What Are The Odds?

So I run into a friend of mine at the local grocery store. We met Deb through the Culpeper Farmers Market over a year ago. She and her family had just moved to a farm in a neighboring county and wanted to know more about how we raised chickens. Deb and her daughter, Olivia, were invited to attend our processing day. Deb, hoping that one day she could also raise chickens, wanted to see how it was done. She dove right in and did a fantastic job. Olivia was 11 at the time(I think) and fell in love with the pigs. She was fortunate during a visit to be a witness to #5 farrowing. How could you not fall in love with a newborn piglet? Olivia is such a sweet young lady who totally gets the farm thing.

Luckily, last August I had a Tamworth female piglet available and Olivia was ready to purchase a pig of her own. She paid me with her own money and loaded "Lucy" onto the back of Deb's truck. A very excited young girl! Olivia adores her Lucy and spends alot of time with her.

Anyway...

Deb was telling me(yesterday) how sweet Lucy is, how big she is getting and how they really want a friend for her. Maybe a boar piglet so they can experience having their own litters. I have some litters coming up in the spring, although none that would be suitable for litters with Lucy. But I definitely agreed...Lucy is getting to be at the age where she needs a friend.

So Deb and I said our good-byes and finished our grocery shopping. Shortly after I get home my phone rings. It's Deb. "You'll never believe what happened!" She gets home and Olivia is running up to the house, "There's a piglet in the pen with Lucy! This piglet came right up and I didn't know what to do, so I let it in with Lucy!" I can only imagine Deb's reaction to all of this. A stray puppy or kitty, sure...but a piglet?

Deb goes to investigate and sure enough there is a piglet in with Lucy. He is black and white, like a Berkshire, but his conformation is that of a potbellied pig. His ear is tagged so he definitely belongs to someone. How in the world did he get there? We recently had extremely heavy rains. Maybe he got lost during the flooding. Deb had called me because they were concerned how an older pig would be with a piglet. Could Lucy hurt this new guy? Apparently this guy was trying to find where to nurse on Lucy. He wanted to play. He definitely was familiar with the type of specie Lucy was. Lucy didn't appear to be aggressive, however she did knock him around a bit. But Lucy went on with her pig business. I told Deb that with my experience with raising piglets to hogs, after spending so much time with them, they seem to be more gentle and have a great deal of patience with the younger ones. I have a four month old piglet(Clementine) who sleeps in the same hut with six full grown hogs. They are all gentle with her and look out for their younger friend.

Nevertheless, I told Deb to keep an eye out and go down to Lucy's hut at night to see what the status looks like. Will Lucy welcome her new friend or will Deb and Olivia find him wandering around? Pigs like to tucker out for the evening and get a good nights sleep like people do. How happy they must have been to find Lucy and "Willie" snuggling close together during a very cold night.

How did that happen? How did Willie find Lucy? How can you nonchalantly talk about how you may need a friend for your pig and voila...one shows up! I've had so many heartaches during our farming journey. Many losses. So when strange things like this happen, it makes it all worth it! I just love stories like this. I'm so excited for Olivia. She's a great "mom" to her pigs.

If you want to see Willie and Lucy, search for "Lucy Pig" on Facebook. Hopefully you can see pictures and videos of the two sweet pigs.

What A Bummer....

Well, we had a chicken taken away last night by a fox. Scott discovered the familiar piles of feathers around the shed and by the fence. This particular White Rock hen was injured by a hog a couple of weeks ago. Probably got too close to the feed bowl! The chickens love when it's time to feed the hogs. They all gather around and are inches away from a very hungry mouth! This hen's neck was raw and in pretty bad shape so I was really surprised she had lasted as long as she did. All of my chickens go inside sheds at night to roost. We follow up by closing the doors to keep them safe from predators. Sometimes when a chicken is injured, it may decide to go under the shed to be away from the others. Chickens tend to peck at their injured friends. This White Rock did just that, roost under the shed. I'm bummed that she was taken. She was doing so well! Darn fox.

And The Rains Came Down

If we didn't have enough mud out there before, I'm sure we'll have enough now! I'm up really early this morning because the rain and wind have been so loud. I can't imagine what it is going to be like out there. Already I am constantly moving huts to areas that aren't so muddy and packing in fresh straw. Tomorrow will be another day of such work. It is strange how warm it is out there...60 degrees and balmy. The kids already don't have school today and Tuesday, but I'm sure it would have been canceled because of flooding. We have some areas of the county by creeks and rivers that tend to flood the roads.

As we're trying to get ready for the 2010 season, we've been having a sale on the rest of our sausage and chicken. We want the freezers empty in preparation for the Berkshire pork coming in March. Ahhh pork again! I haven't had pork chops or roasts or tenderloins in such a long time and we've been out of bacon for a while. My son, Jonah, was with me at the grocery store the other day. He mentioned how he would really like bacon on his turkey subs. That sounds good, but I haven't even been down the meat section in months! I held the package of bacon and just stared at it. It honestly felt wrong. I thought about the hog that it came from...living indoors in dark, cramped pens...cement floors...no grass...no sunlight. When his mom had him, she wasn't able to move. Sows are in such tight quarters that they can't even turn around. That's the way it is in factory farms. It's not even farming.

Well, I did purchase the package of bacon. It confirmed what we already knew...it did not taste very good!

A Beautiful "Spring" Day

Yes indeed...my hogs were still in the woods yesterday morning...and this morning. It was such a relief to see them. They did seem content digging and soaking in the warm sun. We sure did welcome this day. I believe it was almost 6o degrees...bright and sunny! Everyone was active. The kids were out early with their bikes and boots, chickens were scratching in new places and those little "red dalmatians" were discovering fantastic places to explore. They made friends with Clementine and enjoyed following her around the farm. I can't believe I was able to put clothes out on the line. I know people use a clothes line in the winter, but I hate the feeling of icy clothes. Hanging clothes is actually one of the few domestic chores I love to do. I find it relaxing. I remember a couple of years ago, as I was hanging laundry, I glanced up to see a herd of deer running right in front of me. I never get used to deer. It's an amazing sight each time. Then about five minutes later, an old beagle ran by. He must have been having fun chasing.

Kids had mandatory showers this evening. After being cooped up a good part of this winter, they thoroughly enjoyed a stocking up of Vitamin D. Of course it will be muddy for a while. The ground is so saturated that even the slightest bit of rain will make a mess. That doesn't stop them. Farm kids are always dirty!

Looks like we should really take advantage of the good weather tomorrow. I hear it's going to rain again by the end of this week.

They Did It Again!

Oh my gosh! What's with this group of pigs?! Yea...that's them up there!Every time we try to move them to a new area, they don't seem to be thrilled and cross under the electric wire. The snow and the frigid temps put us way behind with moving them. Their noses aren't rung so they can go through a field pretty fast. Very efficient tillers!

Scott, Tony and Jonah finally had the opportunity to build out a new paddock in the woods. It was important for us to move them there since pasture is non-existent. This way, they will be able to finish on acorns and roots. It felt like such a huge accomplishment to move these"joys" today. I stood there and watched as they dug through leaves. I find it very relaxing.

Tonight as I was closing up the farm, I got this intuition to check on this group. I wasn't planning on going over there but I wanted to see if they were still foraging or sleeping in their hut. As I was getting closer, I heard a grunt by the Sycamore trees. There should not be a grunt by the Sycamore trees! Geez!!! Pig silhouettes were fast approaching me. I ran back to get some feed. Luckily they seemed to be hanging out in the back. Four of their friends, still in the paddock, didn't want to chance a shock. I was able to get all of them back in, except Lulu. Jonah had to help me with her.

The last time we moved them to this area, they got out a couple of times and got into the cornfield...way out front. It's scary when you go out to feed them and you arrive to an empty paddock. They were missing for several hours. Scott went everywhere on the 4-wheeler to look for them. It wasn't until later that morning, we happened to glance down at the cornfield and spotted pigs darting back and forth between the rows...having a great time. They were mighty tired when they followed me down the lane and back up towards the house. I think they actually slept for two days. After that, we moved their paddock back up by the house. I just thought since they were bigger and older, it would be different this time. I thought they would enjoy foraging through the woods. We believe these guys need to be in the middle of it all. They need to see the action. I sure do hope I see them in the woods tomorrow!

Happy New Year 2010!

I do like winter. Maybe not so much this bitterly cold wind. When it's this cold, it is very challenging keeping the house at a temperature where we are not in a "hunched over" state. We have radiator heat which is incredibly toasty, however, oil is incredibly expensive. We had two fireplaces restored and rebuilt and we found a thimble flue in the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Old wood stoves used to be located there. When their purpose was no longer needed, they were taken out and the wall was rebuilt. Luckily for us, there had been a leak at the opening of the flue inside the wall. A new discovery led us to an additional heat source(and we often say the best purchase we ever made!)...a woodstove. Once all of the fireplaces are going, the woodstove is roaring, and maybe roasted chicken in the oven, it is very comfortable inside this old house.

Since we're located up on a hill, it gets extra gusty up here. The other night I kept hearing what sounded like a ball bouncing. The sound would be slow and then gain speed as if a ball was getting ready to stop on a floor. I didn't think much of it at first. Maybe one of the cats was playing with a ball. But it was too uniform and kept on going for a while. A cat would have been bored after a few minutes. In the middle of the night, it was very easy to imagine a "Ghost Boy" playing with a bouncy ball. Of course I knew it was NOT that and before anyone asks....no, there are no ghosts inside or outside of this house! The sound wound up being the cellar window. The gusts were making the loose window vibrate.

I noticed the pigs are sleeping in a bit longer these days. Why would they want to come out in frigid temperatures when they are warm inside their huts. Last night I went to put extra straw in with the weaned piglets(15 of them) and as they all came out to see what was going on, I could feel the rush of heat from inside. That made me feel better. They are okay even when the temps dip into the teens.

We always assume we are going to have a "break" over the winter months. Sometimes I feel that we are more busy, just in a different way. We have two pig groups that need to be moved to another area. Usually not a problem but the blizzard didn't help with that. More fences need to be built but the ground is solid. I want to get my next pork group in the woods so they can finish on good roots, acorns and whatever else they might find. Next month we start getting broiler chicks already. Winter seems to go by quickly for us.

Jonah took this picture from his bedroom window last year. When it is this cold and windy, it's easy to forget that days will be warm and colorful again. "That's right! The trees do have pretty green things on their branches!"