Most notably, we could have started yesterday.
Today was the day to bring the pigs to market. I awoke several times in the night, and prayed for wisdom as we needed to get two 200+ pound pigs out of an enclosed electric pen, while leaving their sister and friend behind. Then we somehow had to get those two pigs into the back of the pickup truck, and although the goats can trip easily up a pallet into the back, I questioned whether heavy feeders, on their tiptoes (as pigs walk) would be so amenable to a situation.
The best I came up with was that Phil could back the pickup right to the edge of the electric line, put a pallet from the ground to the tailgate, and entice them up with food.
It's a good thing Phil is here. His way required more effort than simply backing up and setting up a pallet, but it actually worked. The midnight plans I made in worry weren't any good.
First, Phil backed the truck up to a cutaway edge of the driveway. (Above you can see the truck as he finished it out: higher sides, cattle panels above and around.)
Well, actually, first he had to get the truck started. He had had a passing thought yesterday, "I should make sure the truck is ready to go." I don't know why he thought that, since I think the truck always starts, but the truck didn't start this time. So he jumped it until it went well.
He then was able to set up a few boards as a chute from the hillside to the truck, a gentle incline instead of a mountain climb. He put cattle panels all along the chute (yes, pounding in t-posts for support every eight feet), and then we made a cattle panel corral from the truck, across the field of clover behind our trailer, and up to the edge of the electric wire.
It took some quick on-off fingers with the electric panel, as Phil adjusted the electric wire high enough for the pigs to walk underneath into the corral. We expected they would charge on in, since we lured them with food and slops. However, the little adjustment we made to the perimeter satisfied them with a few extra feet of earth to turn over, and they weren't terribly eager to leave the new source of worms (?) and greens for the larger unknown.
Eventually, though, curiosity and appetite won out, and the two boys pushed ahead. This was a bit of grace! We had expected all three pigs to charge ahead and have to somehow cut out Buttercup. Instead, the boy pigs were in the corral, and Buttercup was in her pen. Phil switched the fence around again, and she was again in her electric walled home.
Next we needed to get the boys up to the chute. Phil had prudently made the corral about 16 feet wide, so we each took an end of a cattle panel and drove the boys to one end.
The first time we did that, I took a split second too long to decide whether to bend the panel around the little apricot tree or to lift it over the tree. By the time I lifted it over, Socks squirted out underneath, and so we had to begin again.
That was a good practice run, though, because we realized that some of my connections were not tight enough, so Phil tightened some, and added others. That way, if the pigs spooked, they wouldn't break the fence.
The second time, Phil took the tricky end by the little tree. He's stronger and can bend it around the little tree, and we had the pigs well cornered, when Fox went between Phil's legs, lifting him right off the ground. Phil had held his ground, and held the two parts of the fence, but when Fox was determined, he went away.
The third time, though all went well. Phil wired the cattle panel into a teardrop shape, where the only out was up the chute into the truck.
The pigs were pretty content to stay where they were, eating clover. Socks made a little motion to go up the chute, but I think it was a bit too odd looking, so he turned back.
Phil jumped into their little pen and tried to push them up the chute. They just shot behind him. He bent down to look bigger at their level, but that didn't work well.
I had to stop taking photos at that point, because life got a bit more tense. First we found a large piece of plywood, and Phil pushed them right up to the chute. We threaded a piece of wood into the cattle panel behind it to keep the plywood in place. Then we tried everything we could think of to get those stubborn pigs up the chute.
Unfortunately, Fox had backed halfway up the chute, and he wasn't going further. Socks wanted to go up ahead, especially since I kept prodding his hiney, but Fox was large enough, the way was blocked, and we were at a standstill.
We tried little boards, to step Fox backwards a step at a time. That didn't work: he just stepped over. (Desperation made him quite agile.) We tried talking; we tried gentle prodding; we tried luring with water and food. Nothing.
Finally, Phil just hopped up and over, and pushed Fox backwards. It took about five seconds, and Socks followed happily. They drank and ate while we put the tailgate up, and the pigs were trapped, right where we wanted.
It was now 1:15pm, and we had done nothing today but work with the pigs, but there were still four hours until the abattoir closed, so we were doing pretty well.
The truck wouldn't start. After a few minutes of battery boosting, though, the truck roared to life, all the way to the top of the driveway.
Then, for some reason he still doesn't understand, Phil cut the engine. I think he was concerned about what would happen if he shut off the truck while on the road.
And that was the end of that truck for the next couple of hours. We tried boosting it with the van, and after a half hour, nothing happened. Phil went looking for a few extension cords to use his industrial booster, and, a second grace, the two cords he found fit: with about two feet to spare. Thankfully, Phil hadn't cut the engine three feet further forward.
After much prayer, and fiddling with the battery, the truck finally resurrected, and Phil drove off, now after 3pm. He reached the abattoir around closing time, but the owner was still there and came and helped Phil unload.
The truck was "driving funny," so I was much relieved when, nearing 7pm, Phil roared back down the driveway.
Farming isn't for cowards, that's for sure!
No comments:
Post a Comment