January 5, 2022

My goodness - I've tried to get a post done since Monday. Granted yesterday I spent most of the morning out running errands and then doing chores once I was home and after I ate my lunch.

ANYWAY...

So I think today is Wednesday. Being retired does that to a person. Every day is the same, but at the same time each day is different. 

As of the week of Thanksgiving my new "title" is Farm Manager. Not just a retired office worker from a local fire district. Farmer Tom is now Engineer Tom. Due to circumstances beyond our control he has gone back to work full-time and I'm doing my thing here at home. I did get a bit of a break since Tom was home all last week and I reverted back to my lazy days, doing whatever I like whenever I felt like it. I don't think that I cooked any meals all last week...good for me I guess.

This week has gone well though, I'm back into the swing of things with the animal feeding routine. That has gone REALLY well! Except when Mr. Rex decided to push the back of my leg and also ran his tusk on me. Good thing I was wearing my overalls! It still was a surprise and I scolded him for being a pig - hehe.

The one big thing that I've wanted to do is reconfigure the Premier1 fence along the west side of our house. Most of it is hog netting that we used to keep the swine on the house side of the fence and not in the field. It worked for a long time until Aunt Ethel had her litter of wild piggies. Over the past couple of months they have gone under the fencing just beyond the goose enclosure to graze in the field. I don't blame them, there is more yummy grass out there. However, now that Greta is gone (predator) I decided that Gus didn't need to be penned up all the time. So now he free ranges far way from his house, but he doesn't really move too far from behind the garage on the other side of the driveway. 

I digress...

This week I took down the damaged poultry netting around the goose area that Greta had destroyed and set it aside. Then I took the hog netting that we used to extend the goose area and continued it on toward the big shed. It was about 20 feet short, so I ended up using another fence that the piggies were just going underneath. After that was in place I decided that the other fence charger be put on that series of netting going all the way down to the path in front of our house. Yesterday I got everything all connected and plugged the fence energizer into the outlet in the pig barn and BAM we got a hot fence! Well, it wasn't turned on yet, but I remembered before I went in for the night. 

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to see the 5 littles grazing in the yard and not roaming the field. Someone may have gotten a zap on there nose...hmmmm.

That's a W for me!

We'll see, I can't celebrate too much, ANYTHING can happen! Piggies are tricky, but I'm on to them and I'm going to try to keep up with them. 

This first week of 2022 is starting out well :)

The littles, Big Daddy, Big Momma and Little Momma

Once Upon a Dream

As usual, the dreamer in me has come up with a new dream...

I'm not sure how true the dreaming part is, but I can see it. Tom says that I am the one that comes up with the ideas for our farm. The hoop house, the chickens and assorted poultry...the pigs. Although, I believe that Tom was the one that was more interested in getting the turkeys and geese. I love the turkeys, the geese and I have an understanding. They are not my favorite and I am definitely NOT their favorite. They respect me though - it helps when I am carrying something to remind them that they are not in charge. 

I digress...

About a week ago I was thinking about how I "need" to grow more tomatoes. Did you know that on bushel of tomatoes (or about 53 pounds) will make 15-18 quarts of  tomato juice? Also, it will take a little less to make thick tomato sauce. I haven't been able to grow that many tomatoes in the last 4 or 5 years.  Anyway, I was thinking about how and where that would happen.

We only utilize about half of our property for our house and out buildings and critters and the garden. There are large portions that are not usable, even though it appears so. We have discovered that a couple of inches below the surface lies all sorts of asphalt toward the back of our property. These areas are where the old barn and the equipment shed are located and the weeds and grass have taken over quite nicely. 

So, we can use just about any area that is located at the front of the property - probably about half of it. We can only assume that the old farmer did not require asphalt in these areas.

This photo was taken by our neighbor across the street who has a drone and was messing around with it and took some photos for us. Our piece of the old farm consists of 2.71 acres and is the only portion that is mostly square and not long and narrow. We are guessing that the top third of the property had asphalt all around the old shed and where the barn used to sit (upper right).

My current garden space is opposite the house on the other side of the driveway. I've been very happy with this location, but now that I have discovered food preservation by way of canning (pressure and water bath) I am VERY interested in growing LOTS of vegetables. Making sauerkraut via fermentation has been one of my new favorites. The big garden has been a great space for the past few years, but now I need more space!

Back to where I want to create more space...

This space has four 4x4 garden boxes that we built waaay back in 2008(!). Those boxes are so old, but holding up well. The other garden boxes are from when my friend Mary was gardening here at our home. After a couple of seasons she decided that life was getting too busy to maintain a garden at our house and gifted the boxes to us. Really though, would she have taken them to her house anyway?

In the past three years we used the boxes for a variety of different things and they worked well. They are big though and it's hard for me to weed the 4x8 boxes without getting into them while filled with my plants. Also, they are not holding up well and the wood has completely rotted out. So out they went. Not all of them though, I still have something in one of the big boxes and rhubarb in one of the narrow ones.

This is just the beginning. We have a lot of work to do, but a little bit here and a little bit there will get the job done. We started by taking out a couple of big boxes and on of the narrow ones. The last big one has my sweet potato experiment in it right now, so that one won't be going anywhere anytime soon. 

There is enough pig poo to help the soil, but we'll need to get some sand to help fluff up the soil. We do have quite a bit of wood chips so that would also help the garden space out. We'll see how things go over the next few months.

Another reason why I have been thinking about a new space - the critters. The pigs and the chickens get into the garden boxes regularly and it's hard to keep them out. The pigs will do anything to get into a space that is alluring to them which means they have been going underneath the chicken netting that I have around my new space. That wasn't to keep them out, but to visualize how much space I would have to work with. How will we keep the critters out? Well, there is a welded wire fence that encloses the big garden, so we'll do the same with my new space. The pigs can't get underneath that fence and the chickens don't jump onto the top of the welded wire fence because there is nothing for them to perch on. 

So yeah, I am the dreamer and mostly and a problem solver - to a certain degree. Now that I don't have work issues to think about I can think about the "issues" here on the farm.

Farm Life!

It's Been a Minute

We Had a Pig Rodeo...

It's crazy to think that my last post was when the momma's farrowed at the end of May/beginning of June. Here we are nearing the end of August and we have reduced our piglet herd by six. We could still sell a couple of the babies if someone were to ask, but we might just keep them for meat. 

Last week it occurred to me that I should maybe check my ad on Craigslist. I had received ANY queries on the pigs when I usually do. Well, the first week I usually don't. When we decide to pray about the piggies selling then we start getting responses - funny how that works out. We also decided to post a flyer at the feed warehouse again. There wasn't any interest when we did that in the spring, but this time Tom got a call from a woman who wanted to purchase a boar for her one year old gilt. I also had received a message from a family that wanted to purchase 4! 

Tom's customer, Linda, had gotten his number at the feed warehouse and he was texting and talking with her about what her preference would be. The other party, from Washougal, was my task and I ended up exchanging texts with Andy for a little bit before they decided that they wanted to come and meet the piggies and at least start with two baby swine. 

They both came Saturday afternoon - oh boy... the pig viewing window went from 1pm to 3pm. They both arrived within a half hour or so of one another. I was pretty happy that the 1 pig couple came sooner than later since we could get Brutus out of the mix fairly quickly and then continue on with the family. 

Since Tom had talked to Linda about registering the hog later we had to at least get him tagged so that could happen if she decided she wanted to register him. He was easy to grab and get into the cage, but then I realized that he still needed an ear tag, poor dude. It's bad enough that he was tricked into coming close to be grabbed. Then he was alone in the cage, but now he needs to get a piercing. Not cool people...not cool. The hardest part about that is getting said swine to sit still just a little before proceeding to pierce its ear. Fortunately, the pain is minimal (as far as we know) and a little bread to distract them afterwards is always good. Later in the day I got a message from the buyer and he was settling in nicely with his new older female friend. He is an over-achiever ;) 

Once that was done and that couple left, we could focus on getting the four caught and into crates. Since the family was out and about picking up their craigslist finds they had a very long trailer that had a few large diamter PVC pipes on in. So they could not pull into the driveway. He was able to park on the path in front of our house though, so not all bad. 

After a bit of discussion about AGH in general and them seeing our hogs they decided to go with getting four baby swine after all. Two boys and two girls. They hope to breed for future meat and to maybe harvest one or two of these for meat for their fam. 

Oh, so I mentioned that we reduced the herd by six, if anyone was keeping count...we had a random sale a couple of weeks ago. A woman who was at a week long church reunion next door to our farm came to tell us that a couple of our pigs were outside of the fence area...Blah Blah Blah. We were ready for church and on our way out the door when she dropped by. After a minute we saw Ethel (she's the bad one) and a couple of the babies running back then we were on our way. EXCEPT as the woman was walking down the driveway she did ask if the pigs were for selling or eating. To which I replied both. This then started a longer conversation that I am not going to post about here...it's far too long and it's an old story now. Let's just say that after more conversation later in the day and my satisfaction that the one pig that she wanted would not be just a pet, we sold her a gilt. I am not sure what kind of farm she went off to, but my hope is that she (the woman) is living the self-sustainable life that she claims and that our little pig will be a part of their homesteading journey for a while to come.

ANYWAY...

All in all, Saturday was a good day - a little hectic with the sales to two separate parties, but good. I'm very please with these buyers though, they wanted breeders and they got them! Rexy & Fiona have done a good job together in their three years. Bridgette was bred twice by her littermate, Victor, so we are fairly certain that she will continue to do well.

The vibe is definitely different now. We only have gilts left - maybe they miss their brothers...hard to say. They might have been traumatized by the activities of Saturday afternoon. 

Four of the girls on Sunday morning

Hopefully they will move on from their funk and back into their piggy shenanigans before too long. Their purpose will be a year long project as we are venturing into selling meat on the hoof. That's a different chapter in this farm story though, so check back for that.

Farm life is the best life, even when sending pigs to new homes. 

JUNE!

The May homestead challenge turned toward things that I wouldn't be interested in blogging about so I just abandoned the whole thing. There were a couple of days that I thought I might write something, but decided not to.

So, the remainder of May was busy, but at the same time not very. I got started with getting the garden planted which was halted after several days of 90+ degree days. Not my kind of weather. I can tolerate the mid-80s, but anything more and I'm no longer interested in spending time outdoors. 

Then at the end of the month our young sow, Bridgette (aka Little Momma) had a litter of 5 piglets. I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting her to have another litter. However, looking back I should have known. She hadn't had a heat cycle in several months. Duuuuh. All of her babies are doing quite well and this is her second litter of 5 and she hasn't lost any, this litter or the last one. They are quite skittish and even after a couple of days of sitting with them they are not interested in letting us even pick them up without sounding the alarm to momma.

Two days later Fiona (aka Big Momma) farrowed 9 piglets - her biggest litter so far. The difference with this litter is that she stayed outside and away from the other pigs for a few days. So Tom didn't do anything to move her. A good decision since she probably wouldn't move anyway. When Tom discovered that she had her piglets underneath the pear tree he found that there were 8, but later found that one had been squished. Friday morning, even though the remaining 8 made it through the night, one more had been stepped on and died.

We have been spending a lot of time with Fiona and babies - due to her size we try to keep a watch (as much as possible) on her litters so to keep the losses to a minimum. In a few more days once the piglets are a little bigger we won't have to keep an eye on them as much. The first week is pretty critical. At least where Fiona is concerned. She doesn't move fast and we aren't sure that she knows that she has landed on one of her babies once she goes down. Even so, she wouldn't be able to get up quick enough to set the baby free.

The other thing that we have with her litter are two very runty piglets. One of them, a female, didn't seem to be putting any weight on as she should within the first 24 hours and continued to look listless and weak. On Thursday I had the sense that maybe we should get the powdered colostrum out and start bottle feeding her. The itty-bitty piggy took to the bottle and kept coming back for more. A barista friend of ours from Starbucks had come for a visit to meet the babies and helped with getting the colostrum to the runty baby. Alicia was so taken by her that we decided to name her Alice. Alice might be a keeper, maybe. 

Even after all of our visitors had gone for the day little Alice continued to come to suckle on the bottle. Quite a bit actually. By the evening she had so much in her that she actually started to pee after she ate - a good sign!

Alice

We were able to go to bed without worrying so much about her. As of Friday she had zero interest in the colostrum and actually looked like she filled out a little bit, overnight! Kinda crazy that they can change so much in 24 hours.  I spent a lot of Friday and some of Saturday observing her. Alice was feeding right along side her siblings and seemed to be much more feisty. A VERY good sign. She was so feisty that when one of her littermates started to play with her she would start playing too! Oh, my heart...

We LOVE her!!

With each litter that is born here on our farm we learn more and more. Even just the day before Fiona actually farrowed I noticed some different behavior in her. She had been spending a lot of time over by the pear trees and in the back yard in general. The day before she had her piglets was a very warm, so I spent a lot of the day under the tree with her and reading and playing Pokemon GO. During that time I witnessed Fiona chasing off one of the junior swine. She was not happy with Edith hanging around, not even a little! That was a very out of character thing to see in her. Later in the evening I spent more time in the yard and watching her - it appeared that she was breathing very heavily. In retrospect I should have investigated before heading in for the night. She probably was laboring while I was sitting there watching her because the next morning were piglets.

Because she had decided to farrow al fresco we "had" to create a safe space for Fiona and her babies. Tom slapped together a pallet house next to the pig house, mainly for Rex. However, it wasn't used much so Tom relocated most of the pallets and built a wall around Fiona's area.

This is phase 1 of Fiona's special accommodations

It isn't totally predator proof, but at least there is a little bit of a barrier to ward off something becoming interested in Fiona and kids. Also, this offers a little bit of a wind block. Not as much as I would like, but enough that the babies have a safe space to goof around. There were showers in the weather forecast for Saturday and just to be safe we decided to put up the old canopy that was hardly used over this space...

Welcome to Pigopolis 2.0

I thought we would really look more "hillbilly" like, but it's not too bad, I suppose a tarp would have really topped off the look ;) This mostly keeps the area dry, although I think because she is under a tree that is all leafed out, she would have been just fine. So the canopy is mostly for our own peace of mind. 

The last thing that was added was a heat lamp. Fiona farrowed on the evening of the hottest day last week and the temps have just been going down from there. The piglets don't have any fat on their little bodies to keep them warm so the heat lamp seemed to be a necessary item. Well, we thought so anyway. The babies had no interest in the tank or the lamp all day yesterday so we just unplugged the lamp until evening and we were heading in for the night. This morning, all seven were in the livestock tank (creep) enjoying the heat of the red bulb. Perhaps they will embrace the creep for it's intended purpose instead of using it as their bathroom facility as one of them did yesterday. The biggest one went into the creep after feeding and proceeded to pee. Fortunately they are small and are not producing a ton of pee or poo. We'll see how they progress with their pooing and peeing as they grow older.

We have decided to keep the sows separated from Rex so they can have a break. They both had a two litters in the last 6 months. Poor Fiona never had a chance to get her bikini-body back. Once these litters have been weaned we'll work on making sure that Fiona gets her physical condition back in check. Once she is back to a more reasonable size/weight we'll go ahead and let her breed again, but not before and certainly not two litters so close together. I love the piglets and all, but they take a lot of our attention when we have so many other things that need to be done here on the farm.

No matter what I wouldn't trade this life for anything else - we have a blessed life here at Windswept Farm!