Piglet time!

Our piglets have arrived! After the dust settled I had a look at the calendar and both litters arrived exactly on the day I had written on the calendar, which amazingly enough, was just a guess! Must have been a good guess!

But, before I share cute piglet pictures and some of the events of that day, I will show you a few pictures of what has been going on here.



Sandhill cranes! Love them, they spent a few days hanging out in the back field before heading on their way. Little farm girl has taken to calling them giraffe birds.



When we first moved to Prince George, the place we lived backed onto a huge ranch and I would put little farm girl in her backpack and go walking. We would find big groups of sandhill cranes and sit deep in the long grass and watch them for hours. The would do such amazing dances and it would just leave me in awe. They have a special place in my heart.

The cat patrol. Always together, always stalking something!

I finally finished my raspberries! I was able to get a huge amount of them transplanted into rows, composted and mulched with wood chips. I am excited to have a much more manageable berry patch.



Charlie is looking sharp! I have been wanting to teach him to drive for a while and now we are one step closer!

And we took the family boating this weekend

Just a short voyage... in the horse pasture...

And our chicks are feathering out, but they still fall asleep if you lay them on their backs. This one is named penguin.

And the pig pictures!
I don't have my usual camera so I didn't get too many good pictures, but I will show you what I have got.

I have to say farrowing is a pretty intense time on the farm. There is great excitement and the joy, and also so much heart ache with the fragility of these new little lives. 



Popcorn was first to start farrowing. She had 5 babies in total. We missed part of the farrowing and between that and having a couple stillborn, she only ended up with 1 piglet. It was a pretty hard night knowing that if we had only gotten there sooner to help we might have saved some of them.

At about 6 in the morning, Lady started nesting with an intensity that I have never seen. She even ripped her water heater out of the wall to add it to her nest. She started farrowing early into the night and we were able to stay with her all through the night.
I did tons a reading before we had piglets born on the farm and none of our farrowings have even been similar to what I have read about, until Lady. Her farrowing was pretty textbook. We pulled the sac off the babies, pointed them in the right direction and they did everything themselves. She had 11 altogether, but we lost two to being stepped on, which I know is not unusual, but is it ever hard on the farmer!





She had a little runt born who is quite a bit smaller than the others, and not able to compete with her siblings. After making sure she got a good amount of colostrum from Lady we moved her over to Popcorn, who had farrowed just 12 hours earlier.

I am still kind of waffling over whether the little one will make it. She is the pink one in the picture below. She hardly opens her eyes, doesn't suck strongly, and just doesn't overall seem to be right. Its almost like she could be blind, but I don't think she is. She is getting stronger though and can regulate her temperature without the heat lamp between feedings.
The last two days I have been putting her on Popcorn to nurse every few hours. I am hopeful that with a bit more attention she will be strong enough to do things on her own.



So this weekend has been pretty intense. The lows of losing those perfect little piglets, with the lack of sleep in the dark of night was pretty rough. But going out every few hours and curling up in the hay with that fragile little piglet next to Popcorn has been so special. The contented grunts from Popcorn, the softness of the little hooves in my hand as I help her up to drink and watching the tender way Popcorn mothers these two makes for some awesome moments.
One of the best parts though was just the delight of little farm girl the first time I took her out and let her hold the little one up to nurse. I don't think I will ever forget the look on her face. Its such special thing to get to share together!

And one last thing before I sign off.
This spring I have been a bit extra busy helping our Youth Group put together our annual Dessert Theatre production. I got to film all the footage and I think some of my highlights of the year were while putting this together. If you watch the video you might get an idea why!
We have just an amazing group of kids and I have been so blessed to get to be part of this. If you have time, come and check it out!