Grampa Visits and We Move the Pigs!

This is the new fenced in pasture for the Berkshires. It has afternoon shade we didn't count on and lots of clover for them to play in. Soon the warm weather grasses will take off and they'll have even more to explore. This move means a lot farther for me to travel in the morning to do pig chores, but the pigs are, as Blueberry exclaimed, "HAPPY PIGGIES!"

Butterfly School

Last week Lil'Bug found a butterfly just emerging from a cocoon. She just thought it was stuck on a log so she watched it crawl out and then scooped it up. I explained to her why it wouldn't fly just yet and she sat for 20 minutes with it gently in her hands until its wings dried out. Then she watched it flit away. Bye bye flutter by.......

Lucky Day, and some other stuff.

For someone anyway. As I was finishing up chores outside the dogs started barking in the 'I'm seriously barking at something for real this time' way. I let them run for it and followed them down to the pond. We were almost there when I heard someone crying (we sped up). The dogs waited for me to tell them to go into the street, and they ranged out in front of me about 20 feet barking and growling. There was a guy with two young girls walking out of the washed out grade B road.

I talked to him for a moment and assessed that this was not what I had at first feared thankfully, and called the dogs off. They're normally not that responsive, but apparently they know when they need to listen, vs. when I want them to listen. Too smart for their own good.

So after asking the girls if everything was ok and seeing that they were fine with this guy (their dad it turns out) I got the story from the dad - the girls had asked him to take the truck out on some mud, so he'd found the grade B road and headed down. At night. In the rain. He's lucky he walked away at all instead of ending up headlong into a tree along the way - as muddy as it is that road is dangerous in the daytime. I don't expect he'll be able to get his truck out for a few days yet - I've seen 4WD tractors and trucks stuck in better weather than this, and the fields will be draining onto the road for another few days at least.

I took them home - that poor guy is going to have to tell a really, really embarrassing story to a lot of people, but he earned it - what the heck was he thinking? Lucky for him the dogs heard him or he'd have been walking a lot longer.

Earlier today I picked up a new storage bin to set out by the pigs so MamaP doesn't have to move the buckets around as much anymore for the morning pig chores, along with a bunch of new fence posts and fencing to put up around the garden to keep the dogs out.

Also earlier this week I finally killed Chicken Nugget the rooster who had been attacking MamaP and the kids. I realize it had to be done, but I felt bad about it - from his perspective he was just protecting his flock and his only real crime was doing his job too well. So it goes. Chicken Nugget Jr. will be top of the flock until the broilers come in June, then I'll be replacing him with two barred rocks which are supposed to be calmer than the Americaunas.

I need a different view....

Everytime I open up the blog and see my horrible Monday replayed, I get stressed out again. Since I am trying to place a Spring header that has been repeated way too much.

So farm update:

• I started beekeeping apprenticeship a few weeks back with a neighbor farm. I've been preparing for beekeeping for the past couple years. It was actually the first time I mindfully reflected on how I learn best- reading fiction. So I read every fiction book I cold find that centered around beekeeping. I started reading a non fiction guide as well, but found that all the other fiction books had addressed most of the content and it would best be used as a reference guide later. Then I had to choose, take a class or search out a mentor or just buy the stuff and the bees and learn as I go. There are lots of things that I do best with the last. I am a hands on learner but also a feet in learner. It is not enough to just have my hands on, I also have to be there and I have to be able to ask questions. Confidence is important as well. So I chose the middle option which hopeful would allow all the criteria to be met. It has. Very much so. I thought I would be afraid, that it would take more of my effort to not be fearful. Bees are so fascinating and beautiful that I have gotten completely distracted in their details. Last week I helped install 14 hives, completing the process almost solo on 6 of them. I never would have pictured myself setting a queen and then shaking her box of stressed out bees so they would angrily fall into their new hive home. I was in full bees suit but I did get a small sting on my leg because I sat on one. At one point in a previous session I also had one fly up my shirt, but I didn't freak out or get stung. It is a real exercise in being present and mindful. Daydreaming is a task hazard.
• The pigs are growing and eating and growing and eating. I was pretty happy that Food Inc aired on the local public radio station, as it prompted some of our customers to get all warm and fuzzy about our bacon. Their new pasture is being fenced right now, today. They will love it back there and the walk will be good for me.
• The girls are loving the warm weather.
• The mean rooster is about to become gumbo. He attacked Dearest. 
• 4 weeks until strawberries!!!!! The bed is weeded but still needs to be thinned. 

And that's about all I can think of right now!