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!

Patience

I am trying my best to be patient. You would think after the whole winter a couple more weeks would be no big deal!
The snow is only left in shady piles and its been barefoot weather for the last few days, but despite that I haven't fully launched into spring. Its crazy muddy here (we call this time of year the ugly time) and its still freezing hard overnight so I haven't been able to trust the greenhouse to keep my seedling safe just yet.
Patience!



We had our first batch of chicks hatch and they were crazy cute! We hatched them for a friend much to the little farmers despair, but we have another incubator full and running now. I also borrowed a friends Barred Plymouth rock rooster and we are hoping to hatch some purebreds to round out our flock this summer.



One morning this week when I was doing chores I couldn't stop admiring this birch tree. The sun was making it bright white against the sky and it was just alive with robins chattering. When I came back with my camera all the birds were out in the hay field. I waited and watched and they didn't seem inclined to return. Just as I was leaving a huge wave of robins flew up into the tree. A bald eagle had flown over at just the right minute and scared them all into the trees. So I got my picture after all.



My little pepper plants. Is it weird that I am finding my seedlings really cute? Especially the little tomatoes with their tiny tomato leaves and tomatoey smell.



The cucumbers just exploded. I need to get them out of the house before they take the whole place over.

The garlic all mulched with hay. This is my first time growing garlic and I am really excited for it!



My window frames where I am planting squash beside the greenhouse. I wanted to get it out of the house because its all growing tall and leggy but we have been freezing so hard overnight. I just need to keep being patient!

The hardest part of being patient. Its got to be dry enough to ride soon! 

Little farm girl gives these ponies a lot of attention.

and they seem to really like it.

This piggy is starting to feel big and awkward. We can't wait for piglets! 

You can really see the belly when she lies down.

A popular sport around here: Cat fishing!

Little farm girl has been taking pictures. I love to look through them and see what her perspective is! Here she is taking a picture of her favourite rooster, Cola. We are saving some eggs to have chicks fathered by him in our next batch. I really can't imagine a lovelier rooster than him. I am excited to see if his babies will have his gentle relaxed attitude.

The Adventure Begins!

Welcome Spring!!



It is totally feeling and acting like spring, and I can't hold off any longer!
The birds are singing in the trees, everything is dripping and I have even seen some green grass!
Here are some of the fun and exciting things going on around the farm:



Riding! Little farm girl was given this amazing child sized saddle over the winter. She is just thrilled with it and for the first time can do a real posting trot! She wants to ride everyday, but its still a bit too icy.



And here is me in my natural habitat: Boots and spurs, covered in horse hair and jeans ripped from too many winter hours playing horse in the living room. But very happy.



And here is a fun experiment we did last week. I was wanting to build a hot bed, which is a planting bed built over a some active compost. The compost heats the soil so you can grow when its normally too cold to plant. We came to the conclusion that we don't really have time for extra projects, but then a friend gave me this neat idea. We dug a little pit in our compost pile and put this pot in it and planted it with spinach seeds.



Here is our view while we were planting. Definitely not springlike.



Here is the temperature of the compost, 90F.



Then we put a square of plastic over the top. I have been checking it and it is quite warm underneath. I hope I don't roast all the seeds! I will have to keep checking and see what happens, if it works I would love to do more of that next year. The compost pile has pretty much been bare at the top all winter so I know it stays warm.



SEEDS! Little farm girl and I started a chunk of our greenhouse plants today. It was really fun to do together and I was so thrilled to see that we really make a great team. I am pretty happy I spent so much time letting her help when she was little, even though it often made everything much harder.
She punched all the holes and covered the seeds up while I labeled, recorded and dropped seeds in. The job went so quickly and was so enjoyable to do together! Now we just have to be patient, and keep little farm boys curious hands away!

I am hoping he will have the self control not to get into the seeds, but I am not going to count on it! He is such a curious little man. I bought this little greenhouse mainly with the purpose of being able to zip everything in and away from little fingers.



An another reason to be patient. Eggs incubating! These are for a friends flock, but its pretty exciting still! They go into lockdown on sunday, and then only three more days until we should have some chicks making an appearance!



And here was the craft of the day. Nope, not Easter related...
Since I moved the chickens out of the greenhouse and into the barn, one of the flocks has started eating their eggs. Very frustrating! Some days I would find 5 eggs pecked clean in the nesting boxes.

I checked their calcium and diet, everything seemed alright.
I first tried filling those empty eggs with mustard and placing them back in. It seemed to work in that that chickens that I saw going after them seemed like the didn't enjoy it, but by the next time I went to collect eggs, the mustard eggs would be totally gone. I was a bit worried I was just teaching them that egg shells = treats so I stopped that.

Then I watched and removed the birds I saw pecking at the eggs. I took four out and still I would find an egg or two broken and empty. I finally put those hens back in.
Since then I have been sprinkling fresh hay around with every egg collection to keep them busy and scratching elsewhere and that seems to reduced the amount of eggs that get broken.

This is my next step and if this doesn't yield results I think I will make nesting box curtains so the eggs are out of sight and hopefully out of mind.



Today we sanded the plastic Easter eggs and painted them with a non toxic paint. It was actually pretty fun trying to match the egg colours exactly and adding speckles and texture. I am hoping this will help the problem and hopefully be a bit of prevention for future birds who peck around at the eggs.



Hopefully next post I will have some really cute chick pictures for you!

More Winter

Winter is a still upon us.
I haven't posted much recently, mainly because there is not too much excitement during this time of year but also because I get pretty tired of taking snow pictures!

But anyway, here is a snowy update from the farm.



This winter has actually been really nice. We have had long stretches of warm weather and the snow is still just a fraction of the amount from previous years. Its only February and we are already getting some really spring like weather.



The pigs just love the sunshine and warm weather. They spend lots of time out rooting in the snow, which leaves them with the cleanest faces I have ever seen on a pig!

This black fellow above is the boar we borrowed. Dodge has to be one of the nicest tempered pigs I have ever met, and that is something we really value here!

Popcorn giving him some love

Here is an example of our snow level. Last year I could walk over that fence without even having to adjust my stride!



The carrots are as tasty as ever. I stored them in sand this year and they are still juicy and crisp into February. I  have lots left so we will see how far they take us!

And there are some really awesome things about winter that I am loving.



Winter is so beautiful in lots of ways! The crisp mornings with the sun coming up, frost that blankets everything into textured white, and the fresh snow that resets the whole landscape to being brand new again!



Winter can feel kind of stark and long but every now and then I find moments so rich and bright that is makes the whole winter worth it. One of my favourites is going out to feed my horses on a black night when with the sky is crowded with stars. I climb up onto my favourite horse and lie back with his rump as my pillow. With his warmth against my back, the quiet lullaby of the horses chewing hay and the crunch as they shift in the snow I can just marvel at the stars. So relaxing, and at the same time, so invigorating.

I love watching the kids learn. Little farm girl has been taking on more and more responsibility, and even little farm boy has been trying his little hand at certain tasks. The only thing that usually rushes us is the cold, so there is lots of time for little hands to practice new skills.




There is also such a gradually building excitement for spring! It started with the horses beginning to shed their winter coats. The trees around the farm suddenly being alive with chattering birds that haven't been heard around here for a long time. Today, we explored buds on the trees and teeny green shoots on the tops on the raspberry canes. Sometimes I am not sure what is better, spring time, or the great anticipation of it!