The last five weeks have been a blur. This is the longest I've gone without blogging, but I have to admit that I'm been insanely busy. There also hasn't been too much going on on the farm (due to lack of time, mostly), but we finally got caught up on some things the last few days. The good news is that I only have two more weeks until the class I'm teaching is finished--phew!
I was able to secure two bee packages from a local source this week. I've been looking forever, but didn't want to drive very far, and also wanted to wait until the weather was going to be warm. Hopefully they'll have enough time to build up their winter stores (I'll feed later in the summer if things don't look good). The bees cost $100 each, but I just can't live without my honey anymore. I think the dream of making any money off honey is long gone, but they serve an important role for pollination and farmer feeding.
Our boar is going to have to last at least another season. He's doing fine, although he is all by himself. I don't really like keeping animals alone, and in a perfect world I'd like to get a second boar. Unfortunately, that is quite a bit of added expense, and I'm not sure what to expect in terms of fighting, etc.
He has taken to destroying his shelter. I keep fixing it, and then he destroys it. Boredom, perhaps? I will be re-doing this paddock later this summer and putting in a permanent shelter against the barn, as well as expanding this area. I've given up on keeping this in pasture. It's going to be a dry lot from here on out and will be getting a layer of wood chips later this year.
Another project for this summer is to get some ecology blocks and make a proper composting area. I want to have two bays, and each bay needs to be large enough to be able to cover a full size pig if and when death strikes. My neighbor has an excavator large enough to move the blocks, and we're going to team up to get a delivery to both our properties.
We (finally!) got our personal garden planted today. We also are trying some tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil planted in the ground in the greenhouse this year.
I had to spend another $150 on a new pitman arm (thanks Ebay!) for the sickle bar mower for the cub, but it is back to mowing like a champ. I'll be selling it after I overhaul the Dexta this summer. It will be sad to see it go, but I don't want to start a tractor collection.
With the mower working, I was able to clip the pasture. This is important for two reasons. It keeps the grass and clover at a height that the pigs can get the most nutrition, and it promotes the growth of the clover that I planted last year. The pigs have now been to all parts of the pasture this year and are starting on their second tour.
Here's a look at an area of the pasture where the clover is coming in really well. For the most part, I'm still satisfied with the seeding effort. There was almost no clover in the pasture last year, and now there is at least some clover visible at every spot in the pasture. It's not the dominant cover, but I'm hoping it will be by mid summer and another clipping.
The pigs are doing well. We've now sold 8.5 firm shares, and only have 1.5 left (and some folks have expressed interest but not put in their deposits yet). I'm happy with where we are right now with pig husbandry. There are a few areas to improve, but for the most part I have my system down. It's also quite scalable. I'll be keeping a gilt behind from this group to grow the herd a bit more next year. At least two of the sows are pregnant, which means we'll have weaners to sell in about three months.
The only real problem we're having is with a sow (our original). She's been lame off and on for the last 4 months due to a cracked hoof. The new hoof has almost grown completely grown out from underneath, but I'm not sure it's best to keep her as a breeder. I don't think she's currently pregnant. She's probably best as a sausage pig right now. This is where having USDA inspected slaughter would be nice, as it's hard for a family to want 300 pounds of sausage. If anyone is interested, let me know.
Garlic is the only thing I have growing right now. It's doing fine, as it always does. I experimented with mulching it heavily last fall to see if I could get away without weeding it. It's doing okay, but there are more weeds than I'd like. I'm going to plant next year's garlic on raised beds and mulch it even more heavily.
That's it for now. Back to work!
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