A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the King. - Emily Dickinson

We have gone slightly mad.  Already sunburned - never shoed - or indoors.  We cannot get enough of our lover Spring.

That includes but isn't limited to adopting a kitten - Marmalade.  Who could say no to her orangeness?

We also got some foster hens from a friend - which means instant eggs.  I love it.  Yesterday while walking inside with three warm eggs in my hand my heart leapt within me.  I am in love with my life.  30+ hens and counting...

But with that madness has come some interesting DEVELOPMENTS...

Do you know what is wrong with this picture?  Yes, it is slightly obscene - but it shouldn't be.  This pig is supposed to be castrated.  Is he?  No, no he is not.  Which means we can't let him get over 200 lbs(around the time of sexual maturity) or else his meat will be tainted and yucky.  So, Mister Mister, you're gonna be bacon a lot sooner than we expected.  Like in less than two weeks.    I'll take pictures, I promise.

So, farewell Porkchop - it was good while it lasted.

Here piggy piggy....

So, yes, we got ourselves a couple of pigs.  We actually bought them a couple weeks ago but they weren't weaned yet so we had to wait until this week to get them.  We were so anxious to get them that when the day arrived and the owner said we'd have to wait to get them because she had to make an emergency trip to the dentist we were pretty bummed.  OR she said we could just go on our own without her and get them.  So, we loaded up, made the drive to Colville, WA and got those pigs.  And it was great.

Wait, no, it was actually really really REALLY awful.  It actually was so terrible that on the drive home I was sure I had made a mistake about pigs and actually being a farmer in general.  Speaking of which, having your dreams come true on days when you are really hormonal is a bummer.  Here you are finally doing the thing you've dreamed about for years and all you feel is rage rippling through your body every time your child whines followed by the desire to cry.  So, ya, that's where I'm at.  Anyhow, getting the pigs...

We pulled up and I left three of my four kids in the car while my oldest and I climbed into the pig "pen".  This pen was a little shed built out of plywood with about 8x8x8 dimensions.  Inside there was a VERY large lactating sow and probably ten or so piglets - all laying in sticky, wet, slightly frozen mud...mingled with pig poop.  In this instance I am tempted to use a stronger word for poop because "poop" sounds cute and slightly clean and flowery compared with the stuff that was several inches deep in there.  It was foul.  So we started by trying to corner the piglets so we could grab them.  Which created LOTS of squealing.  Have you ever heard a piglet squeal?  It's LOUD.  Try having 10 piglets squealing in an 8x8 plywood dungeon of poop.  It's disturbing.  And mother pig agreed that it was disturbing that there were two humans terrorizing her babies and making a chorus of blood curdling squeals.  So she started in on the fun by grunted loudly - more like a growl - then charging us.  So as we are sliding around in this hell hole trying to grab these 30 pound piglets we also are being chased by a 300+ lb momma.  It was impossible.  It actually terrified and humbled me so much that I turned to prayer.  I can't remember if that was before or after I screamed at the momma, "I AM GOING TO EAT YOUR BABIES!!!"  After my prayer was uttered I remembered that we had some french fries on the floor of the car - you know, naturally - we had just had lunch at McDonald's.  So I sent Elijah for a few.  When he got back I had him feed very hungry and very mean momma while I grabbed a piglet by it's back leg.  Grabbing it by it's other back leg, I lifted it into the air.  At which moment it stopped squealing and Elijah, momma pig, and I stared in silence...for a moment.  But then the piglet starting squealing EVEN louder and flailing all over the place and momma started to charge - so I grabbed that thing like a football(pigskin?) and jumped out.  Shakily I shoved the crap covered baby into the cat carrier in the back of my car, and walked back to the pen - noting that several goats and a couple horses had come over to watch the show.

I should mention that at this point the dream of being a farmer had left me.

I climbed back in and did it again - this time finding that momma didn't give me a moment before charging.  It felt like slow motion.  My heart was pounding, I was weak and as I jumped over the wall I noticed that I could see the whites of momma pigs eyes VERY clearly.  Elijah followed as I shoved pig number two into the carrier.  After which realizing that I was C-O-V-E-R-E-D in poop.  Disgusting, green, thick, sticky poop - everywhere.  Since there was no one home to let us in to clean up, we shoved our hands into the snow and tried scrubbing them off that way.  I also remembered I hadn't finished my water from lunch and poured about a quarter cup of ice water onto my hands to "clean" them.   Unsuccessful with getting clean, we got into the car and got out of there.

The drive home took over an hour and a half.  The car reeked so badly that my stomach was churning, Asher cried the entire way home and I had no strength left in me.  Except for that rage I was talking about.  I didn't even want to bring the pigs home.  I didn't want to see another pig ever again.  EVER.  Elijah summed it up when he said, "Mom, I am going to have no problem killing those pigs."

Luckily, when we got home and let them into their clean and comparatively palatial pen - they looked cute.  They snorted around, rooting through the dirt, and looked happy.  So we were happy.  We had ourselves some pigs.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas A. Edison

We bought this place so that we could be gentleman farmers.  And it is a great place to do that but not without a little work.  We know that come spring we've got to reinforce the rafters in the barn and replace most of the roofing.  Once that's done we can start cleaning out all of the old horse poop and miscellaneous junk.  And then we need to add on a pen for the pigs and a coop for the chickens.  Next there is the fencing.  We've got fencing surrounding our entire property but some of it is leaning pretty far to one side and some is hanging so loose that the deer and Yogi just hop right over or under it's barbed wire.  That won't do - if we were to put a couple rambunctious milk goats in there - they'd be trotting down the road in no time.  At least that's what we've heard.  We keep saying maybe we'll put off getting those goats because we just don't know where to start.  Then there are piles of rotted wood to remove or chip, apple trees that haven't been properly pruned in decades, an eight foot deer proof fence that needs to go up around our proposed garden area, and then that spring that I mentioned needs a little work.  It runs into an old bath tub in the front pasture.  It's always running but we need to get to it's source and clean it out all of the mud and mineral build up to make it run even faster.  What that means is that 50 yards uphill of where it comes out is a holding tank underneath a "floor" of boards.  If we get those up we can get down there and get that done.  

But before all of that gets done we need to build a treehouse.  We have been talking about and promising a treehouse to our boys for years and years.  And this spring we really need to make good on that.  We figure we'll start simple and over time add on to it.  How are we going to get all of this done?  Who knows.  For now, we wander out and pick up pine cones.  They make the perfect kindling once they dry and gathering them makes us feel like we are playing "farm" or at least like pioneers.

 It is a lot of work - especially when there is a lot to do inside the house as well.  But there are days like today when the snow has melted and the breeze is high and the eagles play and roll in the sky above us.  A few days back we sat on our deck as the sun set and watched a bald eagle circle - and each time he turned toward the sun the white on his head and tail caught the bending light and glowed bright pink.  It was truly breathtaking.   And today we found hundreds of lady bugs camped out all over a tree trunk in the sun.  And my boys get to grow up seeing things like that all the time.  I can't wait to see how that will affect who they will become.

Easter Came Early

We really struggle to find gifts for Easter that will remind our boys what we are celebrating and the sacredness of it - and avoiding all the materialism that has crept into every other gosh darned holiday.  But this year we found a gift that they would be excited about and that would kinda embody the day.  And once we though of it - we couldn't wait until the weekend.  We got them chicks and here they are!

We got one for each member of the family so that we never run out of eggs.  We got three different breeds - all good layers.  Black Australorps, Rhode Island Reds, & Americaunas.  Americaunas don't lay as many eggs - like maybe 3 a week but they are bluish greenish eggs and they are such beautiful birds that we couldn't turn them down.  I would have liked to have found a Wyandotte and a Barred Rock but didn't this time.  Here's a close-up of the Americauna:

And here are some other cute ones:

Getting cozy to stay warm:

Tired so fast...

And the poopy outtake of the first image...

These chicks are all about a week old and won't lay eggs for at least 20 more weeks  - which means we're looking at late August.  I wasn't planning on starting with chicks again but they're just so cute and irresistible...don't you think?  And it's fun to bond with your birds and they with you. I always notice a difference with the hens I raise from birth to the ones I buy as older pullets.

Happy Easter!

p.s.  I've had several people ask me how I took these shots.  It was actually really simple.  I had already taken some product shots for a friend on some white butcher paper.  I took the paper and taped it up behind - letting it roll out in front without an noticeable edge creating a never-ending white backdrop.  It was right next to a bunch of bright windows that I used for my lighting.   It's super easy and you could use any color paper.  Maybe I'll do a "how-to" post some time...