September 21, 2008

he Cliff Note version of what has been going on around here is happy, sad, happy, funny  and awesome. 

To start with the sad news to get it out of the way.... My darling "Crystal", my milk goat was murdered by some kind of large animal in the barn yard a couple of days ago while I was at work. It almost looks like a cougar kill in a way, not a typical coyote or dog attack. Regardless what killed her. "Crystal" is now gone. It looks like "Larry" the llama tried to prevent it from happening, but whatever it was, was too large for him to tackle. Thank you for all your years of companionship and service to help feed many of us! You will be missed (by some - however perhaps not so much by others you have bashed over the years or stolen their beer from).

I have been working on the Fall issue which is part of the reason I have been blogless. It is coming along and will be printed pretty quickly I think. There is some really cool stuff in it.. even more than normal!!

With winter coming and the leaves turning yellow and starting to fall to the ground, the woodshed needs to be filled more yet. So seven more pickup loads came in from the back over the last couple of days. I need about 10-15 more for the winter.

Yesterday as I am coming home from work, there is a tow truck at my gate with a 4x4 pickup which I do not recognize. I talk to the tow truck driver, asking why he and the trucks are in my driveway. He said that the man who lived here (he pointed at my house), asked for it to be delivered here. Confused, I stated, "Um... I think you must have the wrong house as no one lives here but me." Now the man was confused, showed me the papers and then my guy drove up at the same time.

My guy thought I needed a larger 4x4 bush-truck for farm work and my dog boxes, so he bought me one while I was at work. After the rest of the day of trying out the truck to see what it can do and how much wood it could haul (lots more than my truck and can get to where I couldn't before), the truck was named "Hank" by someone (there were five people at my house by now, all who visited and stayed Saturday night). "Hank" looks like a typical bush truck, but actually maybe a little prettier. The price was right and after a bit of tinkering with the engine by my guy, it seems to have none of the problems that the ex-owner said it did!! This year I may get a snow plow for it. I just bought a small snowplow from a friend who picked one up for me from a garage sale to go on the front of a quad.

Today we are starting to paint my house, which has needed it since I bought it. I think the colour is not quite what I wanted, but I will slather some on and see what it looks like dried. It is supposed to darken up a little. If not, I can go get it re-tinted.

We had breakfast and dinner from all off the place here yesterday. My guy and our friends had a great time digging in the garden for potatoes and multi-coloured carrots. One person visiting the farm is from Denmark and so Canada (and apparently gardens) is a new thing for him. He is living in Canada for six months and works with/for my guy. Breakfast this morning is sourdough pancakes with wild huckleberries and birch syrup, with more farm fresh eggs and pork sausage from last year's pigs.

I talked to my butcher yesterday and I was complaining about my hogs. I am not happy in how they are growing this year (not that I was happy with them last year). My butcher said that many people are complaining about their hogs which are all from the same place where I got these from as weaners. My butcher said he is seeing alot of hogs come in this year which are a waste of time and feed.

I thought this large farm always bred and raised their own weaner pigs for sale from their own breeding stock. Apparently this is not so. Some/alot of the weaners are being shipped in from Alberta and other places and it is stressing the hogs out and none of them are growing. And the sows producing these litters apparently are throwing not-so-good quality either due to the mass production of breeding each individual sow.

Mine I am guessing should be 3-4 times the size they are. I am going to talk to the other people who co-own the hogs and perhaps butcher them out sooner than later, in order to not waste any more of our feed money on them. I have a free-feed feeder for them which holds at least 400 pounds of feed at a time, so it is not like they are ever out of feed. They are just not utilizing the feed into meat. They also get vegetables from the garden, the store produce department, milk and eggs. There is no excuse for them not to be growing other than poor quality pigs.

I have a new place lined up for getting weaners next year and I will not be using these other people again. We are talking about at least 6-7 different families who are having problems with the growth rate on their pork that the butcher knows about. That solves a mystery of what may have been last years hogs issues as well. I would have not complained about last years pigs at all in comparison with this years. I was also at the local 4-H show and auction recently and I did note that most of the hogs which won the top of their classes (including Grand Champion Market Hog) were all from the other farm and not the one from which I got mine from. 

Due to their lack of size, we will be slaughtering them ourselves this year and save $15 per hog. The good news is, although I have helped butcher hogs before (for three years) and did one all on my own, doing these littler specimens will not be very taxing and re-interate how to do them, so maybe when I get better quality hogs again, I will not have a problem with 300# hanging weight carcasses. And yes, I have tried to call the farm I bought them from and no one has returned my call. I may just pop in there one day to state my complaint although they are out of the way.

There is other news in the works, but you will have to stay tuned in for the next couple of weeks to see what they are!!!