Productive Day

Phil and I haven't been sleeping all that well. Around lunch time, Phil mentioned that he had finally fallen asleep around 3:30am. I woke at 4:30, so the world almost had one of us awake around the clock.

By 9am, I had had my quiet time, and worked a few hours. I milked the cow while Phil did the other chores, and then we turned our attention to where to house the piglets.

We had planned to move them into the pigpen, stuck at the bottom of a hillside. That would have meant carrying a strong, squirmy 50 pounds of screaming pig about 150 feet from driveway to pigpen, over rough terrain, in 20 degree weather. Four times. Not terribly attractive.

Phil, though, realized that if we could move our "stuck" pig pen about 20 feet up a steep hillside (lifting it, corner by corner over a small peach tree!), we would be able to use the tractor to drag it over more level ground, without a stump to catch it. Then he could back the van right up to the pen and set the pigs in. Much better.

So we pushed and tugged, dragged and shoved, but Phil (with a teeny help from me) got that pen out from its "permanent" site. The piglets, after a night in the van, were remarkably subdued: one screamed half-heartedly, and they all put up a token struggle, but they were pretty glad to stretch and root.

Now that they're here, we need to give them names.

Our boar has the most spots. He's also about 30% bigger than the other three. Connie the seller raved about his fine, long bacon line. "I haven't let anyone else buy this one, but you are just a great family, so I'll let you buy him."

The other boar has a sharp, pointy snout. He's intended for bacon, so his looks aren't terribly important.

My favorite of the two (female) gilts has a spot over her eye, which I think is charming.

The other gilt has small spots, like a dalmatian.

They are friendly piglets, coming up to sniff fingers with their amazingly flexible noses.

***
Our piglet fun was done, though, by about 9am. We talked through, and placed, orders of seeds and sprayers, irrigation connectors and seed potatoes. We contacted a contractor to extend our road; we contacted a repair man to look at our truck. It needs a good bit of work.

In preparation for garden preparation, Phil moved the cows to a new area. I did a rough measurement of the area we have for market gardening, and it's about 75'x280', or about a half acre. For crops that require more growing space, we can, for a time, use the land between the trees.

We also tried to get more propane for the RV, since it ran out, but the mud sucked us in. Tomorrow morning, when the ground is still frozen, Phil will head out.

The Virginia mud is quite deep. After Phil moved the animals, he moved hay into their pen and almost got the tractor stuck. Using the bucket, he managed to inch his way out, but his tires left deep tracks.

Jadon, too, had a productive day. He built his Christmas puzzle, 500 pieces, all by himself. It took all day, but he did every piece himself.