The worst and best escape artists

We've all seen seen a prison break film. Whether it was in black and white or whether it was some action packed, shoot-em-up-bang-bang flick. I've enjoyed them as much as the rest of us, although this afternoon i had no idea that i would be reliving an escape I thought we had well under control.

Our pen of tops pigs has decreased by two, leaving only one last sow. A black and white devil of a pig, who seem intent on testing our skills at fence building. She has gotten out three times already since we took the others tot he butcher, but always in the fenced pasture area. All three times she managed to break the twine that we had used to keep the gate in place. No matter how many strands we employed: one, two, three. Some how she always managed to get the corner up and squeeze out.

Becoming frustrated we turned to chains. A thinner chain that came with the kit to set up what is left of the old gate and a thicker chain we had employed on our main gate to keep our cows in when we raised them. I thought for sure that using chain we could keep her in the pen. So you can imagine the sound of surprise and anger when I walked out to the back yard to find not only the big sow, but our two younger sows we are planning to breed this next month. I immediately did my best to get the three of them into a position I felt was safe enough that I could go in and wake the slumbering dragon that was my husband. after some choice grumblings I decided that he was coherent enough to leave him to get dressed to go back outside to try to push them back closer to the pens.

While Jacob was using every device he could think of to get the bigger sow into the pasture, I pleaded, and cajoled the smaller pair of sows to follow the ditch bank back along the fence and to the hill that is the dividing line for our property. Which would have been terribly hard if it were not this little flighty sow. If you so much as look at her funny she wheels about and runs away squealing. it amazing to me how much that pigs and kids run parallel in behavior.

After what seems like hours all three were back in their pens, nerves frayed and tempers flared.

Gates fastened as securely as we could manage. I suppose we will find out soon if our skills at jailing are better than that of our convict pigs.

I long for the soil and sun.

I can't believe that it's nearly the end of May, and yet still so cold. I can't help but sit in the house looking out the window on these cloudy, blustery days and long for warmer temperatures. Most of all I am so excited for our first stab at straw bale gardening.

For years now we have attempted to grow a garden in the land that was left behind after the flood of 1976. The wash of sand gravel and rocks has become as much a frustration as a problem. I've never seen soil so sterile. Of all the things we planted there was very few things we harvested. Peas, beans, spinach, lettuce, and some very reluctant raspberry bushes that actually managed to give us a berry or three. Even our carrots failed to produce anything even worthy of being called baby.

Every year we brainstorm ideas on ways we could make raised beds with out spending a fortune on lumber and top soil. Nothing seemed to meet the requirements that we had. Then one day while we were buying this years seed, we went to Paradise pond and garden. The wife of the owner suggested to us that we look up straw bale gardening. I was skeptical. I figured it would be more like building boxes with the straw and filling it with dirt. Not even close.

As we researched it, we turned out several pages of garden that had been planted in the actual bales after an aging process with nitrogen. I was amazed. I was excited. The prospect of planting a garden without fighting the inclement ground and weeds, and when the bales have been used beyond stability the strings can be cut and the resulting mulch can be tilled into the ground. A major amendment to our soil. I wonder if there is a downside to this.

Now, as the bales aged there is a chance for us to see grain sprouts, which we have in a bale or two. The harvester that reaped the fruit of the parent plant obviously could have been a tad more efficient, but I'll take that over spending days pulling up a carpet of wild oats and other weeds.

As for out other plants, tomatoes, peppers and squash, we will be planting them above ground in tired beds made from tires to be discarded from various tires stores around the area. They absorb heat and hold in moisture, aaaand they are free! What a great way to reuse things bound for the transfer station.

All that is left for me to figure out now is where to put my new strawberry bed, and where i will be transferring my peonies, irises, and tulips later this year. Less dirt under my fingernails, and hopefully a much better harvest.

Just when you forgot long labors...

It has been quite a while since we worried about having a litter of pigs. Enter my husbands greatly increased ambition to find a supplemental income in pigs. Anything really.Yet these past two week that is exactly what i have found to be occupying my thoughts.

Our year old blue butt sow has been on the verge of farrowing her first litter. We expected this litter a good three weeks earlier, and to our disappointment she carried over, meaning that we had our breeding dates wrong. Woah boy! Now it was all guess work.

The sow has been in a foul temper with us because we moved her to a larger cleaner pen, one that we could more easily clean out with a tractor or front loader. We then commenced to run tin around the inside of the pen in attempt to keep the little ones in when they finally got here. Trying to make things better for us and for mama.

Mama of course had other ideas. Where there was no tin on the front gate, the sow would just lay down and mope. Looking out longing through the slats in the pallet at the world outside that would allow her to return to her beloved farrow shed from before.

You almost felt sorry for her. I found myself finding extra little treats to treat to improve her mood. I would spend more time with here during the day when Jacob was at work, rubbing her head, under her chin, or itching her back. Yet, when i left it was the same thing. the same big brown eyes sulking under floppy pink ears.

She has had milk for well over a week and we suspect that she fought off labor twice, but finally today she gave into nature and began her labor by our count at 10 am. She laid in her new shed, with her neatly mounded nest of straw around her, panting like a freight train.

I was so excited that for this litter I would have him here to help me. Given the last litter he left me less than half way through the delivery. Luck jilted me again, as 2 pm passed then three. After that i accepted the fact that it would be all me. Oh joy!

I resolved myself to continuing on with my daily chores, keeping the kids on task with their chores and homework, and trying, in vain mind you, to keep them close to home so that I could mind them and the sow. Eventually I rounded the children up and took them into the house with the exception of my oldest who was still finishing his chores outside. While i was gone I had two false alarms. I was Sure that mama was pushing her babies into the world. WRONG!

It was not until I gave myself more time to try to relax a moment that Skyler came running through the door. "Mom, grab a towel. Mama's got babies!" Finally! I rushed out tot he pen to find mama with three little ones.

I knelt down and rubbed her chin and said, "Ya know mama, If i ever had a labor this long I can't remember. Was it worth it for you?" As if answering me she picked her head up, looking me in the eyes, grunting a few short relieved grunts, then allowed her head to finish delivering her litter.

Nine live all in all. Not bad for a first litter. Yay mama!