Dog Days of Summer

Hot, Humid, 90 degrees 68% humidity.

The weather and mosquitoes are taking top billing at any place a few locals are chatting. We have been enduring a very long, very warm spell. Looking back, I see it's been quite hot around here since at least June. Many years when we get real lots of heat, we are also dry, but not this year. In step with the last several years, this year has been much wetter than normal. Beginning to wonder if 'normal' will ever happen again. I have noticed many days lately that we are hotter than San Antonio. We have been getting hit with monsoon-like rains. Between severe rains, we get less severe rains, but almost every single week this Summer, it has rained at least twice. As of about three weeks ago, we were 7 inches above normal for the year, and we have gotten plenty more since then. So all this moisture means we are inundated with mosquitoes as well. They are crazy thick this year. Karen and I have actually had to retreat back into the house on several occasions, despite mosquito blocker clothing and full on DEET. I don't remember ever hoping for an early frost so much! It also means the lawn is acting like it's on steroids. I simply can not keep up with the growth of the lawn this Summer. Seriously, it could use a cutting at least three times a week. Even if I had the time to mow three times a week, we are lucky to find one afternoon when the grass dries adequately to be cut. I'm telling you my grass is growing at a rate of at least a half inch a day!! Insanity.

There is a silver lining to this, however. This great grass growing weather also is great for growing pasture! Honestly, I need more cattle to keep up. The 8 calves and the pigs I have should have been about right for a normal year. But in these conditions, I believe I could stock at least double that amount right now and be just fine. Of course, the trick is being able to predict the future. Since I have no idea when or if the water works might shut down, it's hard to justify getting more cattle at this point in the year. We have maybe two more months of growing left, not enough time to put enough weight on a stocker calf to make it worth it.

We took the biggest three Berks to the processor a couple of weeks ago, so now we are down to 5. We had brought them back up to Piggie Palace for when we were on vacation (much simpler and more secure for non-swineherding farm sitters!)and then we let them enjoy the shade there for the worst of the heat. We did move them back out on to pasture last week. They are managing the heat just fine out there. Of course we provide them with plenty of water both for drinking and wallowing. There have been a few days when I have spied their armor of wet mud, and I tell you, it does look almost invitingly cool and mosquito proof! Four of the remaining 5 have an appointment to be finished in September. This time, we are keeping one back for breeding! We've been planning on taking the big leap from buying our feeder pigs to farrowing/raising our own litters. We will start with 2 or 3 gilts (females that have not yet had a litter). A female pig can have two litters a year. It takes approximately 6 months from birth to finish a feeder pig @ 250 lbs. You never know how many piglets your gilt will have, but we are hoping for an average of 8 weaned per litter.

SO....doing the math.....that means that if we get three gilts bred in October, they will farrow in three months, three weeks, and three days (February). If we get 8 from each litter, that's 24 piglets. Common advice says we may lose a few along the way. So we hope to have maybe 20(?) pigs to finish exactly one year from now. of course, our numbers may be way off, one never knows how many live pigs they will have. I spoke to my Berk guy today and even though he is more experienced than I will ever be, he had a sow have 10 pigs last night, but only 5 were born alive. Stuff happens. I know that sort of thing is going to be pretty hard for both Karen and I, and frankly it's been a deterrent to taking the breeding leap. But our pork business is growing, we'd like to have more control of our genetics, and it really is time. So we'll just have to learn to be good midwives. Good thing Karen is one of the best there is ;)

We planned to buy all the gilts at once from the Berk man. But one of this current batch of pigs is just a really nice looking gilt. Big Girl, as her name implies, has shown herself to be made of great swine stock. To my untrained eye, she looked pretty good - long, rectangular, good shoulders and hams, good underline. Then we had a swine consultant come out to help us figure out how to expand our pork business, and she really liked these Berks, and confirmed my opinion of Big Girl. Now, our pig farmer has a couple litter mates to Big Girl saved, as well as some other nice gilts from other litters to choose from in September. So it feels good that I'm going to be using one gilt that I raised myself, and it will be neat to see how she looks compared to her sisters. I've arranged to go down with the trailer in September and pick out the basis of our breeding stock, and bring them home to give them a chance to all get to work out pecking order, etc. before they get bred.

Our consultant recommended that we get a boar simply because it is easier to get the girls bred. But we feel like it doesn't quite make financial sense to buy, keep and feed a boar for only 2 or 3 gilts. So we are going to try our hand at AI. Stay tuned!

In the meantime before our future piglets are ready, we will be short on pigs! Our Berk guy doesn't have any feeder pigs available now, so we will be getting a batch of crossbred pigs from our original pig man. He happened to call just as we were wondering where we were going to get more piggies. We know his pigs are healthy and good growers. These pigs should finish around the first part of December.

I don't know if I've mentioned this in here before, but a long-term goal of ours has been to put up a hoop barn for the pigs. A hoop barn can be deep-bedded, Swedish style for comfort and well-being of the pigs year-round. I don't know if we'll need it year round, but we definitely will love it during Spring, Winter, and Fall... I'm also hoping to be able to use one end of it for parking my tractor out of the snow. We are hoping to get this project underway soon, and we hope to have a hoop barn up before the snow flies. I have done as much reading up on these types of barns as a person can do, I needed to talk to some real folks who have used them. In the last two days, I have talked to three different farmers in my county with them, and it was very encouraging. They all love their hoops, and would build another. All of their hoops have stood for over ten years, and have held under our 100" snowfall years recently, so I'm convinced they are a good investment.
To the right is an example of a hoop barn.

Hot and Muggy, 83 degrees
Things continue to move at warp speed around here. So much going on, it's hard to find the time to sitdown and write about it. Seems like I barely get to come in the door at 9:30 pm after doing chores and projects and it's time to go to bed so I can get up and do more the next day!
Last weekend,for Solstice, Birk got to visit with her aunt Shoshana while Karen and I got a little grownup time in with dear friends at their place up north. The weather cooperated, the pontoon boats did NOT break down(!) and Coach and I won at Freestyle Bocci Ball. 'Nuff said about that! Dottie enjoyed swimming in the lake where Mich taught her to swim! Here she is retrieving a swimming 'noodle' Thanks to our farmhand and friend Jason for watching over the place so we could get away for a weekend.

The pigs are doing very well. They did as they were told, and they rooted up the sparse, dry southeast corner of our pasture really well. I moved them off of there, and then I planted forage turnips, or rape. Planted it last Thursday, and it was coming up just great by Monday. Looks like that old Deere drill I got will do the trick pretty okay. Though I do need to adjust it better to try and get it down to only 10 lbs per acre, it dropped about twice that in the space I planted. I'll need to tinker with it more, but honestly, I'm pretty proud of taking a 50 year old piece of fairly complicated machinery (lots of gears, grease fittings, springs, coils, and cups, etc) and making it work. I could easily have spent ten times what I spent on this grain drill. So a few extra seeds in the ground are an acceptable margin for experimentation. Besides, these turnips are going to be grazed by livestock, not harvested by machine or anything. Their mere presence on my sandy hillside is good for the soil. I disced the hill to smooth it out after the pigs and to incorporate their manure, then planted.
However, they continue to really root up some very nice, beautiful soils and pasture. It's not very cost effective or rational to allow them to continue to turn lush alfalfa and clover into mud. There are two alternatives: take them off the pasture, or put rings in their noses. I think the rings are inhumane, I know the pigs don't like them. It makes it painful for the pig to root with it's snout. There is nothing more natural and instinctive to a pig than to root, and to turn that in to a source of pain for the animal seems very cruel to me. I have a very nice alternative for them, the piggie palace, so that is where they are headed during the next pasture rotation. Eventually, we will build a hoop barn for them.
And now, for the big farm news of the week! First though, I'll give a bit of background. In a previous post,I mentioned how we had over 300 bales of hay made from our pasture. Those are now safely stored in the mow of the barn. I don't have any cattle yet to eat the hay, and I'm thinking this hay will be for pigs and possibly one or two larger cows if we get some later in they ear. But the rain hasbeen generous to us this Summer,and my pasture is now again nearly waist high in most places. I'd rather get some feeder cattle in here to graze the alfalfa down, accomplishing two things - avoiding making hay(and the expense of that),and adding value to the standing alfalfa by turing it into beef on the hoof. If I buy cattle now, and graze them on all that hay,they should gain nicely andI'll have heavier calves to sell in the Fall.
I still may decide to make hay out of some of the pasture, but this way I have alternatives. So, that being said, I'm very delighted to say that I am back in the cattle business! I found some calves on Craigslist, and they were dropped off the day we got back from vacation. They are nice, healthy looking calves, most are about6months old. They are a mix of dairy breeds, mostly steers. Dairy breeds are plentiful in Wisconsin, that's for sure, and they sure make for a colorful herd, don't they? That little Jersey steer is simply precious. Almost makes ya wanna bring him in the house and make a pet out of him!



Ain't they cute???
I can't tell you how sweet it was to hear a little 'moo' and smell cows in my field again. It's just so good. And already they've provided us with a little 'entertainment'! Last night(their first night here) we had a big thunderstorm, including of course lots of thunder and lightning. I went out this morning to check on them, and couldn't see them. Not anywhere. Knowing from past experience that even large cows have an amazing knackfor "disappearing' in plain sight,such as in a very slight valley, etc., I didn't panic as I walked through our pasture. But finally, I had to concede that though I had checked nearly every where in our little pasture, they were GONE. I went in to the house to ask Karen to come out and help me look inside our fences one last time before I started to actually freak out. In my everyday job, the times I get called out to help locate or corral loose livestock is always under two circumstances:either they just got moved,or a bad storm panicked them and they stampeeded. And I had both happen at once. Oh, boy. We went toward the one corner I hadn't thoroughly inspected, and sure enough, as we approached, we saw some ears twitching behind the brush pile. There they were! Wheew! I now know that if last night didn'trun them off, they are here to stay. That makes me sleep good at night.

Pigs Can Be Rotated

Overcast, 85 and muggy
Finally have a few minutes to write again. I wish I had pictures to go with these last few posts, but the danged digital is broke again. Sigh.
Last weekend I got the pigs moved to the next spot in the pasture. It is essentially about an acre away from where they were, down in the southeast corner. I wanted to move them there next, since that is our most sparse ground at the moment. Since it's not growing much forage, I want to try planting some forage turnips there. This is a big deal for me, as this will actually be the very first time I've ever actually tilled ground or planted anything - like a real farmer! LOL The turnips are a good choice for pigs. They grow very well during the slump in summer growth of other pasture grasses and clovers, and they are an excellent source of nutrition, next to alfalfa. The pigs will be allowed to graze the tops of the turnips, which will grow back if allowed a break from being grazed. Cattle can eat them as well.
So the pigs are out there now, helping to prepare the soil. And I must say,they are doing a fine job of it. Eating the weeds: I watched them tonight as they were really seeking out a common pasture 'weed', White Campion. They carefully sought out each stem of the plant, then they dug below it with their snouts and pulled out the taproots and munched them up. I'm guessing there are some good minerals or carbs in those roots. Or both. I am also really pleased with the distribution of manure in this paddock. Pigs tend to designate a bathroom area,and are known to often concentrate their dunging in a specific area. But they are not doing that on this paddock,the manure is pretty well evenly distributed out there. I think this is because I have moved their furniture three times now (shelter, feeder,and waterer) within the week. This keeps their rooting at a shallow level, and distributed in different spots (again,to bring up rocks,loosen the soil in preparation for planting). This ill make it easier on the tractor when I am ready to work the soil with the disc and then plant.
I have been told that it is hard to move pigs compared to cattle. Pigs like their home base, and want to go back to it. Plus,they dont like to cross a line where there had been electric. They can't see well,but they remember, and are hesitant to test it.
Since this is my first time actually trying to rotate pigs on pasture, I came up with my own ideas and thought I'd try them even if other guys said it didn't work very well.
First, I created their shelter and waterer as one unit,and made it mobile. I bought a heavy duty flat wagon, which is big enough to serve as their shelter and shade. It is more than adequate for the warm months. I put a 500 gallon water tank on top of it. This will be the resevoir I fill their drinker from. All I have to do to move them is to hook the tractor up to the wagon, put their feeder in the tractor bucket, and go.
So last week was my first trial run, and I knew it would be agood test. I was not just moving the whole herd of pigs to an adjacent area, I wanted to take them half way across our pasture,i nto a whole new world as far as they were concerned!
I got everything ready to move, and I removed the existing electric fence netting that had been holding them in. Note: turn fence offf irst!
The next thing was to simply start out fort he next paddock (which I had already put up, ofcourse, except for the section I wouldd rive in through. Like I said, pigs don't want to cross electric lines. Neither do cows or farmers,for that matter.) Making sure there were no pigs in the path of the tractor or the wagon wheels,I creeped outof there in low gear, calling the pigs. I slowly ventured out into the big open space of the Back Four, still calling them. Next Note: this is where it really, really pays to have tame, handled pigs! The pigs thought this was one of the best things ever! They followed right along behind the wagon,which remember,is their shelter. So me and 6 little black and white piggies slowly made our way throught he clover field. Two pigs stayed back for a while, worried about crossing the line. But finally, even they mustered upt he courage and came running to catch up with their herd. I steered into their new paddock, and set up the wagon, unhitching it from the tractor. The pigs had taken a bit of a detour and were sampling forages along the way. No bigdeal, I expected that. It gave me time to get everything set up in their new space for them. I drove the tractor out,and then I pulled out the treats - a whole case of organic milk and buttermilk from the co-op! I filled their treat bowls, called them once, and they came stampeding in. While they sipped their delicious dairy treat, I simply closed off the open gate, and the pigs were now moved into a whole new paddock. It took less than 20 minutes. Like I said, since they have been in this particualr paddock,I have moved the wagon within it 3 times,to get them used to being moved,and to keep their digging shallow and distributed vs. deep and in one place. So far so good.
I've been working on the half-century-old grain drill I got about a month ago. Cleaning it, greasing it,replacing feed tubes, fixing it up in anticipation of using it to plant the turnip seeds. I hope it does what it's supposed to. As I was scraping away a ton of grime and trying to locating grease fittings, I remembered the other peice of old John Deere machinery I owned at one time. It was a manure spreader,bought at auction. That thing was a consternation, always breaking down, and I hoped this drill would not also bring me frustration. Oh well, I didn't pay more for it than the scrap price,so if it's a bust I can always drag it to the scrap yard.
The hayfield is growing back really well as we've been getting rain and sunshine both. Our barn mow is pretty full, so I want to get some cattle to put out there and harvest the forage before it gets out of hand. It will be easier to let some cows eat the grass,and add value to the grass through them, then sell them in the fall when the pasture is done, and hopefully make a few bucks at it. Plus they will fertilize while they eat. A lot easier and more entertaining than filling the barn with hay!
Someday we'll have a proper beef herd, but for now, I need some ruminant mouths, and I'm not going to be too picky. Stay tuned!

Hay and Air Lock

Rainy and cool, 72
To update on the first cutting of hay, it did get rained on the next day. We didn't get as much rain as some neighbors, though. In all, we got three big bale wagons full of hay off of our 5 acres, over 300 bales. Karen, Jason and I had the job of unloading all those bales and stacking them in the barn mow. It took us two evenings, but now the barn is so full of hay I need to add some supports under the joists! Some of them have started cracking under the weight.

We sure have been busy these days. It's hard to remember everything that has gone on. A few days ago I finally got around to fixing a little problem on my tractor, and wound up with a much bigger problem. The gasket on one of my fuel filters was a little twisted, so a small fuel leak had developed there. So I finally got around to fixing that. Took it off, set the gasket, replaced the filter, and the tractor refused to run. Somehow I had managed to introduce air into the fuel line. Must not have bled the vent properly when I was done. I monkeyed around with the tractor several times over days. I cracked the injector lines open while I cranked the engine, no change. I removed the fuel supply line to check for crud in the line, it poured out in a stong stream, mostly on my boot. I dropped not one, but two tools into the bucket full of spent fuel I had below the filters to catch draining fuel,and had to fish them out. I spent a lot of time covered in diesel. Diesel is oily and slippery. I dropped one of the glass sediment bowls and cracked it. My last gasp effort was to finally try replacing both fuel filters with new ones, and of course replace the broken sediment bowl. If that didn't work, I'd have to call in reinforcements. I finally got to replace the filters the other night as the sun went down. It was quite dark when I finished, so I re-opened the fuel line from the gas tank, and let her fill up. I let it sit at least 24 hours to ensure maximum fuel re-fill. And that did the trick! I sure was happy today when I got her to start up and run smooth for a good 5 minutes. Success!

First Hay Cutting

Hot and humid, 90 degrees

Summer arrived yesterday. We went from highs in the 70's to 87-90 in one day.
My first concern in weather like this when the heat index is approaching 100 degrees, is for my livestock. No cows yet, so I only have to worry about the pigs. They have two sources of shade and fresh water available at all times. Pigs also need mud. They can't sweat like we do to cool off. Mud helps keep them cool, and it also helps protect them from biting insects. The mosquitos are not quite out yet, but we all know they are an inevitible scourge. Anyway, I've been going out to the pasture a few times a day to spray the pigs with the hose, which they love!! Tiny, in particular, loves to do the twirling pig dance under the sprinkler. They are doing fine.

The bigger news is that we finally got our first crop of hay cut! We got the name of a nearby guy that does custom hay from some neighbors. This guy came pretty well-recommended. We got a little rain on Thursday and Friday, so the plan was to cut on Saturday, as there was a good 3 day window of clear warm weather ahead. After a little juggling back and forth about whether he was or wasn't going to come Saturday after all, he said he'd send his hired man over around 3pm. At 4 pm, I started to wonder. At 5pm, I was really getting anxious since making hay requires not only cooperative weather, but good timing and lots of luck. I called the farmer, and he said he'd sent the guy my way quite a while back,and he should have been here 45 minutes ago. Hmm. Farmer drove up and said he went looking for the guy on his tractor, and didnt see him anywhere. He said he'd have to go find him, maybe he got lost! An hour later I got a phone call from the farmer saying he located the guy, guess he thought he'd stop home and cut his own place first. But then the haybine broke. Skidplate hit something and bent backward on it. Can't get parts until Monday. Farmer told me he'd call me on Monday and we'd talk about the forecast, etc. and go from there.

But today (Monday) as these folks are fond of doing, he just showed up with his 14 foot discbine! I had two thoughts: Yay, and I hope it doesn't rain in the next three days!

I watched how he mowed the field. That big ol mower/conditioner sure made short work of what had been 30 inch-high alfalfa and clover. It cuts it off at the base,then pulls the plant through two rollers that crimp or squeeze it, opening the stems up. This allows the hay to dry much faster and improves the chances of getting it baled before the next rain. So now we wait a couple days, and he'll come back to rake Wed. morning and then bale it Wed. afternoon. If the weather cooperates, of course. Keep your fingers crossed!

Pigs Got Out!!

You bet they did, and they are loving being pastured piggies!

I had a 4 day weekend, which gave me the time I needed to get a bunch of chores and projects done so we could finally get our little Berks out onto lush lush pasture! I had to trench out a lead wire from their pen to the pasture. In the process, I accidentally cut through the dogs' Invisible Fence wire :( ugh. Something else to fix!

Once I had that wire in place, I layed out a combination of electric netting and two strand poly wire to create a square area inside the pasture. The alfalfa/orchardgrass in that section is mostly up to my knees, so I mowed a perimeter strip for the electro-netting and so the pigs could get an easy visual of where the hot wire is. Since this is their first pasture paddock, I wanted to make it easy for them to understand and prevent accidental escapes, etc. One thing I have learned over the years is it is worth it to do it right and stop problems before they happen. Which, I guess, comes after learning the things that can and will go wrong. From watching them go....wrong. After many frustrating hours of trying to chase errant animals back IN through an electric fence, etc., which I can tell you is about as easy and fun as unwinding a hairball, I don't want to go there again. Guess that's what they mean by older and wiser! A week or two ago, I got a flat rack from a nearby farmer. This is basically a large flat wagon on a big set of axles (running gear). This will be my platform for my portable water tank for the pasture moves, and it will serve as shade and shelter for the pigs as we move from spot to spot within the pasture. Then I built another hoop hut as additional shelter for them.

Once I had the layout of the perimeter of their first paddock set up, I built a temporary chute, or alleyway between their pen and the new pasture so they could go out there without wandering all over the yard. We did the same thing with our other batches of pigs when we moved them to the garden. These Berks moved out very nicely. I've always read that pigs will not want to cross a line where an electric wire was because they don't have great eyesight. But these guys did great coming over with just a bit of coaxing from Karen and I. Pretty soon, they were all racing around in the pasture!

Well, all except one, who suddenly appeared having copious foam coming from his nose and mouth! We didn't see him eat anything weird, but he certainly had all the symptoms of a pig that just licked a poisonous toad or something similar! I offered him some water,but he didn't want it. It cleared up in about 30 minutes, but that was weird. He's totally fine now, and we have no idea what it was he ate.


Have you ever seen a pig eat grass? I mean, really eat a LOT of grass?? It was quite amazing to me to watch these pigs simply go crazy munching away on the tall grass. I know now that pigs can and will eat grass, but I had never seen them fully graze like that! For such little pigs, it seemed like they must be stuffing their stomachs full!
Now, pigs are not ruminants, they have a single stomach like us. They can digest grass, but not as well as cows or sheep can. An adult pig can get as much as half her diet from pasture alone. But smaller pigs don't have as fully developed digestive tracts, and so cannot utilize grass as much as bigger pigs can. Plus, growing pigs need a good amount of protein, which is low in forage, and they need lysine, an amino acid they cannot manufacture, so we continue to offer them their regular feed while on pasture. the pasture,however, is particularly full of beta-carotenes and sugars especially this time of year. I'm sure the sugars in the grass is what's got them eating it like candy. this is the sweetest time of year, literally, if you are a grass eater. the brix, or sugar levels are highest on the lush forages while the days are warm and the nights are cool, and it is receiving plenty of moisture. Once the daytime temps go over 80 degrees, grass stops growing very much, and it lignifies. Which in plain English means it gets kinda starchy and bitter tasting.
My pasture are getting ahead of me, and I need to get some cows out there to eat it down, or it will go to seed and quit growing altogether.

Moving the pigs out is not all we got done. If you want to know what we do on our days off, or for those of our friends who think our life is just like vacation all the time, here is an incomplete list:
Fixed car door, pumped up low tire, took the truck and trailer to Farm & Fleet and picked up some gates and fence panels, put up 125 post insulators (still need about 225 more to go), planted three birch trees, weeded, watered and planted the vegetable garden, picked up the yard, mowed the lawn, scraped the rust off of a galvanized stock tank and repainted it, removed the bottom from the grain hopper to clean the rust off that, ordered a hog feeder, fixed the Invisible Fence, cleaned the house, smoked a ham, had family over for a nice day on Saturday. My brother helped me cut down a tree, and as I was hauling brush away, my mom joined us and even she pitched in and started hauling brush! That felt good, it was sweet to be working side by side like that again. Even Dad was there for supervision! We also had a little family time and got to play some badminton and had two nice campfires.

Next on the list is to build a corral for receiving cattle....!

The wind continues to be the wildest I've ever known it. So many days these past two months have had winds in the 20-30 mph range, and I'm talking about sustained winds, not just gusts. It's pretty unusual for this part of the world. I sure hope things go back to normal soon. My pig hut remains on it's roof, I can't really even think about turning it back upright in winds like these. I saw a semi-trailer today that was flipped and twisted off the freeway. It's also been drier than normal, we're about 2.5 inches below our normal totals at this point in the year. We do get rain occassionally, and we're not in a drought yet, but I do wonder about what this pattern of dry wind will turn into.

Been slowly but steadily getting bits and pieces of stringing barbed wire along the bottom of the fence done, to prevent pigs from rooting under. I've had many of my "weekend" hours taken up by other stuff these past few weeks and I haven't had too many good solid days to just get stuff done. And when I have, well you know that's when it rains!

Billie has so far hatched 4 baby chicks! They are so cute, I'll try to post pictures soon. We have been letting the chicks dry off and get their feet while under Billie, then pull them out and put them in a brooder with food and water. (Speaking of their feet - each one has tiny little feathers on their tiny little feet - eeee!) Normally, the chicks will all hatch within a few hours of eachother, and when they are done, mama will leave the nest with them and lead them around the barnyard, clucking to them and showing them how to scratch and peck and generally hunt for food, etc. Unfortunately, I didn't know that Billie had started setting when she did. I think Karen knew, but she didn't mention it. Other hens were laying additional eggs under her, which meant that the hatch dates would be all stretched out over about a week. Now we are just doing it this way, and hoping that when all the eggs have hatched, we can re-unite the babies with their mama and she will still want to mother them. If not, it won't be too big a deal to raise them in the brooder.

We've been working on our flyer and other materials, took a soil sample in for the pasture, been working on long-term plans. Loaded, hauled and unloaded 60 bales of straw last week, it's good to have on hand. We use it for animal bedding and mulching the garden. Using my new Weber Smokey Mountain to smoke chickens for my first tries, it's been coming out super great!

Karen has been hard at work in the garden. We seem to have settled into a division of labor that suits us both, she doing most of the gardening and me doing most of the yard and livestock stuff. I am still waiting for the cold nights to pass though so I can plant this years' sweet corn!

This weekend I will use what time I have to work on getting the pasture ready for the little piggies. Well, the pasture is ready, the fences are not yet. Need to get it set up, and get the hog hut fixed up and back on it's feet! And then it'll be pastured pigs!