Snow surprise!

We were not expecting snow when we went out to begin morning chores today. Sometime after 5 a.m. it began coming down and is still falling.  Only yesterday it was finally warm enough to melt the last batch of snow. Here we go again!

Five Little Piggies

The Kunekunes are here!  Charlie drove to Virginia yesterday to collect our five pigs. Unlike other breeds of pig, Kunekune are vegetarian and can be raised on pasture without supplemental grain.

Bella is the ginger-colored gilt. At 5 months of age, she is our oldest and largest pig. Miracle is the black with white spots boar to her right. He is almost 4 months old. He is blind in one eye due to a piglet accident with a dog when he was very young. 

Five piggies in the straw though only 4 are visible here. The black one in the forefront is Snickers, the smallest and youngest gilt.  She is almost 3 months old. The two ginger pigs in the middle are the barrows, destined for the freezer rather than the breeding program. 

Miracle is in the front here and the other 4 are packed like sausages behind him catching a few winks as they recover from yesterday's trip and become acquainted with their new home. They will be moved to pasture and their "Hawg Haus" in a few days, after they are trained to recognize the electric wire that will define their space on pasture. 

Hawg Haus in progress

Charlie has been working away on the portable piggy pens he's designing & building in preparation for the KuneKune pigs we've purchased. While Jonathan was visiting he helped with the construction of the first one and named the structure "Hawg Haus."

Charlie and Jonathan taking a photo break from their work.

Two days later. Brian just arrived so the work that requires 4 hands can resume.

Helpful Chickens

While we raise layers for their eggs (and the delicious stewing hens we get when laying days are over), the natural life of a chicken serves many purposes on the farm.

Chickens love to scratch in the dirt and eat the bugs stirred up by their activity. We moved the New Hampshire Reds onto our future berry patch and while they are doing what comes naturally they are also fertilizing the soil and spreading the leaf mulch and old straw piles for us. Every critter on the farm is skilled with multi-tasking.  For chickens, having access to piles of mulch and straw, is similar to being at an amusement park with free food!

Domestic chickens are descended from jungle fowl so their natural diet is insects, plants, small rodents, lizards and seeds. A "vegetarian" diet is actually not a complete and healthy diet for a chicken. We are grateful for the labor-saving joy these chickens are experiencing. They'll be happy when we share the extra berries with them next year too!

The patch of soil the chickens are rehabilitating is on an area that is part of what was the most worn out of our pastures when we bought the farm 4 years ago. For 4 years we have bush-hogged whatever grew and allowed the plant life to lie on the soil to decompose. For 3 years chickens have been moved across the pasture from one spot to another and we can see the benefit of our efforts. No pesticides, insecticides or herbicides have been used on any part of the farm and the land is healing. As the land heals the plant life changes from weeds to grasses, eroded places vanish as the increasing organic matter in the land enables the soil to absorb the water.

Snow!

This winter has been unusually cold but until yesterday we hadn't had any snow accumulation.  With this storm (named Pax) we've experienced rain, snow, sleet, and freezing rain.

The chickens don't seem to like cold feet.  Here's one barred rock who braved the elements and  is heading back to the shelter of the hen-a-bago.

The view from our front door the morning after the storm began.

None of the chickens would go outside this morning. I had to move a feeder closer to the hen-a-bago, rake a path through the snow, and cover a small area of ground with straw to entice them to come out for food and water. Apparently hunger and thirst were not sufficient motivators.

The snow stopped late in the afternoon and the sun finally came out just in time to set in a blaze of color.