Good morning. Another fine clear morning has announced itself and another hard but satisfying day behind and ahead.
Haymaking
I have two thirds of the barn sorted and up to date.
R is coming today to work with me on the West side while I load another 100 bales into the East side.
Here is the hay bale delivery set up. Because I am in charge this year I set up a system to use less brawn and more brain.
The bales rattle across the divide and are delivered exactly where I am stacking. Easy. Because I am stacking (which means pulling the hay off the clatter box and carrying it to the stack then up the stack and placed on top) I determine the speed of loading the clatter box (NOT. Rip, shit and bust) and everything is going smoothly.
Usually this is a three person job. But thankfully we are not pressured by the approach of bad weather. So we should get most of the new babies stacked today.
And my stacks are neat and tidy. I was feeling very pleased with our work as I drove over to deliver MIL her dinner. Chores were late and the big hogs were not impressed. But. Ah well!
Ducklings
Pour your cup of tea and pop over to watch The Duckling Circus! I promise you wil love it and Monday is FREE DAY so everyone gets to enjoy these little guys!
If you love it – Like it, and share. Personal recommendations go a long way in this impersonal world.
And now some good news.
Piglets
A farmer heard I was looking for pigs to raise (for the freezer so I won’t get attached) and told me she had some American Guinea Hogs – two weeks old – ready to go late July. I said YES. I will take two, I said and will drive up to collect them late July.
I have never raised this breed before but my initial research tells me they are a small American heritage breed and do well on forage. Well! I have lots of forage for them.
They are a small breed (I read they are often called the poor man’s pig) and I am not sure how long they will take to feed up. I asked her for a photo so I could show them to you and here they are. ⬆️ It is a big litter! And they look like lovely healthy animals.
We have to wait another six weeks which is fine. At least we have a few plonkers secured. I have feelers out for more so we will see.
Corn Fields
The corn is growing beautifully.
We all know what I am doing today!
More housekeeping in the barn.
Good morning.
Celi
Don’t forget to leave a ❤️ or a comment. It is wonderful to know who is popping in to follow the Farmy goings on.
C
The Kitchen's Garden 
37 responses to “Great news!”
Have a great day! Being tired is a much more pleasant feeling when so much is accomplished!
oh yes! You are so right. It is entirely a different tired feeling. I hope your day trucking along nicely!
Today was the day our daughter’s family moved into our little hobby farm. So many emotions. Tears on the drive back north knowing there would be no more LONG GOODBYES. It was always hard to see them off to their lives down in Philadelphia. Now they are back. Such Deja vu watching our little granddaughter running around her new home. Such pride in our son-in-law’s voice as he showed his uncle around. Such relaxation in our daughter’s expression as she sat on the couch in a very busy living room full of parents and siblings and nieces and friends. Now they will carry the traditions on and create many new ones as well. I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie.
You are lucky with the weather – it rains here on an almost daily basis.
The ducks are growing fast …and what cute little pigs!
they are an interesting breed. I look forward to seeing how they go on our feet fields.
I bet Tima recruits them to her gang! They’lll find it easy to escape if they are small 🤣
All those Iberian black pigs are relatively lean compared to a landrace pig, but their meat is the very best 😉
Good to know. Johns first question was about taste.
https://melissaknorris.com/podcast/american-guinea-hogs-were-they-really-worth-it/
This seems like a very good quality pig. Perhaps (in the future) they could be bred to sell entirely as a small and manageable barbecue hog roast. They sound like very sweet pigs and almost look like Tima!
Sounds good! I wonder if I will need to take them through the winter. We will see.
Well they sound like delightful pigs and there could be a market for a smaller hog, at home and for restaurants, especially if they taste really good. I bet they’d make excellent ham too!
So glad you found piglets! And I’ll try to refrain from commenting on how cute they are, since they are headed for the freezer. Hope you finish the haying today.
I know. It is hard. But we won’t name them.😊
I’m at my cabin in northern Michigan – arrived late this year. So much to do, I’m envious of how much you’ve done, and how neat it looks. Lovely days make it almost fun. Hard work feels good. Yay for your excellent progress.
A cabin in North Michigan sounds delightful. Are you by a lake.
I’ve got a very small pond, which is a nice feature for the ducks I’m raising. And I’m only a 15 minute drive from several other lakes including Michigan. All I need to do is walk away from my chores and go sit on a beach.
Pigs!! Now I must forget quickly how cute they are in these photos and remember to think Plonkers and food- wipe the cuteness from my brain 🙂 It is so obvious that you are doing what you do so well managing the farm- I remember that hay set up from previous years. So direct and well-planned. Why in the world would anyone do it differently? It just takes an experienced farm woman to straighten things out 🙂
Once you get the bale over to the stack how high up do the stacks go? Seems that they would have to be fairly short in order to get them up and over onto the top of the ongoing stack. But it seems that only 3 or 4 to a stack (my guess as to how high you can reach) would take up a lot of floor space and you would run out of room.
Maybe I am missing something or am inaccurate in my estimation of the amount of space available in your barn.
It makes me think it’s like when I proofread monthly updates of my husband’s economic forecasts. The reading will be running along smoothly and suddenly I will run into an economic term in the middle of the sentence. Not realizing this as a “concept”, the sentence doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t have a framework to fit that “concept” into. So I just bracket it with a question mark and indicate that I just don’t know what he’s talking about. I mostly just deal with misspelled words that the spell checker misses, punctuation marks, and run-on sentences. It works.
Good question. I stack with an eye to getting as high as the ceiling. It is all about laying a strong foundation and making your self steps to climb up. then you fill in the steps and layers as you get to the end of the load. There is a lot of thought put into stacking so it is as easy on a person as possible.
So happy you have the hay bale delivery set up, and some help! We had to do ours all by hand, with my John throwing them up into the barn loft and me hauling them into place and stacking them. And that’s after loading them from a farmer’s field onto the trailer an hour or more away and bringing them home. You are so right, it’s always a wonderful feeling to know you are set for the winter! 🙂
my mantra is to only move something once but it is impossible with hay. You throw every bale three times. Then one more time when you feed it out. So time consuming.
the clatter box broke down for a while today and I announced that I would NOT farm without it.
It got fixed. 😂
All ! You have such an incredibly good way of organizing and running a system. I’m not surprised that it runs smoothly most of the time.
it is my best thing. Nutting out each step in a process before I begin. And it worked well today!
good morning Celi! It is a beautiful blue sky day here in central Alberta. We have had a perfect amount of rain here lately so everything is lush and green. I love that you have family here in Alberta so you know where I am saying hello from! I am off to yoga and then going to have tea with my mom who is turning 96 in a couple weeks. She does chair yoga two times a week. Have a lovely day in the barn! Del
I also love that you are there! Chair yoga sounds like my kind of yoga!
That barn of yours is a thing of extraordinary beauty. Poetry with cracks to let the wind blow through. I love it. I want to know what it is like to stand in there, to hear the sounds, feel the air, smell the smells. Such lovely fluffy ducklings and such darling wee piglets. Life is looking pretty good Miss C. x
I’ve had a few guinea hogs. They take a bit longer to feed up – about 10 months, as opposed to 6 with the regular meat breeds. Be careful, they are super friendly, so it’s easy to get attached. We had them for pets. They also won’t get anywhere near as big as a regular meat hog. You’re looking at 200 lbs on the hoof instead of 300-350. But they are easy to care for and good natured, so you don’t have to worry about aggression issues.
I am thrilled that you raised them. I knew they were smaller but did not realize they were that much slower to grow. All good info!
One day you should come. But first your new house!
Congrats on finding piglets. From what I found about the American Guinea Hogs, they thrive on pasture, are friendly, easy keepers, produce about 50-60 pounds of meat per animal and taste great. If I was in the position of looking for a meat pig, I think these are what I would get. My step-son is a chef and has mentioned that he loves the guinea hog for flavor, tenderness and overall quality but would love to have a more regular supply. So I will find it interesting to follow your piglets as well as all the other critters.
Yes! I will be very interested to see how they go. Is your step son in Chicago?
No, he’s in Indianapolis.
good morning Celi! It is a beautiful blue sky day here in central Alberta. We have had a perfect amount of rain here lately so everything is lush and green. I love that you have family here in Alberta so you know where I am saying hello from! I am off to yoga and then going to have tea with my mom who is turning 96 in a couple weeks. She does chair yoga two times a week. Have a lovely day in the barn! Del
The weather looks stunning–perfect for outdoor work. The piglets are adorable! I had one next to me in the housing development and when it would escape the house, it was hilarious to watch it run around in the yard. Not so hilarious when it tore up the grass by rooting or when it got enormous and the neighbors couldn’t carry it back into the house. They finally moved out to a farm which I’m sure was best for Nilly the Pig and less stressful for me. I should already know this, but what kind of corn do you grow? Here in Washington we’re one of the top (or the top?) sweet corn producers but I know industrial corn is mostly grown in the Midwest.
This field is organic flint corn. Good for cornmeal and cows! I loved your story of Nilly the Pig. Those people really needed a farm!