Catch-Up

I's been such a long time since I've blogged, it just feels wrong and sad. I have several reasons for not doing it in the last few weeks including not having a functioning computer, having lost the digital camera which causes me to hesitate to post any un-illustrated stories, having too much to do and of course, too little time to do it in much less to then sit down and write all about all the things I just did and didnt have time for, y'know?

So in no particular order, I have these things to say:

The broiler chickens are doing very well. I am impressed with their health and vigor. We only lost two at the very beginning, which I think were squashed by their bretheren. Karen, on the other hand, is unfamiliar with these types of chickens. She has a very different take on them and wants to arrange to raise the next batch totally differently. We have begun what will surely become a long process of discussion and compromise over the winter. Let me just say - I have been there, and done it that way, and I don't want to go back. That's all I'm saying about that right now!

While the broilers are a quite labor intensive agricultural product to raise, turkeys are in a class of their own. I have only raised them once before, and I found them to be messy, difficult to contain and keep track of, dificult to get them to do what you wanted and not what you didn't want, and then difficult to transport and store in a frozen state. This time around, I have found them to be even messier. They insist on getting up in the window sills of the barn at night and apparently a turkey poops an average of 20 to 30 timjes per night, per bird. And this ain't pigeon droppings either, my friends. These droppings rival those of our lab mix. So I guess you can ascertain where I'd put them in terms of doing what I dont want them to do!
Also, they have a habit of jumping into the broiler pen and eating all their food, etc., when they have the whole farm to roam. Though Dottie has already reduced our turkey flock herd by half, the biggest Tom has lately seemed to become keen on hurling himself toward her as she quivers on her side of the driveway, expectantly waiting a turkey dinner delivered fresh and hot. We have actually had to run, hollering at the turkey to get back as he runs headlong toward a certain mauling two weeks before Thanksgiving. It's like keeping a three year old child from the edge of a highway. You know that's where they are set on going. I was curious to try turkeys again and see if they really were as exasperating as I remembered. Oh. Yes. Next year, I'll be happy to support some other local farmer who went to the trouble with turkeys.

Now the pigs! The piggies are and have been a pleasure. They have grown so fast, you can practically watch them doing it. The hoop house in the piggie palace really did work very well. We got a very very wet October. They did finally end up playing with the tarp on their hoop house, and I did make some modifications to it, but I knew it was temporary anyway.
After we finished harvesting the garden in the middle or end of September, I started working on setting that area up as the next place to put the pigs. I enclosed it again with electric fence, and made a makeshift alley way between the palace on top of the hill, and the garden area below. They soon caught on to the routine of going back and forth, and now they readily go through the gates between the two. This is part of the big plan, as I hope that it will help when it comes to moving day, when we need to load them onto the trailer. I will back the trailer up to the same gate area well ahead of the time they need to go, and just let them explore it. Hopefully they will become accustomed to going onto the trailer, and I will be able to simply close the door behind them on the appointed day. That's a plan I have used before with pigs, and it worked beautifully. No stress for them or us!

I also had another big project that took me a few weeks to complete which was the new pig hut. This one is designed as more of a winter shelter, as I made it with plywood sides and a metal roof. I built it on the lawn, and pulled it on to the garden with the tractor just before bringing the pigs in there. They took to it right away, and it has served them well. We may be able to use this as an outdoor farrowing hut in the future as well.

The tractor is home now, and I am getting over my grudge against her. I changed her fuel filters the other day, and I held my breath a bit as I turned the engine afterwards, having heard all kinds of horror stories about diesels and dry lines, etc. But she fired right up and purrs like a kitten. The more I get to work on her and do chores with her, the more she feels like mine. I need to take a bit off the top of my exhaust pipe to be able to get her into the garage this winter. All the cars will have to park outside!

The garden was really quite a success. We have been eating from it pretty much continuously since we started in about May or June, I guess. Not exclusively, but virtually every day we eat from our garden. Last night we had some of our frozen corn, and it is still the most delicious and sweet variety I have ever had. We were all commenting on how much we love this corn, and we will definitely use the same variety again. We got it from Johnny's Seeds. Next year, though, I want to plant a different variety of pumpkin. The fancy french cinderella pumpkins may have been okay for pie making I guess, but they sucked for seeds or carving. I want the kind of punkins I used to pull lots of seeds out of as a kid! One of my favorite autumn treats is roasted pumpkin seeds.

We did have a really fun time taking Birk into town for Trick or Treating. Lots of friends there, great costumes, great decorated houses, and just really nice people. It was a perfect night for it, too, with a clear, cold, crisp night and a full moon!

So those are some of my random thoughts on this and that. I have been researching laptops/netbooks, and I am sure once I get a machine I can call my own again, I will be better at posting more regularly. Oh, and maybe we will find the lost camera and I can post pics of the new pig hut.