Little Brother Comes to Town

     This past week I had the privilege of having my younger brother Daniel come for a visit. We had a lot of fun together, enjoying everything from bottle feeding a calf and truck shopping to hunting ground hogs! Daniel was also here to see the Passion play at my church, in which I had a small part.

     Daniel jumped right in on a load of farm work last week. We even gave Daniel & Sheri's yard a Barth Brothers Landscape Maintenance mow and trim job -- just like we used to do back home. Friday evening Daniel and I got out my 12 gauge and shot clay pigeons. It was a first for him but as with any challenge Daniel caught on right away.
 
     The days went by too fast for both of us. The time for Daniel to fly back home came too quickly and it was a little hard to say goodbye.  I am thankful for the memorable time we had working and playing together and look forward to more visits in the future.

      Daniel, thanks for coming to see me.

 dressed up for the play

Cooking hot dogs and marshmallows on the top of the mountain with the farm crew.

The first batch of broilers went out into their field pens.

bringing pigs out to the woods

We did a BIG fencing project on one of the rental properties last week.

Pull!

No ground hogs, but we still had fun!

  It looks like Loren found her marshmallow stick.

A view of Polyface from the top of the mountain.

Spring has sprung! ...... I think.

Well, it certainly feels like spring has finally arrived on the farm.  I am told, however, that the valley isn't clear from winter "come-backs" till after Easter.

Second only to fall, spring is my favorite time of the year. Daffodils are in bloom, the grass is starting to grow (yep, the mower will be coming out soon!) and everything just has a sense of life and vigor about it.

We have had a full week of getting animals out onto pastures and emptying chickens from the hoop houses. I have taken three groups of pigs to one of our rental properties and put another group of pigs on pasture here at Polyface. It has been a very busy time starting up our water systems for the season and making sure the cattle fences are in good repair.  We are keeping a close eye on the cows and should be having our first calves any day now.

The first batch of broiler chicks arrived Thursday evening, which in a way is a little scary to think about. The year is moving along quickly.  In only three weeks the chicks will be going out onto pasture in portable shelters.

The Buying Clubs have started up again and that means more time in the freezers to fill orders for our customers.  It's so gratifying to be able to offer healthy food to people.  It's so rewarding to get to be a part of the process.

I think that is about all the exciting new stuff for now.  I'll close with a verse that comes to mind as I witness the many changes of the season happening all around me.  2 Cor. 5:17 says: "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."  It is so cool to see the parallel of nature to my spiritual life, with all of the "old" things of winter behind us and the "new" things of spring popping out before our eyes.  I praise God for the change He has made in my life through His Son, the Lord Jesus!

I hope everyone's spring is full of exciting new growth.
 

This was our first Buying Club load-up. All of the product is on the tables
and will be loaded into the coolers on the right.

It was neat to see this rainbow a couple weeks ago while we were feeding hay.

Until we sent the chickens to other rental farms, we were getting around 180 dozen eggs a day!

The pigs are coming out of the trailer into their new home at the Brown's property.

They sure are happy out there. It looks like the pig on the left is smiling. All that keeps them contained are two strands of electrified wire set about eight and sixteen inches off the ground.

These are some of our spring baby rabbits.

The freshly tilled garden beds are waiting for plants.

We did a cow move the other day that a whole bus load of kids got to watch.
You can be sure that all the moms and dads heard about it when they arrived home.

The grass is so green that some fields look like a golf course.

Feeding Hay

Daniel loading the trailer. We can fit fifteen bales on one load.

A lot of what fills our time in mid-winter is feeding out hay. We have most of the cattle in a big group, about 750 head, on one of the rental farms.
The hay comes from big stacks that we made last July. The bales are loaded onto a flat bed trailer and then hauled out to the herd. One person works on the trailer cutting  strings off the bales and pushing the flakes, or patties as we call them, off the trailer while the other person drives up and down the field.  Right now we are feeding about thirty-two bales a day with each bale weighing 600lbs. On Monday and Wednesday we put out enough feed for two days and on Friday we put out enough for three days so that we don't have to feed on Sunday.

The big stack of hay.

 Sorry some of these pics. are blurry, I took them with my phone. Also, these shots were taken on one of the two days we had snow this winter. We have had some pretty mild weather this season.

We "had" snow.....

This past weekend on Sunday evening we had snow come into the valley. It was so beautiful because it stuck to everything. By Monday morning there was about six inches on the ground.  The weather warmed up fast though and most of the snow was gone by Wednesday afternoon. 

We all enjoyed the refreshing "white stuff" though it was short lived.

Coral and loading shoot

Eggmobiles taking their winter nap, but not for long!

The snow was pretty with the clear blue sky

Logs waiting to be cut into lumber by the sawmill in the background

We had some fun pulling people around on a sled with the ATV.

Daniel's kids loved the snow time

All the Piglets

Well, three sows have had their babies, the last one coming up to bat with fifteen!! Unfortunately, not all of the babies made it.  I'm told that is normal, but it is still a hard thing to get accustomed to.

Anyway, it was pretty cool to see some of the piglets be born! Daniel, Leanna and I watched the birthing of some of the last piglets from the litter of fifteen. I was amazed just watching the whole process. One minute the babies are getting all that they need for life exclusively from their mother before birth.  The next minute they are using lungs that have never known air before. It's just a miracle!

It has been fun to see them grow and it happens fast! You watch them bite and tumble around with each other and then if mama lays down......"drop everything and run, because it is meal time!"

too cute!!!

Piglets!

Doesn't she look like a good mother?

We have three gilts(first-time mother pigs) that are going to have, or have had, piglets. We normally don't  raise our own piglets. But to keep a long story short, we found ourselves with three pregnant pigs one day and had to make fitting accommodations.  One of the gilts has already had her babies and they are the cutest little tumbling things you ever saw. I just wanted to put up some pictures now and will try to get more up when the rest of the piglets come.

Up At Five.......

I probably had you thinking, "Rolling out of bed at 5am", by the title that I chose. No, not this time. What is really up at five is a new hoop house. We have recently completed the construction of the fifth hoop house on the farm.  Number 5 is the same size as hoop houses 3&4 but we added some special features to accommodate the housing of pigs for the winter. Because it's the nature of pigs to dig into the ground, Joel and Daniel came up with a design to eliminate the big holes that they can create. The design consists of having three foot wide slabs of concrete running down the length of the structure with ten inch gaps between the slabs. We then cover the entire floor of the hoop house with wood chips which fill in the gaps and builds up to 8"+ of deep bedding for the pigs. The cool thing about the ten inch spaces is that the pigs can't dig through them and in the spring we can scoop out the old bedding and plant vegetables in the rows, with the three foot wide slabs keeping down the weeds!!!! It's awesome! We also put a heavy wire mesh along the sides of the hoop house so the pigs won't tear the plastic cover. We were thankful to have extra help for this project which came from the many "check-outs" that worked on the farm for two day periods in early January.  "Check-Outs" are the folks that  applied for summer intern positions and that the Salatins invited to come out for a working interview.  It was fun to meet so many great people who were interested in sustainable agriculture. I look forward to the crew we will have this summer. 

We're getting ready to pull the plastic tarp over the hoop structure.

Here you see the deep bedding of wood chips the pigs will enjoy.

Building the forms before the next section of cement is poured.

The final product! We have four groups of pigs in the hoop house.

I though I would just throw this one in because it is a cute pig photo