Catching up or now there are pig lips on my bottle.
I've gotten behind in my farm reporting and so I must catch up. So behind I didn't even realise it was Wednesday.
Friday the farm was closed because of rain. It was also the day we got our new furnace and airconditioning. The air conditioning condenser looks like it could actually take off, while the furnace looks like something we could use to make moonshine. And to think. They didn't have to tear up floors or anything. Both work wonderful and we will be snuggly this window and cool next summer.
As for the farm. I can't seem to separate one day from the other so I'll present the mish mash as it pops into my head.
The sow that was over due was finally induced and gave birth to 5 dead and one living. Since it would break the kids heart they shipped in a 2 week old litter of piglets that we are passing off as hers. As for her surviving baby, the story is that it is an orphan. Of course a repeat visitor shows up occasionally and want to know about the over due sow so we just pull them aside and tell them that there was a tragedy and then they easily fall in with the story. The other sow, Dotty will be moved to the farrowing house tonight even though she isn't due till Saturday. Dotty and I have come to be friends and I was even in the pen with her today though it has been said that people would trust the boar more than the sow. Ha. They didn't deal with me the pig whisperer. Of course I tell her who I am and allow her to smell my hand and since pigs aren't stupid, she won't pass up on the belly rubs I've been giving her. She even grunts in reponse when she hears my voice. I always am in awe that a 600 poubd animal will allow me to touch her. I even got to spread my hands out over ther belly and feel the babies kick. It makes up for the idiot parents who ask, when I tell them that her babies are due on Saturday, "She's pregnant?" (only way I know to have babies) and "It's a boy right?" (I wonder on what planet men give birth). Other knucklehead questions are "How much does she weigh" I tell them "650 pounds" and then it starts "she weighs 650 pounds? 650 Pounds? She weighs 650 pounds? Does she really weoigh 650 pounds".
Then there "What is she doing?" Lets see. The pig is laying on her side, eyes closed and she is SNORING so what could she be doing? Crochet? Writing the great American novel. Wait... could it be.. .she's... sleeping!! What a novel idea. You must remember that this is the adults who are asking this question not the kids. Another one is... Can she walk? As opposed to what? Me carrying her around on my back. Then there are the people who must have just crawled out of the cave when they tell the kids with them that it is a cow. Right after I tell them that this is Dotty another girl PIG who is having babies on Saturday.
I must wonder where these people have been all their lives. How can they not know which are the ducks and which are the pigs and what one is the mule and what one is the donkey or that chickens and turkeys are two different kinds of birds. I don't expect everyone to be as big an animal fan as I am but surely at sometime you must have seen a picture of a chicken or a christmas card of Mary riding on the donkey's back. Sigh. No wonder some of the kids that visit are so out of control.
But it isn't all bad. I watched a little boy named Calvin actually capture and hold one of the turkeys for the other kids to touch. He held the bird, firmly but gently and had approached it in such a way that the turkey wasn't alarmed. Seems that Calvin has just moved here from Kenya so it is no big deal to turkey wrangle. You could see that the kid respected animals. There are the parents who help wrangle a duck or a turkey back into its pen and I watched one woman capture a baby goat three different times and return him to his pen. The kid (of the goat persuasion) can actually slip between the bars of the pen and follow people about. You would have thought that it would have aggrivated the woman but she had a look of sheer bliss on her face and she cradeled the kid longer and longer before returning it to its pen. There was the mother who came to get me because people were letting themselves into the goose/duck pen and the father in the pen who was trying to get the people to leave or, at least, to stop chasing the birds. There was the very pregnant due Saturday mother who came on the field trip because there was no way she was going to miss her sons first field trip. There's the brand new worker who braved the sow pen to help be spread shavings and one of the other workers who sprayed my pigs for me while I was busy else where. That's really what makes everything worth while. That and feeling piglets to be kicking in the womb. I'm so lucky to be the pig lady. ---me---
Friday the farm was closed because of rain. It was also the day we got our new furnace and airconditioning. The air conditioning condenser looks like it could actually take off, while the furnace looks like something we could use to make moonshine. And to think. They didn't have to tear up floors or anything. Both work wonderful and we will be snuggly this window and cool next summer.
As for the farm. I can't seem to separate one day from the other so I'll present the mish mash as it pops into my head.
The sow that was over due was finally induced and gave birth to 5 dead and one living. Since it would break the kids heart they shipped in a 2 week old litter of piglets that we are passing off as hers. As for her surviving baby, the story is that it is an orphan. Of course a repeat visitor shows up occasionally and want to know about the over due sow so we just pull them aside and tell them that there was a tragedy and then they easily fall in with the story. The other sow, Dotty will be moved to the farrowing house tonight even though she isn't due till Saturday. Dotty and I have come to be friends and I was even in the pen with her today though it has been said that people would trust the boar more than the sow. Ha. They didn't deal with me the pig whisperer. Of course I tell her who I am and allow her to smell my hand and since pigs aren't stupid, she won't pass up on the belly rubs I've been giving her. She even grunts in reponse when she hears my voice. I always am in awe that a 600 poubd animal will allow me to touch her. I even got to spread my hands out over ther belly and feel the babies kick. It makes up for the idiot parents who ask, when I tell them that her babies are due on Saturday, "She's pregnant?" (only way I know to have babies) and "It's a boy right?" (I wonder on what planet men give birth). Other knucklehead questions are "How much does she weigh" I tell them "650 pounds" and then it starts "she weighs 650 pounds? 650 Pounds? She weighs 650 pounds? Does she really weoigh 650 pounds".
Then there "What is she doing?" Lets see. The pig is laying on her side, eyes closed and she is SNORING so what could she be doing? Crochet? Writing the great American novel. Wait... could it be.. .she's... sleeping!! What a novel idea. You must remember that this is the adults who are asking this question not the kids. Another one is... Can she walk? As opposed to what? Me carrying her around on my back. Then there are the people who must have just crawled out of the cave when they tell the kids with them that it is a cow. Right after I tell them that this is Dotty another girl PIG who is having babies on Saturday.
I must wonder where these people have been all their lives. How can they not know which are the ducks and which are the pigs and what one is the mule and what one is the donkey or that chickens and turkeys are two different kinds of birds. I don't expect everyone to be as big an animal fan as I am but surely at sometime you must have seen a picture of a chicken or a christmas card of Mary riding on the donkey's back. Sigh. No wonder some of the kids that visit are so out of control.
But it isn't all bad. I watched a little boy named Calvin actually capture and hold one of the turkeys for the other kids to touch. He held the bird, firmly but gently and had approached it in such a way that the turkey wasn't alarmed. Seems that Calvin has just moved here from Kenya so it is no big deal to turkey wrangle. You could see that the kid respected animals. There are the parents who help wrangle a duck or a turkey back into its pen and I watched one woman capture a baby goat three different times and return him to his pen. The kid (of the goat persuasion) can actually slip between the bars of the pen and follow people about. You would have thought that it would have aggrivated the woman but she had a look of sheer bliss on her face and she cradeled the kid longer and longer before returning it to its pen. There was the mother who came to get me because people were letting themselves into the goose/duck pen and the father in the pen who was trying to get the people to leave or, at least, to stop chasing the birds. There was the very pregnant due Saturday mother who came on the field trip because there was no way she was going to miss her sons first field trip. There's the brand new worker who braved the sow pen to help be spread shavings and one of the other workers who sprayed my pigs for me while I was busy else where. That's really what makes everything worth while. That and feeling piglets to be kicking in the womb. I'm so lucky to be the pig lady. ---me---
posted by ---me--- at Wednesday, October 11, 2006
1 Comments:
I know you are in your bliss and I am happy for you.
I know that you will get enough memories from this time to last you the year long. It is so good to know that you can savor them, reflect back on them in the bad moments.
Let us all know about the coming piglets....and if you have to rub her belly to get her thru labor.
Signed,
ThePeruser
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