Dirt Rich

We had a busy and productive weekend last weekend. And fun of course too!



We started by picking up a few weaned piglets from a local farm to add to our little Berkshire herd. They are a week younger and a little bit smaller, but they are incredibly tough little things. I introduced them and they immediately proceeded to scrap with and dominate each of our little berkie piglets. After the first hour together, the black piglets would make a wide berth around the pink pigs, and even now there is little doubt about who is in charge in the pig pen.





They are so much fun. Our chores take twice as long because we end up sitting and just enjoying their rambunctious play and curiosity.




The next long weekend order of business was adding some good old dirt to the garden. That is something we are not in short supple of! We imagine this used to be a manure pile many, many years ago. Its a big pile of rich dark dirt. I know Matt is getting into a farming mindset because this weekend he refered to it as our "gold mine."



We had planned to rent a dump trailer and get all our dirt piled and moved, and do all our winter manure into compost piles at the same time. Turned out the dump trailer from the rental place had broke this weekend. We decided to use the pick up truck and unload by shovel. After the first load we looked at each other and remarked that this was going to be a lot more work than we had planned. But, we decided that if this farm fails, it certainly won't be because we were afraid to sweat. So sweat we did...

I parked the happy little farmers on a picnic blanket and load by load we made progress.

Little farm girl found her first toad of the summer. He spent his afternoon being ferried back in forth in the truck and being thoroughly loved and talked to. He was a good sport about it, but seemed to be happy to hop away once evening fell.

We wanted a good three or four inches deep and it took a lot of loads

As I unloaded the last load as Matt started to till it in

And now the garden is ready! I was hoping to have a good start at planting and seeding it too but little farm boy is teething and he needs me right now, and he is a little more important!



Here was another project of mine. I couldn't believe the terrible job I did hot lining this last year and I had to refence it all to get our sows out. I was showing Matt how ridiculous it was and he said something that really encouraged me. I was crawling around pulling insulators and rewiring and kicking myself the whole time and he came and just said " last year you were learning, now you know." Its true and its wonderful to be gaining experience even though we have to learn the hard way sometimes. If we waited until we knew exactly what we were doing with everything, nothing would ever get done!

Happy sow

Over the long weekend we also did our "Pig Haying". We bought about 4500 lbs of pig feed and moved it with 5 gallon pails to where we want it stored over the summer. Like haying, its big job, and like haying, once you do it you are stored up and set for a good chunk of time.



There is lots more fencing on our agenda too. The posts here are rotten to the point of not touching the ground in lots of places. In this spot the whole business came down under the snow.

We also moved all our various piles of hay, bedding and manure to make into compost.



We moistened it as we unloaded, and alternated between loads of our various compostable materials. Its a good sized pile already which is exciting!

And another adventure in progress. Last year we didn't get any chicks from our incubating attempts so I am not going to count my chickens...
We have a flock of our favourite hens in the barn with the rooster to collect fertile eggs from. I will candle over the coming weekend and we will see how things are progressing.



And it hasn't been all work and no play. We had guests this week all the way from Ontario! We very much enjoyed the company of Uncle Joe and Aunt Margaret and they brought us some special treats. Here are our treasured, handmade Nana socks all the way from the other side of the country!



And lastly, I accidentally broke some eggs yesterday. The one on the left is a fertile one from the chickens tucked in the barn, the other is from our pastured layers who are out on grass. I was amazed to see the colour difference! Even the whites from the pastured egg are golden!

And for those who are curious of how to tell if an egg is fertile. Each egg has a circular dot on the yolk called the blastoderm. Its pretty obvious on the golden yolk.
If you can make the picture bigger, the blastoderm on the yellow yolk is at about 8:00 on the circle
If its just a circular dot, like on the golden one, its not fertile.
If its looks like a bulls eye, which you can vaguely make out on the golden one if you expand the picture, its fertile.
I guess that is your farm fact of the day!