Pig, New boar? Summer piglets & Home renovation

I made a promise to myself of no more permanent additions to the farm until we had made progress in some of the projects that we had already started.  That promise might get broken.  In my research for a boar or sperm for Pig, I located a farm within a half a day’s drive that breeds Gloucester Old Spots.  While that is too far to trailer pig for a romantic weekend away, they have a couple of litters coming up and they would be willing to provide me with an unregistered, intact boar for a reasonable price.  I could over winter him and at least one of Pig’s offspring and be able to start breeding heritage pigs here at the farm.  It is a very serious consideration.

The location of this particular farm is proving advantageous; my trip down there will take me only a stone’s throw from Cold Antler Farm.  I have wanted to meet Jenna and talk with her about her journey.  Although I may already have answers to some of my questions, it will be nice to hear what I am doing right, what I am doing wrong and perhaps get a good smack upside the head to put things back into perspective.  Jenna has done what I attempted, unsuccessfully to do, leave the off-farm employment world and dedicate my life to farming full time.  She is a full ten years younger than I, but I don’t think age has much to do with it.  It will be great to spend an ‘Indy Day’ or half day with her on her six acres of paradise.

Photo courtesy of Hidden Nest Farm

Until then, I am working feverishly toward next weekend.  Pig will be going into heat again.  I have lined up sperm for artificial insemination which in and of itself isn’t too expensive.  The shipping, on the other hand, is almost worth my gas to drive out to Ohio and pick it up.  Unfortunately my time is much more valuable so no road trip for me next week.  The goal is to sell a couple of things that have accumulated over time that we no longer use and perhaps I can find new homes for some of the craft items left over from this past summer’s farmers market.  I will also be mixing up a couple batches of jelly if time permits on Sunday (even with losing an hour this weekend, I am hopeful!).   I will be reaching out to the vet to make sure that they can be available and am lining up some panels so that pig can be held still while we attempt to do what the boar should be doing.  If we miss this cycle then we won’t have piglets until July and may have some difficulty finding them new homes.

Some of the swine related projects that are planned for this spring and summer include –

• Improvements to our current pig housing situation - Pig has been very adamant about not leaving her fenced enclosure, even when tempted with left over birthday cake, fresh grain, whoopie pies, fresh vegetables, semi-rotted vegetables, left over goulash, etc.  Her house is sufficient, but we would like to improve on it so we don’t go through as much hay next winter and perhaps include some kind of solar heated watering device to save from carting water across the dooryard when it is snowing and blowing.
• Additional fenced pasture and shelter for a boar
• Shelter for the piglets and new boar
• Larger capacity solar fence charger for use in conjunction with or in addition to our current solar fence charger

Next week I hope to have an update on our seed starting dates - where we stand and if there is any chance of getting seeds started before Earth Day.

You might have noticed that I have added a donate button to the blog.  If you would like to contribute to some of the upcoming projects at the farm, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.  All donations will go straight to these projects and not be used to for any other expenses.