pig in a truck

 

one of the berkshire/tamworth piglet runts didn’t make it through last night. He was acting a little weak the last few days, and was dead in their hay nest this morning. in an effort to isolate our fragile newborns from the sick piglet who has been hiding in their nest (see yesterday), we plucked him out of general population, and inserted him into our sow pen. hopefully the individual attention from his mother will help him recover. it’s clear that he’s feeling sick, because no healthy piglet would have been so easily carried and held. he had nothing in him.

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Floating Pig Shelter

when it’s nine am, twenty eight degrees, and you’re in your backyard sawing down twenty-five foot bamboo shafts to build a floating pig shelter in the woods—you’ll be smiling too. raising animals on pasture, or in the hog’s sake, on woodlot, means to have the ability to adapt to completely unexpected scenarios—constantly!—and to react to them through the most efficient, smartest, and cheapest (ideally $zero) manner possible.  over the next two days we are expected to have the coldest weather this region has experienced in over one hundred and fifty years (this early in the season).  considering the small size, and young age, of many of pch’s residents—including our surprise newborns—we have decided to take a little preemptive action and provide some quick hay nests for the herd to nestle into. 

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a teedle ee do tee day

tee dum, tee dee
a teedle ee do tee day
we’re out for fun
and this is the game we play:
come on, join in
and sing your troubles away
with a teedle ee dum
a teedle do tee day
we’re following the leader, the leader, the leader
we’re following the leader wherever he may go.

piglets join general population, humans make funny noises

another graduating class of piglets make their first little hoof prints on the rough streets of general population. as they leave the small piglet pen they have inhabited for the last month, they are leaving behind their entire world.  it’s all they know. 

knew. 

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billy madison & carl

billy madison:  hey carl, what’s up?

carl:  nothing much billy.  i see you got a little [mud] today

billy madison:  you think so?  i fell asleep by the [wallow] for a few hours.

carl:  d’you fall asleep, or did you pass out?

billy madison:  [aaaHARHARHAR] SHUT UP [<-press play]

kitchen scraps

each night when i bring my kitchen scraps over to pork chop hill i’m torn on who to feed.  the buckets we bring from the restaurant can always be spread around the herd, but our little kitchen produces a much more selective slop dispersal process.

usually it’s the piglets, but tonight pregnant miss berkeley takes home the prize:  grassfed sirloin, fresh off the grill (four days ago).