And the rain starts to fall

November 8, 2011
   We have been at New Heritage Farms for five weeks and some change now, living and learning, and I'm starting to think life would be boring without so many farm animals to talk to. We enjoy our daily chats with the pigs, turkeys, and the horses of course. And you'll always get a go flip of the tail when you talk to the cows as they are eating a new patch of grass we expose on the pasture these days. 
  These past several weeks, theres more than the rain thats happened, believe it or not in southwest Washington. We have planted oh so much pasture, that is growing growing growing green. I've been watching the way the herd of cattle look at it as they trot by, wishing they could get a piece of that, but know better than to get too close to that hot wire fence. At the grove, we planted oats, peas, and kale that are inches and inches tall now after three weeks or so. We spread seed thickly through the whole patch, and then harrowed to sow in the seeds. In the spring, the pigs will get to rotationally graze all of it! At the house, we have planted wheat, oats, peas, beets, buckwheat, and kale throughout several paddocks, that is shooting up through the soil, stretching out its leaves to the little bit of sun in the heat of the day. In raised beds, we planted garlic and beets as well, after we harvested the potatoes. We covered the beds in straw to keep it warm, like a blanket, for the winter months. 
   Once winter rolls around there is always work to do with keeping plants warm as the weather gets colder. We have spent weeks winterizing berries and fruit trees, which consists of weeding, laying down straw and leaves to keep down weeds and hold in warmth, and making field fence cages which protect them from animals. There are several fruit trees - apples, pears, plums, mulberry, and cherry - and nut trees - chestnuts, butternuts, oaks, and hazelnuts. There are thirty or forty planted berry bushes - marionberry, currants, gooseberry, elderberry, and blueberries - and of corse black berry bushes that are still fruiting in November. When Vickie used to have sheep, she would place the wool around the base of the berries and it would prevent any growth of weeds. Great tip to remember for the future when I have fruit trees of my own :) In place of wool, layers of cardboard and then straw and/or leaves work great to keep away weeds and helps to keep the soil warmer directly under the plant, so it will continue to grow during the winter months. All the currants, for instance, have nice buds of new leaves and fruit that will continue to grow and when the spring weather arrives, so will the blooming leaves of every fruit tree and bush. 
   Since the whole property is fenced in, Vickie likes to let her horses, or the three heifers currently at the house, roam around the yard and mow the lawn for her ;) It is great to see free-range horses just moseying around the property. Of corse, there are fenced off parts, so they can't get where we planted or where there are baby pigs. McClure the horse has a history of squishing a baby pig, but don't worry the injured baby pig, Gee-Gee, healed and is now fully grown and pregnant with her second litter! 

We're going to miss Peter Bo' Beter!

In one paddock with planted buckwheat, beets, kale, oats, and wheat - Now that is diversity! Above is buckwheat (triangular charcoal-colored seeds) and beets (funky golden yellow seeds).

Heirloom winter wheat seed planted in several paddocks 

Winter Oat seed planted in several acres at the oak grove

Need pictures of growing plants far away and close ups

    At this point, Vickie thinks of Mike as a miracle worker with mechanics. Besides many fixings of the tractor, Mike continues to do work on all three of her cars, and has really helped her out instead of paying a hefty amount to a mechanic. I'd say its been a good trade - a helping hand for a warm home with good friends and conversation..and cheesecake!

Petey!

Sweety!

New mama hen with her baby chicks

Newborn chick..scratchin' around!

   The baby pigs are five weeks old this Friday, and my have they grown, from being these scrawny little things to being at least two feet in length and a foot tall! We have watched them grow into their bodies and into their unique personalities. Its fun to jump into their area and take a seat. Their curiosity and their fear is high, so they'll strut over to you and nudge you with their big snout and then if you make a move, the pigs run back over to mom. We never knew pigs could run so fast before coming here!

   Last Monday, we were in for a real treat. It was castration day. Yeah. Alan Sparling, from the local mom and pop veterinary clinic, makes farmstead house calls. He came out that morning, and we had an idea what we were getting ourselves into..The intensity within the experience was more than we expected. Don't you want to know how it was?  With castration, the first thing that comes to my mind is cautery, which is burning and you get the rest of the picture. Thats not quite the farm approach - there is no pain numbing, no stitches, and no cauterizing the stop the blood. We grabbed each of the males at a time, by their back feet, hung them upside down, and held the rest of their body between our legs. Then doc takes his scalpel and makes an incision, reaches in and pulls out each testicle one by one, and cuts the cord each is attached to. After a sprinkle of medication to stop the blood and prevent infection, the pig runs away freely, and expresses very little reaction to the experience. There are no stitches, it will heal in a week. The pigs were up and jumping around again.  What an experience for us. But all males can't be bores, in the farm world. 
     All in all, there is the daily conversations with the animals in the barn - check in, making sure everyone is fed and lively. 
     In another month and a half, Ruby is due to farrow again! There will be more pigs to come! A piece of the farm that we are continuing to feel connected to is the constant cycle of life and death, birth and growth - and our society used to be more connected to birth and death as one in the same to sustain yourself and to raise our food. We are home, where the food is grown, raised with compassion, and then eaten with respect for all we learned and loved about their presence in our lives. 

Free-range pig strutting his stuff (3 weeks old)

Full nose immersion into the delicious dirt

Running around in the mud! (4 weeks old)

Check out that mud-covered nose! That is a face of curiousity

Mama is taking a cooling mud bath

Mud-comfortable

Smiling through the hog panels!

Fence line, to the right has been left to grow since May. To the right, this pasture is grazed continuous, so by November, there is very little growth and the farmer has to supplement with large amounts of hay. Vickie will strip graze her cattle on the pasture to the right - 11 acres from November through April, and will avoid having to supplement feed at all, because the cattle will get all the nutrition they need in this diverse pasture. 

11 acres before we started fencing hot wire and mob grazing

Vickie and her happy, hungry herd

Looks tasty doesn't it?

To a grass farmer, the grass is just as interesting as the cattle, and Vickie has taught us a new appreciation for it.

 Mama with her five day old calf, joining back up with the herd three days after birth and already running crazy fast

 Oh so nervous of these new faces

I am in love with her guernsey hair do

 Action shot!

Is this too many pictures of cows? :)

One afternoon off, we decided to go visit part of the family property that joins the Cowlitz River. At one point, the Hinkley family owned hundreds and hundreds of acres, but over the last hundred yearsproperty has been sold and divided between siblings. We decided to bring Petey, and it was then we learned that he had never been taken for a walk before. In the country they run around the acres of lan, what is the need for walking like us city folk do? Well it was fun working on a little training to stay by our side. I forgot what its like to walk a two year old pup, and that really turned up the pace of our adventure. We walked a mile down country roads, passing more moo cows, until we reached the dead end. To the left is the old farm house, where Vickie's husband grew up. Straight ahead is another road that will lead for miles into more family property, and eventually reaching Vickie's other property of 10 acres of lush forest as well as prairie. At the barbed wire fence, we were told to walk around to the other side and follow the dirt road until we reached the river bed. We followed the trail that went on for miles more. Right near the river was an old pear tree, and we picked a few small ones still left over from the fall harvest. We walked through the woods, finding our path to the bank. We sat and enjoyed the soothing sounds of the river, while Petey ran back and fourth in every direction. It was beautiful down there. We fought the setting sun our whole way home, in the brisk cool air of the night. 

Our view of Mount. Rainer at sunset 

(While it has been raining here, it has been snowing there!)

Our view of Mount. St. Helens at sunset

    Our next learning experience will be "farm sitting" at the end of the month. We will manage the farm for 11 days while Vickie visits family in the Bay Area. It feels good to know that she will trust us with her life, her animals. And we are heading towards a large transition. We will be road tripping south then across the country by train to visit family, and when we find ourselves traveling back west again, we will start the phase of our journey, another farm with an entirely different focus and way of life. We are unable to know what to expect, but we will work our mind and bodies hard, learn, and become part of a new community...

The Oak Grove

    We spent some quality time at the Grove the past few days, working on preparing the soil for seeding as well as taking down and putting up hot wire fencing to expand the pig pasture by several acres. Now the pigs will have more oak trees to graze acorns under, more medicinal plants, and I hope the pigs look forwards to so many fresh oats, peas, and wheat greens to graze in a couple months! These crops will grow alongside all the wonderful native plants in the pasture - comfrey, nettles, thistle, plantain, clovers, dock, and so many more. 

 Mike and Petey!

 Shade from oak trees at the grove

Did you know the only time you call a cow a cow is when an adult female has had a calf. Otherwise, young cattle of both sexes are called calves until they are weaned. A young female who hasn't had a calf of her own and is under three years old is called a heifer. A bull is an intact adult male, while a steer is a castrated adult male. Usually there is only one bull, for breeding, in a domesticated herd. An ox is usually a castrated male used as a draft animal. A springer is a heifer close to calving, and a cow close to calving is said to be freshening, which a dairy cow must freshen in order to keep producing milk. The gestation period of a calf is 9 months, just like us. And both sexes can have horns, long and short, it just depends on the breed. 

 The herd traveled up to visit us in the afternoon.

Here is the bull - the breeder, the protector
(and the only cow who still has his balls!)

 Daisy

 Calfs and their moms grazing in the highest North-west point of the pasture

 This cutey is the calf of Daisy

Playing in the freshly tilled dirt!

In between the pig pasture sits this shed from the beginning of the twentieth century, which has a history. The first resident on this property lived in this small homestead, and logged the land. Built from the wood that stood here, it was in almost perfect condition up until 10 years ago, but the pigs and the cows have done a number in the remaining structure unfortunately. Back in the early 1900's, when all of the west coast was still forest, it was common for loggers to live on the land, alone, and drink too much, in small homesteads like these. I'm intrigued, and I wish I could learn more about the person who lived here and what it looked like inside.

    Yesterday, Mike and I cleaned up the outside fallen wood and unscrewed a couple boards to create the front entrance you see in the first picture. I built a hot wire fence around the outside structure of the shed, raked out the entire inside, and then with a fork lift, we placed all the apples, chestnuts and kiwi for the pigs as well as tools for us while we continue constructing fences. We will try to protect it from this point on, and utilize it.

 Gee-Gee and Joe grazing away at the grove

Sunset beneath the oaks

The piglets have arrived!

    In the mist of Friday morning, we awoke to the squealing of piglets. Instantly, we jumped out of bed, and saw that Vickey had walked inside holding two piglets, who were about to get a warm bath to raise their temperatures. Vickey had been checking every couple of hours throughout the night on the sow to see the progress of the birth, because we could tell the night before she was getting ready to go into labor. Around 6 am, Vickey went outside to find that five piglets had been born and the placenta already passed. On average, labor lasts up to 6 hours and each piglet will come every 20 minutes. Deep mud puddles, built by mama to cool off during the hot days, became a dealth trap for the newborns. Three had traveled into the mud and their temperatures dropped significantly. One piglet died before we could save them. The rest of the piglets ended up inside with warm baths and bottles, until we could try to feed them on mama again when they regained their strength.
    The first litter of tamworth pigs is adorable, with fuzzy, orange peel colored fur. Since the soil in Washington tends to be low in selenium, which is important for bone and cartilage growth, the mama and the piglets tend to be deficient. We gave them each the tiniest shot of selenium, and after a day, saw a dramatic improvement in the strength in their legs. In this litter, there is Princess Black Ear, Nosey, Two spot, and Blondie. Each have unique personalities, and after a few days now, are doing well, all nursing on mom. The piglets and mom will remain in the barn for about a week to 10 days. Then we will take them out to a paddock that was planted with austrian peas and oats for their grazing delight! By that time, the piglets will have already quadroupled in size. The piglets will nurse for up to 8 weeks, while experimenting with eating soil, grass, and grain. Dirt is a necessary source of iron for the pigs.
    As the morning went on, and we were bathing and bottle feeding babies, the four piglets had started to settle down. When we went out to the barn to check on the two mama pigs, their was a baby piglet walking around in the second stall. The second sow started giving birth that afternoon, starting at about two. There is no real way to tell if a sow is in labor - their grunting still sounds the same, and perhaps there is heavier breathing. We spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of the barn, helping birth the four piglets, and we watched them all come out, instantly start walking around and climbing on mom to nurse. Piglets' instinct is to crawl and lead their nose around while nibbling until they find a teat to nurse on, and that is all they want to do when you hold them! In this litter there is #1, Peanut, and the other two never really got named. Everyone got to be nursing on mom, instead of in the house for long, and remained healthy and happy the next few days.
    Each sow has the potential to have fifteen piglets, because each sow has fifteen teats. Both litters were small, which can be unfortunate for the farmer, depending on how many they are hoping to get. Vickey primarily raises pigs to be breeders first, and pork second. The pigs live for years out in the oak grove, if they weren't already sold to be bred. 
    Peanut, which was the smallest piglet ever, had been struggling since day one. He was the third piglet from the second litter, and couldn't ever compete with his brothers and sisters for milk on mama pig. We brought him into the house on the second day and had been bottle feeding him and nursing him every hour. He has been up and down, and near death several times. To be honest, we were astonished how long he struggled the stay alive. When an animal is sick, they won't eat, which is unfortunate because that is what will aid them in getting better. Peanut was a struggle to feed, but we did everything we could, and finally he passed today in the evening. His body couldn't hold on anymore. Bless his little heart. He was a fighter.
    Taking care of a dying piglet was really hard on me, and I know it was hard on everyone, feeding after feeding, hour after hour, and hoping that such a frail, weak baby could keep on going. So goes life on a farm. I have a hard time with death, particularly natural death, but that is part of life. There are still seven thriving piglets that will live happily, able to graze on grass and acorns.
     Princess black ear is another story, but the ending is that she is a healthy house piglet! Since she was a little smaller and slower than her brothers and sisters, she had a harder time nursing on mom, and staying out of her way. This sow is a fantastic mom, and a huge way to tell is that she is cautious of all of her babies around her - when she gets up, lays down, and just plain moves around. However, every now and then a piglet gets in the way of those actions, and the result can be tragic when the mom weighs 600 pounds and the piglet weighs 2 pounds. Accidentally, Princess got squished somehow by mom, and we found her weak and limping in the barn. We brought her in and nursed her back to health. She is strong and very lively. Unfortunately, once a week goes by several things change between mom and piglet. Eventually, each piglet returns to the same teat every feeding to nurse, and when this happens, all the other teats dry-off and stop producing milk. The sad news is Princess will never be able to be reintroduced back in with the piglets and mama. Both the mama and the piglets wouldn't think she belonged, and this could even lead to the mama killing the piglet, in defense for protecting her babies. In a larger-scale farming, Princess would have been killed because she was not good enough. Vickey does not think or act in this mindset, therefore Princess is living and beautiful, and will remain in the house until she is old enough to graze on pasture at the grove in a couple months. Having a bottle-fed pig is a lot of work and commitment, but here, it is another pet in the house along we the rest! Our house sounds like bark, sneeze, meow, snort, squeal :) And in the morning the roosters add wonders! 

 !

 Princess Black Ear!

 Petey lets them crawl all over him! Can you tell he has taken care of pigs before?

 Blondie!

 Pig butt!

 Princess is our house piglet

 The first day we nursed each piglet

 Playing in the barn

Survival of the Fittest!

psst. We have taken several videos of these little piglets, and we hope to post those soon, so look for an addition!