piglets aplenty

I hope you'll excuse my absence from this space for the past few days. I have a lot on my mind, and, for the past 24 hours anyway, two sick kids on my hands. I was able to sneak away for a few minutes by myself yesterday, so I headed out to check in with Matilda and Spotty (the most recent sow to farrow). Matilda was in a funk, too. Not very happy to have me poking about, she sidled up to me and swiftly knocked me sprawling! Luckily, I was crouched down in the clean straw outside the hut, so I had neither far to fall nor a nasty surprise to land in. After she made her point, I think she felt better, and she did let me spend a few minutes with her piglets. Her twelve are doing great. Just two weeks old now and they're hale and hearty, every single one. 

Then, down the little muddy lane to Spotty's hut. Spotty farrowed nine piglets last Thursday, but lost one in the first day - one little piglet who didn't get out of Mama's way in time. There was one other piglet who was injured sometime immediately after being born (she was probably stepped on - sadly, not an uncommon event), leaving her with a rather large, but not open, wound on her belly. Craig was pretty pessimistic about her chances (fearing internal injuries), but she made it. In fact, she's doing just fine, healing beautifully. 

Here's Spotty, napping with one eye open, tracking my every move.

Thanks for the visit, Lady Pigs! You might not have been thrilled to see me, but it is always a joy to see you.

special delivery

The phone rang at just after 7:00 yesterday morning. When the phone rings before 9:00, and Craig is out somewhere on the farm, I always assume it will be him, calling to tell me that something terrible has happened. But no, yesterday morning it was Sue, our post lady, calling to say, "Your chicks are here." Being a rural PO, this is pretty routine business, but - no matter how many times I've done this - it is very special indeed to walk into the post office and hear, coming from somewhere behind the counter, the peep-peep-peeping of 225 now two-day-old chicks. Here they are, our future layers!

If all goes according to plan (does it ever?) this will be the last time we'll order chicks. We want to be hatching out all of our own laying hens, incubating our own eggs right here on the farm, but I just couldn't quite make it happen this Winter, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Next time. Next time we need hens, they'll really be our hens.

Not that these girls aren't ours. They are! Our sweet, tiny, puffball mini-hens.

Hello there, little one!

Warmth in numbers...

Now, we've got to get to work on that second mobile coop - these birds grow so fast! It'll be about five months before they start to think about laying eggs, but they'll be big enough to move into their coop well before they're laying, so that old farm clock is a'ticking...

extremes

On Wednesday, it was warm enough that the bees were out of their hives, and I felt I could open up the top to have a quick look inside.

And this morning, we awoke to the second snowfall since October.

Already, at 2:00 in the afternoon, most of this snow is a mushy rained-on mess. 

But for a morning, after a week of extremes, all was silent and white and beautiful. Winter. Just for a moment.

checking in with the bees

This is one of my most favorite things to see on a warm Winter day. Bees! My bees! Alive and well. Yesterday was both warm and sunny, and the bees were out, taking their cleansing flights, nosing about to see if there is any pollen available yet. There isn't, and there won't be for a while yet (mild Winter aside), so I'll need to feed both hives. 

The other thing that was happening at the hives yesterday was robbing. Not a good thing. As soon as I spotted the frenzied activity outside the hives, I ran back to the house to grab the entrance reducers. Off came the mouse guards, in went the reducers, and it only took about ten seconds for the robbers to give up and head back to their own hives. I don't generally use reducers, but to save my hives? Absolutely. 

If you keep bees, remember to check your hives in these mild Winter days!

turning three

Today, Evie turns three. Evie is my niece, but is generally known as sister to my Thatcher and Greta. Evie is as smart as a whip, as cute as a button, and as polite as the day is long. She's a wonderful kid, and I'm thrilled she has inadvertently named herself as one of my children.

For her Big Third Birthday Party, Evie requested a rainbow theme. My sister the designer happily obliged.

What a difference a year makes. I've realized that three is the first year for which a party really matters.

It's the first time a kid can blow out all the candles! (Unless you're Thatcher, who, at his party in October, screamed bloody murder and made his godfather blow out the candles.) Evie is an ace candle blower-outer. And a bit of a ham, too.

My cupcake. With an M&M heist in progress.

After lunch, an odd lump appeared on the couch...

An odd lump with two sets of small feet and one set of very long legs.

It's a Granddad Lump! Otherwise known as a camping expedition tent holder-uper. This expedition required flashlights for the dark, swords to fight off the coyotes and bears, and peals of sugar-crazed laughter, of course.

(Yup, that there is my Dad. And the painting behind the couch? That's by my Mom.)

There is no shortage of love between these two...

The Birthday Girl!

Happy Third Birthday, dear Evie. We love you more than you can possibly know! Hugs & kisses, today and always.

small wonders

"Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. 

Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." - Henry David Thoreau

This summer, for the first time in many years, I will have a proper garden. It will be my first real garden here on this farm. Sure, I've planted things every year since I've been here, but just a few starts or herbs or perennials here and there; nothing like a real, honest to goodness, planned out ahead of time, seeds started indoors, rows with markers, neatly ordered then rapidly descending into wild chaos sort of a Garden. This may seem a bit early in the year for a seed post, but in reality (not that this will be shocking to anyone who knows me) I'm already behind the game. I have a great deal of work to do to make this garden happen. But I am determined! I will have a garden this year. And it will, mark my words, overflow with the bounty that is hiding there - right there! - inside that spread of seed packet glory. Magical things, seeds.

Here are a few favorite seed packets, all from the local (yes, I know how lucky I am to have a LOCAL seed company!) Hudson Valley Seed Library. Not only am I wildly lucky to have this company nearby, I furthermore have the extraordinarily great good fortune to have them come to me! Well, OK, not just to me, but to the Amenia Winter Market. They joined us for one December market (do you see the fantastic results of my shopping spree?) and will be back again for the March 17th market. I'll be helping them with a seed starting demonstration, where I hope we'll be able to send every interested participant home with several types of potted seeds, window-sill-ready, garden-bound. 

How will your garden grow this year?

naughty sheep

Remember a few weeks ago - we finally moved the sheep to the yard right outside our house? And the sheep immediately became obsessed with our window? Ha ha ha, remember that? Ha ha ha, Sheep TV?... Here is a photograph taken of the sheep this morning. Yes, taken from inside the house. Hmmm - is there something odd about this photo? Maybe it is a bit, I don't know, too clear a view?

Take a really good look.

This morning, over in the far side of the house, I heard a rather loud but somewhat muffled bang, followed by a tinkling sound, a nice wind-chimey sort of a sound. It took a minute for me to figure out what had happened.

Yes, the window. Smashed to bits by those little cloven hooves. Thanks, Weena and Oona. Thanks a bunch. 

Naughty, naughty sheep. 

And silly, silly shepherds...

a few small discoveries

Weena and Oona don't like apples. I thought I'd give them a nice treat, but the next day, I found the apples, nary a nibble missing, dunked into the water tub and left there to freeze overnight. Or perhaps this is the sheep version of a Winter sun catcher? 

On a cold Winter's day, the warmest place on this farm is here, deep underneath the tangled black and white made-for-Norway mess that is Elsa's mane.

There were thirteen piglets after all. The thirteenth was a little runt who didn't make it past the first day. Piglet size aside, the fact is that Matilda only has twelve teats, making it impossible for her to carry more than twelve piglets. This is an important lesson for us (one must always be learning from mistakes on a farm). In the future, when selecting breeding sows from our own litters, we will remember to count the teats. Not saying that Matilda isn't a good sow, not at all. Just that our method of selecting breeding stock needs a little refinement going forward.

What discoveries have you made this week?

quiet, for a moment

A quiet moment in an otherwise chaotic day.

Is there anything more soothing to the soul than this?

The perfect antidote to the circus that was my yesterday.

Want to know something? When your DSLR camera falls off the sideboard onto the stone floor below causing you to shout a string of obscenities, your toddler will gleefully shout them all back at you, over and over and over. Want to know something else? It is possible - when you are very VERY lucky - to repair a totally broken apart camera lens using a screwdriver and brute force. Want to know the craziest thing of all? If, when your camera falls off the sideboard, if it has the great good fortune to land on a wooden crochet hook - a crochet hook! - instead of the bluestone floor, it might not instantly shatter into a million pieces. No, it might even work just fine... I don't know how to crochet, not a single stitch. But I think I might have to start.

I took a sweet little video of Matilda and her piglets, and got nothing but error messages when I tried to load it into a blog post. So if you have not yet had enough of PigletLove, then you can jump on over to our farm's facebook page for a quick glimpse into the world of a nursing Mama Sow.

And on that note, before evening chores, I still have a bit of work to wrap up, so I had best get back to it. Just wanted to take a deep breath and stop here to say hello. Hello! Hello, friends!

Anybody else have a disaster-narrowly-averted to report?

the woodcutter, a valentine

Work is love made visible. - Kahlil Gibran

Once upon a time there was a man. A farming, woodcutting, hard working kind of a man, who also just so happened to be a handsome fellow. Now, this man had two children, and these two children loved him very much. He also had a wife, and she loved him very much. This man had animals, hundreds of animals. Pigs and cows and chickens and sheep and horses and dogs and cats and bees. All of these animals loved the man very much, as he was good to them always. For his family and for all of the many creatures on his farm, this man did a huge great deal of very hard work.

One day, when the man's young son was supposed to be napping, the man said, "I am going out to cut wood". Upon hearing these words, the boy said, "I'm going out to cut wood, too, because I'm a hard worker".

Out in the woods, the man's young daughter saw how hard her father and brother were working, and how happy they were in their work, and she said "Goo ba maa daa ba goo goo", which means, "I'd like to cut wood, too, because I'm going to be a hard worker". And the man was happy. And the boy was happy. And the little baby girl and the wife were all happy.

And when the wood was cut and loaded and split and loaded again, the man brought the wood to his house, where it warms - to this very day! - his whole family. And when his family is warm and snug in their house on their farm surrounded by all of their animals, they think of the man and how much they love him.

Warmth is love made palpable.

this (last) week

Well, this post was supposed to happen yesterday. But it didn't. Thus, this (last) week. I'm afraid I'll need to apologize in advance for not being more on the ball this coming week, either. You know, that work deadline that comes around like clockwork is here again, and so I'm back in front of the dueling computers trying to concentrate in the midst of playing referee to a toddler and a baby while accomplishing all of the ordinary daily chores, too. Oh joy. Well, the quicker I get it done, the quicker I can get back to being a full (and more fun) participant in this crazy farm-and-kid-centric life of ours.

Anyway, this past week culminated in a sadly ill toddler, but one who knew just how to heal himself. He woke up feverish and feeling crummy, so made a nest on the couch, slept for several hours, woke up still feeling crummy, transferred to his bed, slept several more hours, then hopped out of bed saying, "I feel great!" And he did! Miraculous. I wish all colds could come and go so quickly!

This week, another mostly mild one, saw lots of things going on around here. The chickens - beginning on the day of the Snow Moon - have doubled their egg production. Thank you, ladies!

We welcomed a new litter of piglets (Matilda has kept all twelve and they're doing great!). I've told Craig that he has made the Next Best Breakthrough in Modern Non-Industrial Hog Farming by designing and building a translucent-roofed farrowing hut. He is absolutely convinced (and I agree completely) that the increased light inside the hut gives both the sow and the piglets improved visibility, thereby allowing them to stay out of the way of one another at important moments. And when a tiny newborn piglet can stay out of the way of a great big Mama sow, let's just say things work out better for the piglet. Well done, my dear husband. Very, very well done.

Thatcher and I spent some time visiting with the older pigs (so they won't feel put out by the babies, of course).

We went skiing! Tried out a new method for the first time - worked like a charm.

We marveled at the casual and daily beauty that is Mother Nature.

I got a project out of the way - with help from Thatcher - working outside in the warm sun. 

We assembled a whole stack of supers, and worked on the frames of foundation to fill them.

I switched a no-longer-quite-so-tiny girl from the front to the back, and breathed a big sigh of relief.

I helped an amazing artist and a big bunch of friends, new and old, decorate for a very fun - and successful! - community garden benefit party. We then took the kids to a bar for the first time. It's OK if it's in the name of fundraising, right??

Last, but far from least, I FINALLY finished this hat - one YEAR in the making - and managed to get Thatcher to wear it. I think getting him to wear it took more skills than making it in the first place. Here it is, the One-Year Four-Hour Ribbed Hat in very handy signal orange (aka please don't shoot me, I'm not a deer) for my Farmer Boy.

Be well. Be warm. Be visible. 

And above all else, little children everywhere: please humor your mother by at least pretending to love the things she makes for you...