Am I the only one doing this?

Alright people, if you’ve been reading my blog at all you’ll be surprised by what is to come. I’m starting to feel like a weirdo. Yup. All the stuff I’ve been doing and I’ve never felt particularly weird about it. This pig thing though, it’s starting to make me feel weird.

Am I the only one “free ranging” pigs with other animals? Am I the only one not having any problems with it? It’s so easy. I have the laziest system set up in the entire world. This is awesome, because I am essentially lazy at my core.

I have considered that it is the area that has made me so successful at this. We have 40 acres. We have wheat fields in front of our acreage. Our neighbors houses are placed so that there is maximum distance between our properties. Our road is only used by 3 families. Also, it’s Wyoming, old wheat fields that have been over grazed since being developed into residences. In short, there is pretty much nothing to eat off of our property.

So, perhaps I am not having any problems because there is nothing tempting my little piggies to wander. Maybe I’m just lucky. I don’t know. All I know is I open the gate in the morning and all of my animals come pouring out. Chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks and pigs. They all hang out together in the barn until release. Then the smarter chickens follow the pigs around waiting for them to dig up delicious morsels.

The pigs themselves wander here and there. We have no fences around our acreage that would keep a pig in except for those around the barn and yard. A few times they’ve gone to the end of our property to nibble the weeds around the road. We escort them back when they do. The neighbors are used to the sight of fat black pigs wandering about. At night they put themselves up and I shut the gate again. A few times I’ve heard coyotes close and have gone out earlier to lure the pigs back to the barn with a bucket of treats. This is, of course, not because I’m worried about the pigs. It’s because I’m worried about all the birds who would be left with the gate open until the pigs returned. The pigs can handle themselves. Our dogs are terrified of them.

As I watch YouTube videos and read blogs of various people I notice pigs are treated with suspicion. People seem afraid they’ll eat the other animals or escape to never return. I admit to being surprised by this attitude and it makes me feel…well….weird.

I should also note I don’t feed them except when absolutely necessary. We give them our food scraps but otherwise spring, summer and most of fall they are on their own. Get out and find food or starve!

I don’t want to mislead you all though. We had a dog break in and kill our chickens. When I went in and started making a pile with the bodies I woke the pigs up. They went to work destroying all the evidence aka eating the dead chickens. I don’t know that I would leave someone actively bleeding out there with them. However, I’ve seen them wait and watch a chicken die. They didn’t approach it until it was actually dead. Then they ate it no problems. Pig morals.

They’re just wandering in this picture.I took it from our living room. I love watching them meander.

Permaculture bringing in snakes

We’ve lived on our little property in Wyoming for 10 years now. We didn’t do much beyond putting up some fences when we initially moved out. It wasn’t until we started having kids that I started looking at our land with interest. Permaculture practices weren’t really put into place until child #2 came along.

Where I grew up, in the suburbs of Cheyenne, there was an open field behind the house. It was there for flood events and was fenced off. Not that that ever stopped any of the kids in the area from going over or under the fence to play in the mystical world of grass and creek. In this world snakes were plentiful. In fact, we made a bit of a name for ourselves as snake wranglers. You see every year someone would smoke or light fireworks and catch the field on fire. Then all the animals would rush to the side that was in tact and the neighborhood around it. People in the burbs aren’t fond of masses of snakes under their porches and my siblings and I would go round them up and put them back in the field so they weren’t killed. Snakes are kind of my thing.

One thing I noted about our property is the complete lack of snakes. Year and years of wandering, digging, etc and never seeing a single snake. It was disappointing.

That is no longer a thing. Last year we had our first snake experience. Babies. So many babies. All over the grass in our yard. The kids were entranced. Catching and holding them every chance they got.

Now those babies have grown up and we have a lot of big snakes about. So many that we’ve actually caught some in the garage mouse traps.

We spent some time this year saving tadpoles from the evaporating water puddles they are hatched in. Turns out tadpoles are a favorite food and snakes can hold their breath a really long time. So long my husband accused me of making the whole thing up.

Sorry babe, there really was a snake in the pool eating the tadpoles. HA!

We came home from one of our tadpole hunts to find the peahen screaming her brains out. I went over to see what was up and caught this bull snake attempting to eat her eggs. This is actually a small bull snake and he could not get that huge peacock egg in his mouth but you gotta give it to him for trying. I wasn’t sure if he’d go for me so I did put some bite proof clothes on before catching it. It was pretty docile. No problems. We took it away from the peacock and released it in the ground squirrel holes. Go get fat on vermin snake!

Then there was the day we were dumping tadpoles in the pond (as we decided they’d have a better chance in a larger body of water since all the pool tadpoles had been eaten by snakes) only to discover not one but three garter snakes swimming about slurping tadpoles. We removed them from the area but we’ve seen them back there several times since.

I’m pleased to have snakes around. They are a joy for us. The kids love catching and touching them just as I did as a kid. I’m happy we were able to create an environment they can thrive in!

Bees- costing way more, way more quickly than expected

Our bees are doing great. Really great. So great we’ve already had to purchase 3 additional boxes to expand the hive. I am thankful for all of the bee food we’ve been laboriously planting all these years as it’s made bee keeping a breeze. Well, except for how bee like my bees are being.

It turns out my bees really could care less about where they build their comb. My hive has foundation in the first two boxes and I have a lot of cross comb and burr comb happening. I was opening the hive every 2 weeks to cut this out but it matters not, they are still doing it. I know what you bee people are thinking. Is your hive level? Yup. Is it facing the wrong direction? Maybe. I did move it around though in the hopes it would help. It didn’t. My bees are just busy and they don’t care if I can access the hive or not.

So when I put the honey super on I took the foundation out. I really hoped that doing so would encourage the bees to build on the frame better. What did they do? Well they built their comb across every frame. Now I can’t even lift any of those frames out. What a pain!

I wanted to be a “good” bee keeper. I’m finding though, my bees think keeping away from them is as good as it gets. We aren’t planning on harvesting any honey off them anytime soon. In fact if this hive can simply be split to produce other hives, we’d be happy with that. Plus, pollinating the orchard and other plants is a huge plus!

So we are going to go into winter with a strong colony. I hope to either catch them swarming or split them next spring. Stay tuned!

The trees that survived this year

I had little hope for any tree survival this year. Ground squirrels had pretty much killed my oldest apple tree last year. I planted daffodils around it and hoped. This spring the ground squirrels are around my oldest plum tree. It apparently didn’t have enough daffodils or we are breeding super squirrels. Either way, I was worried.

The wind is also up around here and by up I mean I’ve been concerned about the house breaking up several times already. I’ve begun thinking to myself, why do we live here? We should move. Yet, here we remain.

The specialty trees were in our fenced yard. I figured it was guaranteed to be bunny proof with our massive bunny chasing dogs in it. What I didn’t count on was a giant sized puppy deciding to go out and chew the top off of EVERY SINGLE TREE. Forget the bunnies, I need puppy protection.

So the specialty trees were dug up and moved to a fenced off portion and I simply hoped that not all of them were dead. I’m happy to report that more than half survived, including my biggest almond tree.

Almond tree

They look rough but leaves are shooting out of their perfect little trunks and I’m happy, happy, happy!

So we have a medlar, 3 plum and an almond tree that survived puppygedon.

Bees- Take 2

Last years bees didn’t quite work out. Not to be deterred we are trying again. This time we bought a small langstroth hive. When they outgrow it we will move the established colony into the top bar hive I built.

We had a lot of debate about where to put the bees this year. Last year we discovered ants had taken over the bee feeder. I was concerned about that this year as well. I researched the ants, as I had no idea what kind they were, and found they are Formica ants.

This years feeder has the same cage on it, to keep the birds away, but I’ve moated it off from the ants. The bees have the benefit of food and water all in one place as well. I thought it quite brilliant.

I also thought placing the bees in our established tree line was brilliant. I was told by members of the Southeast Wyoming Beekeepers Association that the hive needed morning sun. The wind absolutely howls from the west here and our tree line blocks most of it. Placing the hive up against our thickest line of trees for wind protection was brilliant. Elevating it above the lilac bushes in front, even better. We screwed a nice pallet into the spool we placed so that we are able to strap the hive down, keeping the lid from blowing off and the whole hive from blowing over. It also left a nice space for the feed/water. I’m tall so getting into the hive isn’t a problem. I did prop a nice pallet up for stairs should I need to get all the way up there. All in all I am extremely pleased with the set up this year.

Installation went much smoother this year as well. The only issue I had was the marshmallow falling out the second I turned the queen box over. I just quickly dumped half the bees on top and closed the lid. It took a few hours for everyone to make their way inside but it has been several days and they are still there. I’d consider that a success.

We don’t have much food available for the bees at the moment. Just some dandelions that I haven’t seen a single bee on.

The lilac are close to blooming and all indications point to a bumper crop of sweet clover, so they’ll be overwhelmed with food options soon.

All in all, a hopeful start to this years bee keeping.

Pig breeding failure

Our sow came into season in November. I had been checking her so I could figure out when piglets were due. I have to tell you, I could not tell she was pregnant for a really long time, however, based on mucus excretion I saw in November I believed we had piglets expected mid March.

So I began the process of separating the pigs. Holes had to be cut into the barn and a wall build. Not a huge deal except the weather was gross.

Eventually Tu-Tu (sow) was undeniably pregnant and her teets were begining to hang. This should have been an indication I was off on my timing but I was still pretty sure mid March was it for us.

Well, I wasn’t completely wrong. We had piglets in March. March 1st. I wasn’t home. Not expecting piglets I was out pretty much the entire day. I went out around 5p.m. to feed the pigs and Tu-Tu met me at the gate, as per the usual. I didn’t notice anything different about her. It wasn’t until I got the hose to get her fresh water that I heard screaming from inside the barn. I went in and there was a piglet screaming it’s head off. There were 2 other piglets who appeared to get stuck in one of the boards on the wall and I’m guessing froze to death before I found them. The living piglet seemed ok. Tu-Tu was eating her food with 0 interest in her piglet. The piglet was cold so I decided to take it inside to warm up while I rigged up some extension chords to the barn for a heat lamp. (We were struck by lightening and the power stopped working in the barn. We MUST fix that!)

Once the heat lamp was rigged up I grabbed the piglet and took it back out to Mama. She came over and they laid down together near the heat. I thought all was going to be well.

Coming back after dinner it was clear to me that Tu-Tu wasn’t doing well. She was shivering, grunting and digging, digging, digging. I thought she must still be in labor. I had to move the piglet back inside as Tu-Tu was burying it in her digging.

I went inside and did some Googling. Decided I should reach in and see if a piglet was stuck or if her uterine horns were twisted. I got some gloves and lube and headed out. I must say that was something I hadn’t expected would ever happen. I didn’t feel anything. Tu-Tu was still distressed. I stayed with her most of the night. I tried milking her for her piglet at one point. She would let me for a bit and then she’d have to dig again and fill my cup with dirt. She started to get feverish.

Of course, I dropped the bottle of penicillin and it splattered all over my kitchen. I had to wait until morning.

The piglet did not survive the night. Horribly depressing. Tu-Tu was still ill. Still shuddering and digging and breathing heavily. I went to Murdoch’s and got more penicillin (which is a story in itself that involves losing both of my kids and dropping 3 buckets on my daughters face). Giving a pig a shot is hard. They have thick skin. I broke the first needle off in my attempt. She also didn’t exactly stand there and take it. She ran. I did manage to get her with persistence. We managed to get one other shot into her before she never let us near her again. Pigs are not stupid!

I was pretty sure she was going to die. She didn’t. She seems perfectly fine now. Joey, a week and a half after her farrowing began tearing down the fences. He wrecked several fences and 2 gates. Eventually I gave up trying to keep them apart. The damage was likely done anyway.

So I guess we will see if we have more piglets and if any of them survive. I’d rather eat her, as I believe she’s a bad genetic candidate for motherhood, but the hubs thinks we’ve invested a lot in her and might as well give her another attempt.