A lot has been going on at Biggers' Farm since my last post. In August our sow, Dirty Gertie had an astounding 16 piglets in her first ever litter. Little pigs need it to be about 90 degrees in their nest when they are born so we used a heat lamp even in August. Sadly she had the piglets before I could put up a board, so she smashed a few lights after a few days. The lights worked their magic though and kept the pigs warm. We let her have them in a shed that was closed in on 3 sides. She successfully raised 12 of the piglets who turned out to be super healthy. I did learn that sows will sometimes snap their piglets and I think this is what led to the loss of 2 of them. One has to understand that 16 piglets is a huge litter for a first time mother and she only has 14 teats. I suppose if we had intervened and stole two of her piglets away and bottle fed them we might have saved one or both. It can be hard to make that call thought when you have no idea how many she has with her and you cannot disturb her for fear of exciting her and smashing the piglets.   

What was also amazing was the demand for piglets. We had so many calls and people wait listed. I heard one old farmer say that people were going back to the old ways and raising hogs and such. Matt and I were both surprised that half of our piglets went to be breeders instead of being raised for meat. Apparently there is a shortage of piglets around so folks are having to breed them up. Hopefully we will get Gertie bred in the next month or two and get more piglets.

Late summer saw us getting back into trout fishing. We had been meaning to for quite some time but always seemed to be too busy with building the house or running the farm. After going hiking and camping for a few days we found a spot where the fish were just jumping like crazy so we came back with poles and caught some nice stringers of trout. This Spring is going to see us doing more fishing because sometimes you just have to take the time regardless. With local trout being $13.95 a pound at the grocery store, it doesn't take much for your fishing license to pay for itself.

Another exciting event of late summer was our Dexter bull going over a fence and beating up the neighbors much larger bull. Of course he them proceeded to breed some of the neighbors cows. As a result Hank is in his own special field fence lot that will soon have an electric wire around the top. The odd thing is that these two bulls had been fenced next to each other at different times over the last 2 years or so. If he had not come home we were seriously catching him up in a trailer and taking him to the stock yard. Hank didn't act up again after that incident so we have kept him. Of course we have new calves this year. The day after Christmas, Bessie gave us a bull calf. We would like to sell him as a Registered Dexter Bull for someone to use as a breeder rather than raise him for beef but that really just depends on demand. 

At the moment we are just trying to get through with the house building. This summer we had some delays related to family members health and saving some money up to continue. With the holidays over we can now focus on the house, farm, and writing. The coming weeks will bring about the butchering of our 2 year old Dexter steer. I hope to preserve the hide with the hair on and plan on rendering beef tallow as well. Unfortunately I ran out of lard because we didn't raise a large pig this year due to just having too many things going on at once. I am also excited to finish my novel enough to turn it over for people to read. Over the last few months we have released a homesteading guide on chickens and one on cattle. The cattle one was a lot of work and research. It took a long time to get photos of 30 different breeds.

I realize that this blog has not been updated for a long time. I appreciate those of you that continue to read even thought I have been anything but reliable in the frequency of posts. The last year has been particularly hectic but things are beginning to calm down and I hope to get on a regular blog posting schedule. Perhaps every Friday after this post? Let's just say that for now.

Hope everyone had a good holiday. Now let's look forward to spring and bountiful gardens.

It seems like I am always saying this but it has been darn busy on our farm. It has been one of those spring/early summers where it just seemed like everything happened at once. We are also still working on our house. Hopefully it will be 100% done by the end of this winter. Finish work is just so expensive! I would still rather just do as we have so far and pay for it as we can rather than taking on a loan for construction cost. Right now we are working on the bathroom and digging our footers for under pinning. There has been a bit of work going on in the sun room as well. Since we ran a bit short on Hickory flooring planks, we decided to do a 4' x 6' foyer or entry way using 12” x 12” black granite tiles with a Red Oak border. The picture below is before it has been grouted and without all the polyurethane on it so please excuse the white specks. We still need to put a waterproof coating in it as well since on a farm the foyer will be experiencing some moisture and mud. We are going to use the same black granite behind our wood stove instead of fake rock.

This spring we have reconsidered what we are doing with the farm flock. We ordered 25 Speckled Sussex pullets to keep in the backyard with our Great Pyrenees so we don't lose them like we have in the past. During the day we can turn them loose and then they come back to their chicken house at night.

Biggers' Farm has also acquired the start of a flock of Emden geese. After getting these guys in the mail and raising them up for the last few months, we are pretty crazy about geese. I think a lot of what people say about them is a bit more negative than it should be. Our geese seem to enjoy people a lot. On a recent visit, our 2 year old neice went right in with our geese and they were letting her touch them and eating food out of her hand. I think what happens in a lot of cases is that people don't spend enough time with their flock so they don't get used to people as much as they should. I was amazed how fast these geese grew and what a miniscule amount of grain they eat. In previous years we have grown Cornish Cross Broilers and butchered them. With the rising cost of feed and how much work goes into them, geese are a much better option. On mostly grass, our geese grew to be the size of an 8 week old broiler in a mere 4 weeks. We plan on raising a lot of geese in the coming years. There is a demand around the holiday season. Biggers' Farm is looking forward to grazing geese while feeding them a diet of milk and a little sweet feed. Certain times of the year we plan to graze them under our blueberry bushes. Late in the winter we will be planting about 175 Muscadine grape vines. In the future at the end of grape season we will graze them under the grape vines so they can get any fruit that has dropped and trim bottom leaves. I am hoping a milk and blueberry or grape fed goose will be a tasty addition to local family's holiday tables.

Our Dexter cow, Linda Lou, should be giving birth within the next 3-4 weeks. I have said it before but I'll say it again “cross your fingers for a heifer”. My bull has had two bull calves sired from him so far. If it gets up to 4 or 5 without a heifer we are going to seriously considered replacing him. He is the nicest, sweetest, little bull but I just can't keep a bull around that never gives me heifers. At this point it is just to early to tell. If the next 3 calves are bulls then we will consider our options.

Hopefully within the next few weeks we will get a lot more done on the house. There have been a few hard places the last little while on the farm. My father had to be admitted to the veteran's hospital and I had a severe allergic reaction that put me out of the picture for a few days. My father is doing a lot better and making exceptional progress though and should be able to come home within the next month or so and I am on the mend as well.

We got our brood sow “Dirty Gertie”back from the neighbor's. Apprarently she got bred on the 26th of April so we will be expecting piglets in late August. We are super excited about this. She is such a big baby. She was pretty tame before the neighbor's got her but they really babied her and now she grunts along to her name. She really likes to be called “Big Pig” as well and get patted on the head. A lot of people don't keep such a large sow anymore. Quite a few folks were skeptical when I told them how big she is. A pig's weight can be very hard to judge. After seeing what a 250 lb pig looked like I realized just how must I was under estimating live hog weight. Since discovering my error I would say that Gertie is easily 600 lbs.

Even with all this going on we have managed to produce the first book in our “Biggers' Guides to Homesteading”series. The first volume is on amazon.com Biggers' Guides to Homesteading Volume I: Raising Pastured Pigs on Kindle. We cover all aspects of raising pastured pork from picking a pig breed to raising piglets, breeding, butchering, curing, smoking, farm recipes, clearing land and more. Matthew did all the photography except for where noted. This book includes a lot of full color photos from many farms as well as our own. Hopefully this book will help others learn about a great way to raise sustainable meat for their family and the local food market. The next volume in the Biggers' Guides to Homesteading” series will be on heritage breed cattle. Hopefully that volume will be available sometime this summer if all goes well. If you raise heritage breed cattle and are interested in contributing photos that showcase your breed, please contact me at samantha.biggers@gmail.com. All those that contribute get a photo credit in the book and there farm contact and website info listed in the back of the book.

I hope everyone out there has had a wonderful spring. May the hay be cheap and everyone get some heifers and huge tomatoes!

Harvest season is always a very busy time on the farm. It can be hard to keep up with the canning and everything else up at the same time. We have also started on the journey of keeping a family cow. Actually I suppose it started when we first went to visit Linda Lou when she was 8 weeks old. Now she is a grown cow and just had her first calf. He will be our first Dexter steer that is raised for beef. He is a very beautiful calf and would make a good herd sire but there is only so much demand for Dexter bulls.  We need to get some better pictures of him.

We have been canning a lot. I have used about every jar I can find at my house and my father's. So far we have done 41 quarts of pickles, 60 quarts of green beans, and 65 pints of jam all from the farm! We also have about 100 pints of pasture pork canned back in April. I still have to can tomatoes, apples, and chicken and broth this year. Thankfully those can all be done at different times. Tomatoes take me the longest because of the process I use. I take 100 lbs of tomatoes and Matt and I cut them up and run them through a food strainer to make sauce. We then cook this down for about 24 hours before canning it. That means each pint of marinara sauce contains about 3 ¼ lbs of tomatoes. I like to cook the water out because it takes less canning jars and less pressure canning plus you don't wind up with a big puddle of water at the bottom of your plate when eating pasta. Tomatoes are good sources of antioxidants and vitamins so I think it is good for Matt and I do consume the equivalent of 1 ½ lbs of tomatoes each at a meal in the winter. I get about 26 pints out of 100 lbs of tomatoes.

The dairy steers we have been raising are growing. We are going to send them to market in November so all we will have left are Dexters to overwinter. We have all our hay in for the year but we are going to pick up another few rolls in case we acquire more cows over the winter. I plan on purchasing several Jersey steers or heifers, a Dexter heifer, and possibly a Dexter steer or two in the Spring. We just want to be prepared for more cattle at anytime as we are not sure of availability. Some of the money we get from the dairy steers will go towards property taxes and growing our cattle herd a bit. We simply need more Dexters cows as now we only have two, one of which is currently pregnant and the other is Linda Lou who is not ready to breed back quite yet.

This week we are getting started on our house again. Unfortunately we are going to have to tear down our stair case and rebuild it so we can underpin our house. Never hire anyone to work on your house that is not a licensed contractor no matter how much experience. All the major mistakes on our cabin that have set us back in time and money were done by someone else whom we paid good money. No one cares about your house like you. Lesson learned. No one is ever going to work on our cabin but us ever again except for the licensed gutter installer and the septic installer. The good news about our house is that we got the windows in the sunroom and will begin putting the wood up on the inside walls within the next week or so. I can't wait to everything is done and I can grow vanilla orchids in the sunroom. Matt has went through and added a bunch of 12 volt outlets to the house. All of our lights are running off of solar power and we are using LED light bulbs. The cost of LED light bulbs has come down a lot. When all the lights in our house are turned on at once ( which they never will be) we can completely power them with one 110 watt solar panel! We are going to have more solar panels than that though. When we buy a LCD TV we are getting a 12 volt model. They are only about $20 more than a 110 volt model and one with a 22” screen burns 35 watts compared to our 17 inch 110 volt version that burns 150 watts. The solar hot water system might not get completed to later in the winter or very early Spring. The whole solar system is going to be much cheaper than what one would think when reading a lot of the literature on solar. Our whole darn house furnished is only going to be about $45,000 when totally completed with the solar systems and all.

Last blog post I asked folks to send me their funny farm stories for a chance to win a Flip 4 GB Video camera courtesy of Purina. Folks must have been busy because I didn't get a lot of entries. The winners of the cameras were chosen by random drawing. The winners are David Bentz (Nebraska Dave) and Mary Carton. Below are the funny farm stories that I received. Thanks to all who entered. I wish I had prizes for everyone. Hope ya'll enjoy their stories as much as I did.

Mary Carton 
http://rosedalegardens.wordpress.com/
Some days you should roll back over and get 20 winks more

Today was one of those days I shouldn’t have gotten up. First thing this morning I put on a cup of coffee on my cup at a time coffee maker and when I came back I had a cup of hot water with some grounds that missed the filter Friday. The oriental lilies and the late blooming day lilies and the re-bloomers are in bloom.  Allison and her husband were due to come after some day lilies I was eliminating from my inventory. I told her I was going to dig them now and she said that they would be out in an hour. I got sidetrack taking pictures, especially of a yellow swallowtail butterfly, that the plants were still in the ground when they came. I lost my camera lens cover again and later I found it. I got the tractor out and plowed up the garden area where I plan to transplant iris and daylilies from the driveway. Then it was down along the creek to dig up an area for oak leaf hydrangea. I thought the under ground fence and water line were up against a blue bird box. As I put the tiller down I looked back and there was a piece of hose sticking out. The underground fence wire is in the same trench tied to the water pipe, so I knew its fate.

I promised Mom Friday night I would pick up her grass clipping from her lawn today. My Mom is the type of person that when she wants something done, she wanted it yesterday.  As I walked back to the house for another piece of wire I could feel her asking when are you going to pick up my grass? The garden area is like a dust bowl, so after patching the wire, I had to wash off the John Deere. It wasn’t green any longer. Finally to pick up the grass clippings and worked at weeding the beds in front of the house. Weeds sure can grow after a good rain. After cleaning I’ll get some newspaper and mulch down topped with pine needles. The water line repair will need to wait for another day.

P.S. – The rescue I adopted my 3 hooligans Border collies from started me on ProPlan. It's a great food.

Nebraska Dave 

Every farm worth anything had to have a few pigs when I grew up.  Now back then pigs were not confined in buildings until they were market ready. They had the run of the pig yard and pasture.  We were raising organic pigs and didn't even know it.  I was a bit of an adventurer in my early years and always tried to imitate the bigger kids.  It so happens that every hog yard usually had a big waller hole that was filled with water, mud, and whatever pigs like to waller in.  This one was about 10 feet in diameter and maybe one to two feet deep of stinky pig waller.  The pigs absolutely loved it on a hot day.  One the big kids of the neighbor's family where this story takes place, decided to hop up on top of a wooden fence to survey the pigs in their cool waller pool.  I suspect maybe I was about 4 years old at the time.  Climbing up the fence provided a challenge but I made it up to the top of the fence and felt quite proud of myself.  The owner of the farm and father of the kid I was trying imitate said, "Dave you be careful up there and don't fall in the pig pen."  As I turned to respond to that comment, I slipped and fell backwards head first into the pig waller pool.  I not sure about what happened next but my next memory was being washed down in the horse watering tank.  I'm not sure what the horses thought about that.  The clothes I had on, ah, well, I think they burned them out back in the burn barrel and gave me some old clothes from the bigger kids of the family to get home.  I don't think they ever let me climb that fence again.

Barbara Burg
Serendipity Farm

My favorite, and "queen" of the flock chicken, Thelma, has trained me well. She runs to my car whenever I come home to check for any raisins I might have found on my journey. Often I have 'found' some and as I open the box for her she is so happy to gobble them from my hand. If I happen to leave the car door open, she is eager to jump in to check to be sure any possible raisins are found.

One afternoon I left the back hatch open when I was unloading items from the car. When I realized this later in the day, I closed it and proceeded to go inside after evening chores.

In the morning I had the two dogs with me to ride in the car to run errands. As I opened the side door to let them in there was a great squawk-squawking from inside the car! There was Thelma ... she must have been in the car when I closed the back yesterday and had been inside all night. Oh great, what was I going to find ... yes, there was poop on the back passenger seat where Jake, my golden, was about to jump. Oh boy ... what was my seat to look like? I let dear Thelma out ... to her great pleasure, and Jake jumped in. Then I opened the driver's door to see what I would have to clean up before we left. There, right in the middle of my seat, was one great big brown chicken egg waiting ... a beauty, for sure. Such a relief! And such a nice gift from my girl Thelma.

Summer has brought a very busy time to the farm. The last few weeks have seen the ducks grow a huge amount and we have got a lot of rain. Also we had a farm accident. My husband Matt was unloading our 1987 jacked up F-250, getting ready to go get some pigs from Warren Wilson College Farm the next morning, and stepped into a large hole in our road. He almost broke the ankle. In fact we did think that it was broke so we went to the emergency room which is something we will never do again unless we are in danger of dying. Matt was on crutches for 2 weeks but is now a lot better. The healing process is going to take a bit longer though. A nice older farmer helped me go get the pigs. Farming can be dangerous stuff. I hate to admit that my road is so bad that it can be a safety hazard at times. Private roads can be a pain when there are disputes about road maintainence. If one party is unwilling to pitch in on gravel, then you are in a hard position.

But on to brighter things on the farm. Matt is well enough to start working on the house again. We ordered the glass for the sun room and we should be putting the planks up on the inside walls early in July. After that it is on to the septic system and underpinning. If we get that done then we will have the winter to do all the detail work in the house such as cabinets, hardwood flooring, and trim and molding.

The baby ducks are doing well and do not look like babies any longer. It is amazing how fast they grow. We lost one more so we have 13 ducklings left. The weirdest thing is that they are old enough for their sex to be determined and it looks like they are all female. I would never have thought this could happen. Now we have plans to buy several unrelated male ducks and build a duck house to accommodate the growing flock. If each girl duck we have averages 8 duckings next year we could have as many as 120 ducklings! Luckily there are a lot of nice restaurants in Asheville that might be interested in local free range duck. That also gives us time to get all the rules straight and make sure we are doing things by the book.

 
Speaking of books, I am working on writing a comprehensive breed guide and how to care for guide on heritage breed cattle. It is going to take a lot of research but hopefully by the end of the winter it will be ready to be submitted to publishers. I have added several breeds in besides those that the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy recognizes as a heritage breed. The Jersey and Shorthorn should be included because they have been the cow for a lot of homesteaders over the years.

Bessie's calf, Biggers' Big Ben or “Benny” as we often call him, is well on his way to becoming an ox. I decided I wanted a Dexter ox instead of a Jersey-Holstein cross. Dexters are just so much calmer. Ben is pretty much weaned but he still is hollering at his Mama a lot. I got the halter on him and have started teaching him to lead. He has been much more cooperative than I thought he would be.

 

Besides writing the book and some magazine articles I have started to help the American Dexter Cattle Association with their website. I am definitely learning as I go. I had no Frontpage web editing experience before this. I want to do a lot of work on the site but it seems like there is always so much to do and then my computer got hijacked by a virus. My laptop runs Ubuntu linux. If I didn't have to use windows for Frontpage to work, I wouldn't fool with having a Microsoft product at all. On another computer note, we are trying to figure out how to beam internet up to our house. It is just a question of whether or not we have too many trees and hills in the way. We are up at 3.000 ft elevation. The local cable company is hesitant to install anything because we are half a mile up a dirt and gravel road.

The weather has been very wet here in western North Carolina. We have had thunderstorms and rain every day for around a week. It is good for the crops but makes it a bit difficult to get other things done. It has given us a break from the heat though. 70 degree temperatures are better than the 80s and 90s we were seeing. The pastures have greened up a bunch. I am a bit baffled that we have not got a bunch of shiitakes right now but we don't. Hopefully they will fruit soon.  The dogs have put on quite a show for the camera here lately.

 

Now for the really fun part of this blog post. The fine folks at Purina have invited us to take their 60 Day Challenge to see what a difference their feed makes in our animals. We are impressed with the quality of the feed and the animals seem to like it very well. The ingredients seem to be high quality and their coats and feathers have a good gloss to them. As part of the promotion I am giving away a 4 GB Flip Digital HD Video Camera to two of my blog readers. For your chance to win, send me your funniest farm story in 300 words or less. I will put everyone's name in a hat and draw out two winners. Your stories will be posted in my blog with your name or if you wish to remain anonymous on the blog let me know and I won't put your real name on it. All entries must be received in my inbox at samantha.biggers@gmail.com by July 20, 2011 at 5:00 pm eastern standard time. I will notify the winner via email and get their address so I can send them their camera.

Well I think that is it for this post. Hope everyone is doing well!

 
I thought I would share a few tidbits from the farm, and catch you up on what's been going on. We've had a VERY busy spring, and keeping up on all the farm chores, our "regular day jobs", and every day routines leaves little time for anything else. But we love it, and welcome each new day. We've got five kittens on the farm, old enough now that they've started bravely exploring the area around the storage/feed shed they live under.
 
Oddly enough, the females are the friendliest of the bunch. Usually, it's the boys. When they're old enough, they'll visit the vet for a little snippity snip, and come back to the farm and take up residence in the barn.

 
The garden is growing, and just starting to produce edibles. We enjoyed our first picking of green beans on Friday, and we enjoyed our first zucchini on Saturday! We've got more zucchini ready for picking, as well as a patty pan squash, and a handful of beans. The cucumber vines are LOADED with flowers, but 99% of them seem to be male flowers. Hopefully the female flowers will be along soon. The tomatoes are doing well, and I'm starting to see a few hints of red!

The rattlesnake pole beans planted around the hackberry limb tee-pee trellis we built have sprouted! I can't wait to see the trellis filled with bean vines!

The Thumbelina Zinnias were the first flowers to bloom, and their bright cheery faces are a wonderful thing to see! I look forward to more zinnias, and lots of sunflowers, too!

 
In other critter news, we are patiently waiting for our red Dexter cow, Lucy, to deliver her 2011 calf. Come on, Lucy! We're READY when you are!! Looks like she'd rather be out in the pasture with the herd, but we've got her in the barnyard where she can deliver her baby under our watchful eye.

 
The other calves have all been weaned, and are enjoying the good life. Dexters for Sale, Dexters for Sale! 

 
We've got a few new chicks on the farm, too! I snapped this photo yesterday afternoon while making rounds with the camera. Looks like a great way to travel, when your legs are short!

 
The hens are enjoying daytime free-ranging. Lots and LOTS of bugs to eat! Lots and LOTS of yummy eggs to produce!

 
We continue to count our blessings on the farm, and hope you and your families enjoyed this Memorial Day weekend.  June is upon us, and it looks like summer is here to stay for a while.

The Great Duck Fight of 2011  

We only have 5 ducks at the moment. We had more but some flew away last year and a varmint got another. This left us with a pair of Saxony ducks and their two daughters from the previous years hatching. The Saxonys weigh around 10 lbs each and the boy Mallard weighs about 3 ½ lbs. We want to raise more ducks. They have a lot more personality than any chickens I have had. A duck will straight up come start trying to talk to you. They are very vocal with their opinions.

Some ducks are even monogamous. Bill and Ladybird have been mated since they were mere months old. The lady we got them from referred to them as “married ducks”. Bill shows absolutely no interest in any other duck except Ladybird. However he has a big problem with male ducks trying to breed his daughters.

On a warmer day last week this resulted in our first duck fight. I had never seen a serious duck fight until that morning last week. We were giving hay to the Dexter cows when we heard a huge amount of whacking sounds (if you have ever had ducks you know that they don't actually make a quack sound, they say whack!) coming from beside a roll of hay. I automatically assumed that Bill was beating up the Mallard, but lo and behold the little 3 ½ lb Mallard had Bill down in the old hay and was furiously grinding his bill into Bill's head and pulling out feathers. He didn't want to let go either. I guess this goes to show the difference between a heavier domesticated duck and one that is a bit wilder. We had to separate the males.

My husband, Matthew, said, “That duck deserves a name now.” I said “Napoleon.” So now Napoleon has his two giant ladies and him and Bill can't fight. They do taunt one another still though. We would like to increase the amount of ducks we have. We have yet to raise any to butcher. Hopefully we can get some of ours to sit on some eggs this season. It is not quite time for them to get broody. Ducks can just be downright funny. Our house is above where our ducks live. Matt and I were eating dinner one evening and he heard the ducks fussing. We were really tired that evening and it was really late that we were eating but we threw our dinner aside and rushed down the mountain only to discover that what was heard was the sounds of passionate ducks. They are one of the few farm animals that seems to throughly enjoy “the act”.

Horn Knobs for Lou Cow  

We finally got around to putting brass knobs on Linda Lou's horns. We came close to dehorning all the cows with rubber bands but we decided that the Dexters are so well mannered that we would just put horn knobs on the tips of their horns. The knobs came from Berry Brooks Ox Supply. They are threaded and fairly heavy but I don't think they are heavy enough to turn her horns down as they grow. Berry Brooks sells horn weights if that is something you are interested in. I expected Linda Lou to not behave as well as she actually did. You have to file the horn down a little and twist the knobs on. Most cattle don't like having their horns messed with. She was really good in the stock. I hand fed her some sweet feed while Matt filed and twisted the knobs on. We put a squirt of epoxy on the inside threading to make sure they never come off. I think she looks pretty good with them on. She has a very nice set of horns that it would be a shame to lose especially if we ever can show her.

UPDATE: Linda Lou knocked her horn knobs off fighting with her mother Bessie so we have to figure out how to attach them better.

The Bull Calf and the Lovesick Cow Blues  

Our little bull calf is about a month old now and Bessie has come back into heat. Hank the bull has been very loud the last few days since he can't get to her. Hopefully he gets over the lovesick cow blues within the next day or two. We plan on using AI to breed Bessie to a red Dexter bull named Big Mac. Hank is just going to have to wait until Linda Lou is ready to breed back. She is due to calve in the next 2-3 weeks. She is bred to a bull that has been dead for quite some time. His name is Saltaire Platinum and she will be having one of his last two offspring. This is my only chance to get a daughter of Saltaire Platinum so lets hope it is a heifer. We have yet to name this years bull calf. It has to be a short one syllable name since he is going to be used as a single ox on the farm. Jack or Pete are the options so far but if anyone has any suggestions we will consider them.

Next week we hope to butcher another pig. Last week we did one that weighed about 500-550 lbs. We got 42 lbs of bacon! We have a 50 lb ham we are curing for a house warming if we can ever get this house done.  

Hope everything is going well for all you folks!

I have been neglecting this blog. It has been such a rush to get the insulation put in the house we are building. The temperatures have been frigid in Western North Carolina and working in them is no picnic. On a farm you have to do what you have to do. Over Christmas we got a snow storm that dropped about 9 inches on us.

Luckily all the animals are doing well. We are expecting Bessie to have her calf by January 5. Hopefully she does not have it on the coldest day of the year like she did in 2009. This will be our first Dexter calf born on the farm.

We were not planning on going anywhere at all during the snow storm but low and behold we had to go get surplus milk for our pigs about 15 miles away on Christmas day. If we didn't go we risked it not being available to us next week. That was quite an adventure. The roads got terrible very quickly and on the way back the windshield wipers quit working on our 1987 Ford F250! Besides that we had a nice quiet Christmas at home. There is still 9 inches of snow or better on the ground but it is expected to melt off late in the week.

When it snows it always amazes me how excited our Great Pyrenees dogs get. They snow bathe. They love it! Our youngest Pyrenees, Ruby Pearl, had never seen more than a sprinkle of snow in her 9 months. She doesn't seem to like it quite as much as Jeb our 2 year old male. Ruby has decided to spend half her time inside sleeping in the shower. She has decided that a shower pan is an excellent dog bed. I am not sure if I should warn any potential house guests or let them discover the giant dog that lives in the bathroom.

I wish I had got some pictures of the pigs in the snow but to be honest with you we stayed inside a lot. We hadn't had a day off in a very long time so we took advantage of the weather. The goats look puffed up because they have their fuzzy winter coat. They seemed to not care for the snow too much. I guess that is understandable when one considers that goats are originally from the desert.

Our bull will be a year old in a week. He is starting to look like a real bull and not a calf. We have to get the brass knobs on his horns soon as he is getting quite a set on him. He is actually starting to get a hump on his back! I mistook him for a pregnant heifer today when I saw him from behind. If he wasn't still growing we would put him on a diet. When he is grown he will need to be kept in a seperate lot from the cows most of the time so that we can monitor his food intake a bit more. The same for George who is our future ox. It can be really easy to let a bull or ox get too fat. This can happen even more easily if the bull doesn't have enough cows to breed or he is cooped up with his cows so he does not have to pursue them around the pasture.

We found the most important thing during the cold was just to make sure everyone had plenty to eat.