Up to the Yards

Once again the cows have been brought back up to the yards though the concrete yards are not much drier at least the cows cannot pog holes in them with their cloven hooves. We had two inches of rain in an hour at milking time last night. So often the rain is at milking time, have you noticed?

Our land is old swamp land, drained by John’s great grandfather (or is is great great?) anyway this is how the creek was turned into a ditch, but in the rain it reminds us of its swamp qualities. Great land, just wet. 

And we have had so much rain this summer that the mud is legendary.  The pigs wallows are sky filled.  My boots are heavy with muck and the areas around the gates are a true mess with churned quick sand like mud, I worry for the calves walking through.

When the rain is on its way and the thunder and lightening get close Molly lumbers up out of her garden followed by her eleven piglets and they take shelter in the barn. I take this opportunity to lock the gate then, the coyotes do come pretty close at night.

Like I  have said before – focus isn’t everything!

The sick Rescue Piglets are getting stronger in small increments and the two strong ones are getting stroppy and piglike.  They are endlessly play fighting knocking down the precarious ones who then lie on the floor and scream like something out of a medieval lunatic asylum.  Today I am putting the bigger of the crippled ones in a sling so she can stand up for longer periods, her feet just on the floor. If left to herself the littler one can walk unaided for a few minutes. But both hold their heads at an odd angle as though they have a crick in their necks.

The runt baby who we call The Paperweight because of her very dry skin is still very tiny but still doing ok.

I continue with the Piglet Physio  for the ones with leg trouble, every couple of hours and we will see. Night-times I feed them every three hours now. If it weren’t for the  immobile ones I could leave them for much longer. I have a goats bottle in a holder secured in a bucket at their level and the others just help themselves.   The pig saver has been retired.  It kept the milk hot but in this weather the milk needs to be freshly made more often.  So they are now drinking unheated milk but the milk is remaining stable longer.

They are throwing dry baby pig food about and drinking water too.

We are  watching for some dry weather to make hay in.  Not only do we need to dry the hay but first we need to dry the land before putting a tractor on it.  Maybe next week it will start to dry out.

I am not complaining though, merely recording. I would rather rain than drought.

Have a lovely day

celi