Our employee, Timeteo, had a lot of experience working with horses in Peru. He is starting to train one of our young horses, whom he named “Speedy Gonzolez”.
Speedy–first offering
thinking about it
Tim’s got him eating out of his hand (or possibly the pan).
meanwhile, back in the corral
making snow angels
Dunkin and his shadow
Dunkin in the Cow Pasture
Maria is one year old, and taller than her Mom, Beulah.
I see stripes everywhere.
road near Battle Creek Bridge
white horse and gate
shadows, panels and trees
heifers in the Ames Field
cows on feed line
through the trees
McCoy and his pig (and his Mom)
The Constant Reader remembers that in July, the kids catch pigs at our local Little Snake River Fun Days. Each year, we end up with a different number of pigs to keep, depending on the success of the grandchildren and the cousins. This year we ended up with two young pigs. We brought them home and fed them table scraps and pig food. I always like taking the scraps, which means stuff that the dogs won’t eat (potato peals, banana peals, culled lettuce leaves, et al) out to the pigs. They are so happy and I feel satisfied. The ultimate goal, of course, is to transition these pigs into our freezer and make them part of our sustainance. We tell this to the children from the beginning, and want them to appreciate where their food comes from.
We are having a run of really cold weather. I was worried that the pigs, who have been in a barn with straw and extra feed, might nonetheless freeze to death before we could harvest them. We called our local meat processor, who said that Friday was his pig-killing day, and to have them there by 8 a.m.
I asked Timeteo and Christian to help load the pigs into the back of the pickup. We loaded the sow first. She was trussed up with ropes so we could get a grip,
capturing a pig at Snake River Fun Days
The pigs with Siobhan and McCoy (with Bruiser helping clean up the scraps)
and we hoisted her into the truck. The young boar was next. With ropes, tugging, lifting and a lot of squealing, we managed to load him too.
When I got to Snake River Processors, the pigs were shivering (it was 10 below) and the Weber crew came out to help. Since most pigs arrive in a trailer, they were a little stymied as to how to unload them. I explained that we had just hoisted them in and that I thought we could hoist them out. Clint gave the boar a shove and he tumbled out. He gave the young sow a push and she jumped. She leapt out of the pickup bed graceful as a gazelle, and landed on her feet.
“Wow,” said Clint, “I didn’t know that pigs could jump like that!”
Sadly, I do not have a photo of that moment, but I sure wish I did.
Thank you pigs.
Farewell
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| Martha Kennedy on Sandman Mountain |
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| Martha Kennedy on Loading the 2023 Wool Clip |
Ladder Ranch