus cycle) as early as 8 months of age. When exposed to a male, females can farrow (give birth) near or shortly after their first birthday."

Since we have absolutely NO idea what to look for I'm a little anxious to know if they will actually breed or if they will just be lazy and just want food. Given that Mr. Rexy-Pants has shown interest in Fiona I'm not worried about his intentions. However, Fiona might just play hard to get...

While we are on the subject of pigs. I got a text from Farmer Jason about harvesting one of their pigs and one or both of us hanging out and learning how it is done. By one I mean Tom...although, I would like to go and check out the process as well - because for some reason I'm not freaked out by harvesting animals, feathered or furry. This is a great opportunity as option #2 would allow us to bring home a portion of the pork at a very reasonable price. I see pork in my future...

So, while we continue to slow the pace a bit, we'll be enjoying the weather a bit. This is the time of year that we would normally get quite a bit of rain and we did a couple of weeks ago, but it was mostly the weekend and during the night. This week is looking good though...wish I could get home before sunset to help with the chores though. I'm missing my crazy little quackers! 

Sigh....Farm Life...