Hot Off The Haywire

Farm Fodder - Page 29

We've taken a bit of a hiatus from the blogosphere, a little time to recharge the batteries perhaps, but we're back at it, fresh from a much needed Thanksgiving break.

Thanksgiving always brings back pleasant memories from my childhood. I grew up with a large, extended family on my dad's side, with 7 aunts and uncles and beaucoup cousins. My grandparents had a home tucked into the end of a valley in the mountains of northeast Georgia. Creeks with crystal clear water crossed the pastures, and mountains lush with oaks and hickorys surrounded the house on 3 sides. Barns and a spring house completed the pastoral setting.

Mountains of food always adorned the tables, and while the women folk prepared the feast us boys would split into teams to play pasture football, with the goal being to try and tackle a cousin down into a cow patty. Afterwards, we'd amble up to the house for some real, old fashioned southern cooking.

Man, I really miss those chow downs, but what I miss the most is just the closeness we shared as a large family, the kind of closeness that makes a cousin seem like a brother or sister, or an aunt or uncle like a mom or a dad. Time and jobs have moved several of us around the country, but I think every Thanksgiving each of takes that journey back to those days, back to the crisp November days of our youth.

At the farm, the cold weather has pretty much ended the grazing season. We're started supplementing the porkers with alfalfa hay as you can see in this photo:

 

The pigs love the alfalfa and it's an excellent source of protein. The drawback to alfalfa is the cost, but we haven't found anybody that bails good quality, weed free clover. (If anybody knows someone that does, give us a shout.) The new layout for the expansion of the pastures is complete, and next week we're drilling the post holes and picking up the new gates. After that it's wire stringing time, and we hope to have it completed before the end of December when Dottie's due to farrow again.

We're also going to build some new style farrowing arks that contain the same square footage of farrowing space, but are more compact and are for a single sow, instead of the two sow arks we have now. We're thinking they'll be snugger in the winter (as we're going to have 5 sows farrow between January and late February) and definitely easier to move between pastures.

Geez and Myfoot's pigs are adjusting well to being away from momma, and here's a photo of them in their new pasture:

 

We just weaned Perk and Twiggs, and will move the piglets to the same field on Wednesday.

The Clean Food market and Coop are doing great, and we appreciate all the support we get from you that shop from these great promoters of locally produced products. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and hope the upcoming Christmas holidays give you all a chance to spend cherished time with your families. Thanks for reading!

Pork & Greens

Farm Fodder - Page 28

"All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey" - great tune to describe the day, except it was humid and warm, nothing winter-like at all carried in the winds. That's for next week.

 Down at the farm it's been a tale of opposites. The cooler weather has the pigs a growing, and the end of market season has me a slowing. The non-stop, working every day pace of spring and summer drains your battery dry, and this time of year puts you in some type of stupor until some rest and decompression get you ready for a new surge in early spring. We have been at the drawing board however, and we've got the new fencing plan down on paper, and we'll start drilling gate post holes as soon as we get a decent rain.

The pigs are really growing, and we got Geez and Myfoots's pigs weaned and nose rung. We moved them into the pasture with Dottie's pigs, and here's a short video from this morning:

 

Dottie's pigs are growing so fast we had to bring in larger digs, as they wouldn't fit in the metal shelter. Here's a photo of them lazing in their strawy abode:

 

We're looking at having another tour towards the end of November or early December. Maybell is due somewhere in that time and we'd like to get her pigs on the ground first. We'll keep you posted. One of our readers had questions about how we water the animals so next week we'll try and get some video or photos of our system. Thanks for reading, and remember all the men and women serving around the world on this Veteran's Day!

Pork & Greens

Greater Love...

...hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Beautiful words, but lacking heft unless you stared them in the face, and we've had over 4000 young men and women in the last decade take those words and give them a heft that you or I will never know, an ultimate testament to friendship, and also the saddest testament of all.

And that doesn't even begin to account for the hundreds of thousands before them. Sometime in our busy lives we need to set a moment aside, take the enormity of the sacrifice in, like sampling a fine wine, swirl it, absorb the flavor of it, appreciate the beauty of it, but ultimately have to swallow it. And it's a hard concept to swallow that you must die that others can live, absolutely the most difficult concept of all.

Tomorrow on Veteran's Day, take a moment to think about what it really means to lay your life down for your friends. To all my fellow paratroopers that served with me I consider it an honor to call you brothers. To all those that have shown us what greater love truly means, we're forever indebted.

Pork & Greens