Day One of Pig Ownership

Today's weather was miserable!!!  A high of 43, tons of rain, and wind!!!  BRR!!!

By the time I arrived at the farm, Mom was already there!  She is great.  I had stopped at Tractor Supply Company to check into de-worming medicine, but they only had it for goats.  My research would show me that that is probably fine, but I passed on it for now.

But I was thrilled to report that the pigs all made it through the night!!!  My sister even texted to ask if they all made it.  Yes, yes, we still have 15!

Mom wanted to clear the fence that I had taken down a couple of days ago.  It's just laying out there.  So we worked together to clean up the wooden posts, the T-posts, and whatever iron fence we could get.  The fences on the east side of the property are just so...messy...odd...heavy.  They are long and welded together.  We were able to get a lot up, but a lot still remains.

I love being able to pull around the see the barn now.  It used to be hidden by such a mess!!!  We still have a lot more to clear, but we are getting there.  Let that barn breathe!  The long-term goal is to take ALL of the wooden fence down.

But we were soaked.  And it was cold.  And it was not pleasant.  So we headed inside to the barn.  But with the barn door wide open (I REALLY need to put that on my priority list) the northern wind just blew right through...you couldn't escape the wind and cold today.  BRRRRR.

The south pasture was a muddy, sloppy mess.  Just look at that green grass on the other side of the fence!  It COULD be looking like that!!!  Ugh.  This part of the pasture is going to be tricky.  It's the old feedlot for the cattle from the previous owner.

The forecast called for 1.5 to 2 inches of rain in just 24 hours.

I had invited my nephew out to see the pigs (he was so excited that we were getting them on Saturday and a little bummed that I got them a day early without telling him!).  I told him to bring out some milk.  He poured the milk into the trough, and the pigs loved him!!!

Milk is the quickest way to a pig's heart!

Then we went and grabbed some feed out of the feeder, and they love him even more!!!  I mean, they were jockeying for position in that trough!!!  They were getting kind of rough!  So we pulled out the other homemade wooden trough that I had found underneath the big mound of dirt in one of the stalls.  It worked perfect.  ALL of the butts (but one) lined up to eat!

Feeding them feed we pulled from the outdoor feeder.

At feeding time, all heads are down.

These pigs are so fun.

I do want to share the FUNNIEST story from today.  My brother, nephew, and I were all watching the pigs, and one of them had mounted another one.  He hung on tight!  My brother yelled, "Hey, c'mon now, what is going on here?!"  Well, without missing a beat, my 7-year-old nephew matter-of-factly responded, "Looks like a piggy-back ride to me."

Going for a little "piggy-back ride."

I LOST IT.  Oh, man, I guess I had never really thought about how we got that term.  But that little interaction has had me stitches most of the day.  The perspective of a child!

Ok, back to the serious stuff.  ha!

With my brother there, I asked him if he had time to help me replace a big wooden post in the barn.  He obliged.  Termites had literally destroyed the entire beam from the ground up, then ate their way into the numerous pieces of oak planks resting in the rafters.  It was a phenomenon to behold, really.

Notice how the center board is missing!  This was a solid 4 inches by 3 inches previously!  Eaten away by termites!

The termites destroyed the horizontal support board, too.  I have some fixing to do!

I used an old piece of barn wood taken out of the rafters to match and had a piece cut and fit in about a half hour.  My nephew was FREEZING (literally shivering), so both of them headed out.

The middle piece of wood and nails are removed.

And replaced with a new board from the rafters!

Before and After.

I continued to work about in the barn.  But mostly I just watched the pigs.  They have captivated me.

I just turned a 5-gallon bucket upside down in the stall and watched the pigs.  SO fun.

I broke for lunch around 2:00 P.M., and I was cold to the bone.  Once my toes got wet, I never really recovered.  They just soaked right through the leather boots.  Well, while at lunch, I was browsing a local For Sale site, and I saw an ATV for sale.  It's a 2008 Suzuki Ozark 250, and it was priced right at $1200.  Hmm...I was NOT planning on this at all.

But at that price, it's a great tool to have.  It would have been used for fencing, hauling T-posts, hauling cinder blocks, raking or harrowing the south pasture, possibly pulling out telephone poles...and on and on.  So I made the call.  They still had it.

A couple of hours later I was loading up an ATV into the back of my pick-up!  I ended up buying it for $1100.  It looks brand-new.  It won't have such a pampered life at my farm, but I do hope to use it quite a bit.  If nothing else, to go get the mail!  It's a 1/3-mile round-trip!

I secured the swing-gate inside the barn with the proper parts tonight and just sat and watched the pigs again.  It was too cold and wet to do much else.

I did take a quick tour of my basement, though.  I was pretty nervous (and fairly confident) that I would have water standing in at least some parts of the basement from the large amount of rain.  I was pleasantly surprised (and even shocked) to find just minor seepage...something I definitely anticipated with this house.  But nothing bad at all for 1-2 inches of rain!

The seepage from the rain.  Not bad at all.

This has nothing to do with today, but would you just look at the plumbing job in this house.  I don't even really know what to say, so I will just leave this picture here.

I loaded up some ceiling tiles to put into Mom and Dad's trash, fed Callie, and called it a night.  Another good day!