Oh, that mother nature is quite the tease. Giving us a foretaste of cooler days ahead and then cranking the heat back up so that it feels even hotter, making the desire for fall weather all that much stronger.
I've always said that you learn something new everyday on the farm, and I saw something that still amazes me a couple of days later. Let me explain. The other day I was finishing up feeding and saw Dottie nursing her litter, and when she finished and stood up I noticed a piglet laying under her, obviously trapped by the feeder Dottie was laying against.
Dottie had started to walk away, but she saw motion as I stepped across the electric fence, and then she noticed the piglet laying motionless on the ground. She gave me the "stay away" grunting, so I knew I wouldn't be able to get near the piglet so I just waited for Dottie to sniff around for a minute and then head to the wallow. She didn't do that. She went to the piglet and gently grabbed his snout in her mouth and moved him back and forth, and then she'd let go and roll the piglet over, back and forth, and then repeat the process. She did this for several minutes, and to my astonishment the piglet sucked in a breath of air and coughed.
Dottie continued her sow CPR and kept all the curious siblings away with a quick swing of her snout. She kept guard over him until he was able to roll on his stomach, and eventually stand, albiet the legs were a little wobbly. Today that piglet is running around with all the rest as if nothing had happened. I have never, ever seen anything like this, and wish I had run to the truck to get my flip camera, but I was too enthralled just watching. Not too often you get squashed by a 400 plus pound sow and live to squeal about it.
In New Pork City, we put out bids to clear a tangly, weed infested portion of the farm with room and board, all you can eat fresh grain, and fresh water as the compensation, and 9 Large Black pigs were low bidders. Here's a shot of them getting right to work:
Here's a closer view, and you can see how thick the vegetation is (they almost look like a patrol in a Vietnamese jungle):
We expect the job to last one to two months, and we'll have some after photos to show how efficient pigs are at clearing underbrush.
Our butcher is having the usual mechanical problems, and informed us today that our dawgs for the brat cart won't be ready until next Tuesday, along with the deli shaved ham. Everything else will be ready to pick up this evening, so we'll have lots of product at the market tomorrow, just no cooked dawgs.
We're getting flyers printed up this coming week for the Clean Food market, so you can pick one up next Saturday or the following Wed, and get all the details on the winter market. That's it for now, thanks for reading, and come see us tomorrow!
Pork & Greens