Partly Sunny, 41
Woke up to a blanket of fresh, wet snow to herald in the first day of Spring. Not only did we not really need it, but we personally really didn't need it on this particular day. Today Karen and I split up and we both got to bring home the bacon. While she headed to Lake Geneva to pick up the fresh pork ordered by our charcuterie guy (more on that later), I headed to our Berkshire breeder for more piggies!

Nick the charcuterie guy wanted more finished hogs in a month, so in addition to the 8 little weaner pigs, I picked up 3 more heavy gilts. These are actually littermates to the three boys we just had. Those were just awesome pigs, I have to say. A perfect combination of wonderful type, and a very docile disposition. Very tractable and cute as anything to top it off. So I didn't hesitate to say yes to these gilts.

But the little piggies are of course even more adorable and fun to play with. They are just weaned, about 35 lbs., and they are used to a faily warm barn. I was concerned about putting them into a cold trailer for the ride home, and naturally as I mentioned, it had to snow last night and be cold and wet today. But they seemed to make th ride home just fine, tough they were shivering a bit when we got home. Poor babies, I went right inside and rigged up a heat lamp for them. They are currently snuggled in a deep pile of straw beneath the heat lamp. I think they have already forgotten the chilly ride home.

Actually, during planning for their arrival this past week, I had been planning on putting them into the outside pen in the Piggie Palace. It wasn't until a day or two ago that I decided to put them in the barn because of the weather forecast. I'm sure glad I went that route, it would have been a disaster if I'd tried to put them out there. They're just too little to handle that kind of weather at this point.
As soon as their size and the weather converge into a perfect porcine symmetry, they will go outdoors, where they will live the rest of their lives nosing through roots and shoots and eating grass and alfalfa.

Karen had an equally productive day. She delivered two whole fresh hogs to Nick, who will be turning them into tasso hams, proscuitto, mortadella, and sausages and the like for his store on the north side of Madison. They spoke about furthering our business partnership, and all the ways we could work together. We may explore the possibility of him crafting some hams and sausage for our label. Karen said he would also love to buy fresh herbs from us, which he would use in the sausages. He told her he would also be interested in getting duck and chicken from us, which really has Karen thinking! Uh oh! There's a lot of opportunity knocking there, for sure.