The Pig’s Flower Garden

The biggest achievement of the weekend was getting the pig flower garden underway. We planted field peas, oats, sweet corn, alfalfa and an assortment of edible wild flowers and sunflowers. I also emptied all the half empty vegetable seed packs into the hopper.

It will be a medley of colourful nutritious goodness. Then the showers disappeared out of the forecast and yesterday it was hot ( mid 90’s and blowing hard). So we will see. It is all in the lap of the gods now.

And we will be watching you and I.

If it does grow nicely this will be for finishing the white pigs and starting the little black pigs (Guinea hogs). The Guinea hogs do very well on forage so it will be perfect for them.

Thankfully (and on purpose) the chickens are mostly locked up – except for those few ones who elude me. Or they would be scratching around in there robbing me blind.

But other than a few wild doves feeding fast the seed is still in and on the ground.

Ducks

I found Quacker’s nest and discarded her infertile eggs. So, now she is back on the loose. She has discovered the ducklings, they follow her along the fence line, she will walk away then stare back intently. Then come back for them.

But they are enclosed and cannot get out. (do you see the ducklings in their bath through the panel?)

I put water on this side too so Quacker would hang about.

And now I am in a quandary. Do I let the ducklings out to be with her and risk the hawks? Will I be able to get them all back into a safe enclosure for the nights.

Should I keep them locked up just because they are beautiful?

They look so sad when she walks away.

A quandary indeed.

I will try to hold out another week while I set up a night house for them by the pond.

It would take the smallest of movements to set them free.

It is way too hot for heat-lamps now so everything is off except for a light bulb for the chicks in the day time. No way am I letting that lot out yet.

The Kitchens Garden

I planted the last of the tomatoes last night. Driving in the stakes with my post banger thingy. There are four more pumpkins to go out into the pumpkin patch but the plants are still too small. (Rabbits) I am hoping I have zuchinni for the first of the summer visitors coming July 08. And tomatoes from the first plantings.

I need to get more veg seeds.

We are eating broccoli.

Piglets

The piglets are getting tame enough that I am able to anoint their ears with zinc with no trouble. They nibble on my boots while I sit on a bucket in their trailer park enclosure under a tree. These hot bright sunny days are fierce. The piglets are sticking to the shady corners which is good.

The Sustainable Sunday Newsletter

I took a new turn with the TKG Sustainable Sunday newsletter yesterday which was fun. It wrote really smoothly. You see, I am often anxious when telling the old stories – they take a lot of writing and re-writing – so I did something completely different. I wrote a Farmy round up newsletter that was easy and fun to write though it felt like cheating because it was so simple. But it has been well received.

Pop over HERE and have a read and let me know what you think.

And off to work I go. I want to get most everything done while it is still kind of cool. Then the animals can go back to bed. 🤭 under their respective trees.

What shall I video for you today?

Have a good one.

Celi