Week #34 - Abundance of all shapes and sizes....

Harvest is in full swing both on our property as well as in the surrounding grain fields. The roads are busy with grain trucks rumbling past and the dust from the combines fills the air. Harvest on our farm lasts a long time and involves many activities. Given the diverse plants and animals we grow and raise, fall is an intense time! We pick for both our customers as well as for us and of course, then have to preserve, can, dry or store our food for the winter as well. This means lots of late nights in the kitchen....

The week held much excitement and milestones along with the steady harvest:

• Patty and her grown piglets have spent the week escaping their corral... at times joining the cows and goats and other times ranging around the property. I think its turning into a bit of a game now for them. Funny in the abstract but tiring and time consuming in reality. 
• We welcomed another new soul to the farm.... Oakley, a sorrel quarterhorse came to stay mid-week and is settling in well. Oakley was a rescue horse that has finally found her forever home. 
• Our youngest celebrated her fifteen birthday.
• We got off the farm to witness the marriage of Farmer Phil's nephew and his lovely partner. Congratulations to Kyle and Sam along with their children Sawyer and Lochlin.
• My second batch of kombucha was a success and my third is on the go. I learned much with my first batch! 
• We canned over 30 pints of salsa and pasta sauce! 
• Our middle child got his driver's license! (look out world!)
• We messed up the date for our chicken processing with the abbatoir and had to do a dash with about 2/3 of the birds in the back of the truck! 
• Oh and we harvested day and night.....I actually caught myself thinking wistfully of winter...

Looking forward to the coming week, as all my duckies (children) are home, I have the week off my off-farm job and Farmer Phil doesn't go back to work until the following week! Hope your week is filled with laughter and love. 

Only on her birthday can she wear her boots in the house

Patty always has the last word...

Week #18 - Farm by numbers

Endless potato planting..

Patty and her brood outside for the first time!

Oliver and Graceson cuddle each night

Caesar, the rooster

Over 900 potatoes planted, 65 tomatoes - all snug in their own kozy koat, 9 pigs moved to their new home, 100s of plants seeded and moved countless times around the greenhouse, three bottles a day for Oliver (the goat kid), 150 new broiler chicks picked up and settled into the brooder, 3 successful hatches of layer chicks, over 2500 feet of irrigation drip tape connected, tested and ready to go! 

It was another busy week but the sore muscles and exhaustion is worth it. We are feeling like we are on track and on schedule. Hope your week was as fruitful and satisfying! 

Pig play...

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The pigs are loving the snow and can often be found rolling, digging and generally frolicking in the drifts. 

Playful pair

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This pair of playful pigs are a new breed for us. They are a cross between a Longrace Duroc and Berkshire. (We typically do purebred Berkshire)

The Duroc produces a long body, different colouring and smaller eyes than the Berkshire.

This pair are curious, vocal and very aware of what is going on around them. There is no sneaking up on them!

If you give a pig a pumpkin...

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Our pigs are happy Hallowe'en is over as they are enjoying everyone's leftover jack-o-lanterns! 

Beware the big bad wolf...

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Today three little pigs came to stay at the farm! 

These little cuties gave Farmer Phil a work out to catch them... which was fun in the heat. What should we name them?

An old soul....

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In the spirit of throwback Thursdays, I share with you one my favorite souls... 

Several years ago, one of our son's got two potbellied pigs (as pets). They were sisters who he affectionately named Bubba & Chunk! It didn't take them long to grow into their names! 

This is Chunk.... she was my favourite. That face!

Everyone loves company!

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Everyone loves visitors to the farm. Today we had good friends over who are regulars at the farm. 

The pigs, cows and goats particularly like being hand fed tender greens by their their red-headed friend!

The nose knows...

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Not that long ago, I was complaining that I couldn't get a picture of our piglets as they wouldn't come close to us... well how things have changed. 

Always curious... and hungry, they come to greet us whenever we are around. 

This one was willing me to pick him the fresh dandelion shoots that were just on the other side of the fence. Which is ironic given that they are in a large open area several hundred square feet in area... full of dandelions! #sillypigs

Frisky business

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Tic, Tac and Toe were frisky tonight, running around the field and squealing and grunting with some unknow-able pig emotion (although it sounded like delight!). 

Don't ask me which one is Tic and which is Toe.... they don't come when you call them anyway! 

Thirsty pig!

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Our pigs use a nipple system attached to a water tank to get fresh water at all times.  

These pigs are shy!

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I've been trying to get some pictures of the piglets for days but every time I got remotely close to them they would take off! 

This is the best I could do today and that was only cause we bribed them with some whey. 

They are Berkshire pigs that live in a large treed area. They are new to our farm so hopefully they will warm up to us (and the camera) in the near future! 

Bubba and Chunk

Bubba loved to get dirty!

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I stumbled upon this picture of Bubba today and thought I would share her story with you. 

Bubba and her sister Chunk were two pot belly pigs who we first met at the AMazeIn Corn - a local corn maze that featured a small petting zoo. Our middle son who was then around 9 or 10 years old fell in love with them, so naturally at the end of the season, we brought them home. Two cute, little pigs!

As you can see they grew into their names, filling out in various directions, reveling in Caleb's attention. Unlike other pigs that came and went on our farm, Bubba and Chunk stuck around from one season to the next. 

Caleb even bred them both as part of a 4-H project and learned many lessons about raising piglets - fun and not so fun. 

A day of discovery...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 31

Today we took nineteen kids on a day of discovery. Thanks to a grant from FCC we were able to take all the kids in our 4H club to the Food and Farm Research Centre just south of Winnipeg. 

Many of the kids live in towns and have not given much thought to where their food comes from. They were able to explore how pigs and dairy cows are raised, ground their own flour to make bread and explored the eggs-citing world of chickens!