Gee, but it's been a very long time since I've posted anything here. So much has happened, it's hard to remember it all or to know where to start.

My eye has healed almost completely, so no worries there. I was lucky.

The weather has turned nicer, and the pigs are outside now in the piggie palace. They LOVE being outside, and immediately started eating grass. The Palace is constructed with hog panels as walls, with a hot wire along the perimeter inside, to train them to electric so that they can be put out onto pastures eventually with just electric wires holding them in their temporary paddocks. That electric wire is HOT. Just ask my sister.

Got the barn cleaned out. There is a long, deep channel of missing concrete in the floor, that I want to try and get filled with concrete again before I put anything else in the barn. I had it pretty well cleaned out, but of course the chickens got into the barn and scratched up all the straw I had piled neatly, and had kicked it all mostly right into the crack again. One of our hens, Billie, is setting on a clutch of eggs. This is the first batch of eggs we've tried to hatch, so we don't know how things will come out, regarding the fertility of the roosters, or the mothering ability of Billie, etc. I sure do hope it works, there is something so sweet and cute about seeing a newly hatched clutch of fluffy peeps scurrying around a clucking mama, and seeing all the neat color combinations you get in a mixed flock like ours.

We went to an auction and I picked up an older hog feeder for a good price. It needs some work, but I think it's worth it because new ones are very hard to find unless you are willing to pay crazy too much money for them.

Now that the fence is finished and the alfalfa is growing, it sure is tempting to start cow shopping. I still need a few other pieces of equipment for cows, like a bale feeder, a water tank, wagon, etc., but I've been keeping my eye out for them.

We are still planning on building a hoop barn this year, but we may have had a change of mind as to where exactly to place it. Still mulling over the options. I did talk to a neighbor who has a quarry and he gave us a nice quote on the crushed limerock we'll need for the base. He also dropped off a load of the stuff for Karen to use in her perennial garden for the pathways. Our farmhand Jason has really been invaluable in helping us with projects like these. He did nearly all the work of digging out the base of the paths and then moving all the screenings into the garden. Last year we planted asparagus and rhubarb, herbs, strawberries and lots of pretty flowers in this garden, and it is really starting to come in nicely.

We planted a redbud and a magnolia tree in the front yard, a fig tree next to the potting shed, a climibng rose and a clematis next to the trellis at the perennial garden...Karen also planted a currant bush and lots of other stuff; I dont even know where she put them all!

Last weekend was spent in Chicago for some friends of Karens' wedding. Heather and Jay are really nice folks, and they have purchased pork from us in the past. They hired a very cool caterer for their reception dinner, and asked him to feature our pork! Karen made a special delivery to Chicago with 4 whole shoulders (that is about 88 lbs. of pork) so he could do his magic with them. The pork was lovely, and it sure felt good to have our pork appreciated like that. I felt a very personal attachment to this pork, since this was from our Berks, and I had literally spent hours with these pigs taking care of them and rubbing and petting them and making sure they had everything they needed. It mattered a lot to me that this was a fitting tribute to their quality.