Some days are easier then others

Some days doing chores can be more difficult then other days. It is tough sometimes to be outside at 6 am in the dark during a winter snow storm, or a torrential down poor or even on a very humid 90 degree plus day doing chores twice a day. Bruce usually lugs all the large three to five gallon waters around, filling and placing them where they are needed. Then there are the small waterers, the feeding, egg collecting, herding babies, locking every one in for the overnight. Chasing down those darn ducks, doing head counts are we missing any one, who or how many hatched out in the incubator? There is always some sort of trauma, drama or event that makes every day unique and interesting.

The other day we went about our usual morning duties. We were having trouble with everyone; the goose would not get off a duck nest, the turkey hens needed to be checked (to much boy activity), the tom turkeys were fighting (normal), one turkey poult caught its head in the feeder and was bleeding, Elvira took her chicks and went to the neighbors house (which she does daily) and the baby ducklings are running wild (normal).

Where to begin, the checking of the incubator, I carefully lift the lid and it is loaded with more chicks then I can carry. Okay it takes me several trips to the incubator ferrying my fuzzy little cargo. Change their water, add feed and adjust the heat lamp. Onto the next thing, turn the goose eggs in the other incubator, then it's out the back door with the buckets of feed for everyone outside. As I pass by the coffee maker I can grab a cup, Bruce always makes the morning coffee before he goes out to fill the big waters for the birds. Our paths cross out in the back yard, exchanging morning greetings, Bruce tells me that the goose will not get off a nest, and I'm off to the barn to remedy this situation.

Since I'm a huge multi-tasker, on my way to the barn I need to fill the food troughs for the birds. I'm almost to the first building and something is bouncing off my legs. Pepi is sneak attacking me leaving little perforation marks up and down my shins. Pepi is our bantam Millie Fleur with a serious attitude problem. Using my pail I block his next attack and then I start chasing him. I stop, he stops, while I'm turning around to go back to filling feeders I hear his little feet scurrying across the yard to attack me again. Spinning around I block pepi with the pail and reach down to grab the evil little bugger. Pepi eludes me scurrying off just out of my reach, slowly I turn back to what I was doing, and here he comes again. Now I'm reduced to a screaming lunatic, chasseing Pepi through the yard, in my jammies. The neighbors must love this. Finally Pepi gives up and I make it to the barn, a little bloody but I make it there.

Hansel and Gretel are our very large Emden geese. We had to take Gretel's nest away and stash the eggs in the incubator; Hansel had decided to kill any bird that went near her nest. Now Gretel has found a nest to steal with a few duck eggs in it. Hansel is outside the barn honking, she is in her broody funk, contently resting on her new found eggs. I try to push her off the nest, no luck. Next I decide all I can do is pick her up and carry her out of the barn. That shouldn't be too hard, she seems calm, once outside I can lock her and Hansel out of the barn.Her it goes, I bend down and quickly wrap my arms around Gretel, getting a firm grip I pick her up. Holy crap, obviously I did not realize how big she is. Having a good grip on her, my face is smashed against her back, she starts kicking I start running for the door. Now she is attempting to flap her wings, kicking wildly, squirming and honking her brains out, my ears are ringing. Hansel starts honking in a panic outside when he hears Gretel's honks. I would recommend that no one ever try this at home or alone. My grip is starting to slip; she is squirming and can almost turn her head face to face with me. The kicking feet are claw at me, she is hissing madly and I drop her outside the barn door just in time and immediately step back in to slam the door before Hansel could get me.

It's a good thing I didn't shower yet, now I'm onto check out Whisky and Clover, the turkey hens. The two girls were still roosting in the main barn, which makes my life a little easier this morning. I have check them daily make sure that there are no injuries to their backs from the toms, Cecil and Dinner mating with them. Whisky's back looks pretty good; she still has a nice covering of feathers, onto Clover. Clover's back is naked, not a feather to be seen. Now I have to reach up and lift her off the roost for a closer examination. This is easier then it sounds, the turkeys are very gentle good nature creatures. Except for being heavy and huge they can be carried around without a struggle. Carefully I pick up Clover and carry her into work area of the barn for her examination. She just looked at me chirping with her big brown eye, wide open and worried. Clover's back did not look as bad as I thought it was, she was doing okay and didn't need her hen guard yet to protect her from those nasty boys. She proceeds to climb all over the work bench checking out the baby turkeys in a cage there, terrorizing them. While she is on her tour of the work bench I notice one of the little turkeys has a bloody head. The cage they are in is so large that I have to put my head half my upper body into the cage to reach the injured bird. I get the bird and tangle my hair in the wire of the opening of the cage, shifting myself I then snag my jammie top on the bottom of the wire in the door way and now I'm stuck in the cage with the turkey in my clutches.

My thoughts are how the hell? Just ten minutes ago I was pretending to sleep, I've hardly had a sip out of my coffee and I'm locked from the inside, in the barn, and snagged to a cage from the inside. Clover is happily chirping and bouncing all over the work bench, normally the birds are now aloud in this area of the barn she is having a blast. Bruce is in the shower and would never hear me, even if he could. So now I'm trying to get my other arm in the cage to untangle my hair out of the wire and yank my top to un-snag it from the cage doorway, with out dropping my turkey. Luckily these guys are still pretty young and don't think eye balls and ears are tasty yet.

I'm out of the cage, I still have my turkey, picking up my pail I'm now trying to shoo Clover out of the forbidden barn zone. Finally I get her out the door after a few laps around the work table; outside the door that darn gander Hansel is still waiting for me. Gingerly I scoot past him, he's calmer now he has Gretel all to himself. First thing I need is more coffee then dump the baby with no skin on the back of its head in the brooder and finish feeding the other birds. I'm almost to the backdoor then suddenly Zilla bounces of the back of my legs.

Zilla is our giant buff Cochin; he has been a little cranky lately. He prefers to have a snack of sunflowers hand fed to him twice a day. Since we have been out of sunflower seeds and Zilla has not been a happy rooster. One of the other roosters had also been beating him up making him was a very unhappy boy. I managed to give away the bully rooster but Zilla still needs some time to calm down, get over his insecurity complex and dam I had better have his sunflower treats!

Spinning around, using my red pail to block Zilla, he only catches on of my thighs with his claws and spurs. Great, now I'm a bloody mess from front to back, top to bottom. Little puncture holes in my jammies, half my hair is in the turkey cage and I'm no where near done with my chores. Sprinting away from Zilla I make it into the house drop the bucket, grab my coffee and head to the sun porch to dump the baby turkey in the brooder. On the porch I realize I need the stupid bucket and the antibiotic gel for the turkey poult. Sprinting back to the other side of the house, I find what I need and head back to the porch. Now I have to catch the poor little turkey again, take it out of the brooder and smear the gel on the back of its blood encrusted head. The little thing is clueless, chirping a long happily, which is good.

With that done I toss it back into the brooder and watch to see how it acts; will it live, is the injury to shocking, does it huddle in a corner, tick tock, tick tock, I have more chores to do. The little bugger starts balancing on one leg and uses the other to scratch at the gel on the back of its head and flops over. OH MY GOD, now I’m having a heart attack, I killed the baby turkey by putting antibiotic gel on its head. The little shit hops back up and proceeds to scratch its head again and flop over. Now her head is starting to bleed, she's scratching, I'm freaking, what can I do to keep it from doing this?

Sprinting back to the other side of the house I retrieve the box of band aids and scissors, maybe I can MacGruber something to protect its head while I'm at work. Meanwhile Bruce is still in the shower, my coffee is slowly getting cold and I'm attempting to put a band aid on a small turkeys head. It took me two tries to realize that a freaking band aid was not such a good idea. The turkey was more frantic to get it off and kept flipping over. That’s when I made an executive decision to put the turkey down and walk away. If it scratches its little brains out that is just too bad.

Grabbing my stupid red bucket, filling it with feed I head out the door to finally finish my chores, Zilla promptly jumps me and now my thighs have matching puncture wounds and claw marks. Calmly crouching down to talk with Zilla and tell him that despite what he has done to my legs, I'm going to wear a dress to work today! Slowly I walk past Zilla to finish my chores; this is after all only the first twenty minutes of my day.

That darn little turkey survived and loves to ride on my shoulder, Zilla still has an attitude problem and my legs look like I jog through brambles!

First thing in the morning

First thing is that stupid alarm clock going off, no wait actually it's Chester, Herman, Maddie or Carmella, the cats. Who can get the best spot; find the softest place to knead their paws and wake me up for head rubs. Chester, Herman and Carmella get along pretty good but if Maddie thinks that there might be a hint of another cat in the same room, she sputters hisses and growls like a rabid animal. There is always a chain reaction when one cat does something whether it be hissing, fighting or waking Pumpkin and I up.So at about 4 am it all begins, cats marching up and down my body; Grrrr, hissss, purrr purrrr purrr, knead, knead, knead, thump, someone finally plops on top of my stomach. The other decides my legs need to be pinned down. They all avoid waking the orange beast, which would cause a grumpy grrrr and feeble attempt to chase them off the bed. Everyone settles in by about 4:15 am, nice and quiet, I'm safely pinned down; Pumpkin did not have to evict any one.Usually between 5 and 5:30 am the fox decides to circle the house barking. You hear this horrible noise that sounds like someone put a cat thru a wood chipper, Braaaatttt, Braaaatttt. Everyone is now wide awake, Pumpkin is up, standing on the bed, looking out the window Grrrrrr, Grrrrr, bowwww wowwww woooo grrrrr, she bolts off the bed, scattering the cats. Still believing that there is some slim hope of getting more sleep, I refusing to even open my eyes or acknowledging the ruckus around me. Bang goes the dog door, I had to have one with heavy duty hinges and springs, Bowwowwww, Grrrr, bowwowww through the back yard. It will only take Pumpkin a few minutes to assess the extent of the fox invasion and return to bed, a girl needs her beauty rest after all. Bang, the dog door now sounding like a gun shot and she jingles her way back upstairs to bed; name tag, rabies tag, doggie license all properly attached to her collar so we never lose are baby girl. Hopping on the bed, Pumpkin sigh contently, yawns, gives a snort and goes right back to sleep, the farm is safe.Then it all starts over again with the cats, purrrr, hissss, knead, knead…. Ugh, I realize how badly I need to go to the bathroom with 15 pounds of Herman on my stomach. Finally every one is all settled back in their spot; I still have a chance at getting a little more sleep before the alarm goes off at 6 am. In the distance, while I'm pretending to get much needed rest, I faintly hear Zilla crowing in the barn. Then Pepi chimes in which of course wakes up Freebird so he needs to join the other two and that wakes up the tom turkeys, Cecil and Dinner. Cocka doodle doooo, urta urta ooooo, gobble, gobble, gobble, now the guineas chime in, it does not stop once it starts, until they get let out of the barn. Slowly Pumpkin starts to stretch, giving a nice long beagle moan, noisy yawn and a few good snorts, it's going on 5:55 am and she knows my alarm will go off at 6. Do you know how long five minutes is to a little orange dog? Obviously it is an eternity. Pumpkin now lying on her back starts to moan, groan while kicking her paws in the air, wiggling her but back and forth from side to side. My little forty pound darling starts making louder moans along with other noises protesting my laziness for not waking up to rub her exposed belly. I'm holding fast to my do not make a move idea, I'm still sleeping, I have at least three more minutes before the alarm goes off. Finally the clock radio starts blaring at me and I roll over to hit the snooze button. Max will usually jump up to smash with me and the cats until the snooze alarm goes off. This is always one step to far for Pumpkin. She bolts up the bed starts licking any exposed skin feverishly. Then she leaps off the bed tears down the stairs and starts barking for me to join her. Heck no, I hit the snooze, I have eight more minutes. Now she is tearing back up the stairs, throws herself on the carpet and repeating her performance, belly up, feet now kicking wildly in the air, but whipping back and forth, moans, groans, whimpers coming from the orange body writhing on my floor. I have five more minutes, I'm not budging, and that’s when she realized its time to pull out the big guns. Starting with a little whine that sounds like she is very desperate, something terrible is wrong, Pumpkin tells me how she feels. Slowly this will escalate from the whiney whimper of dog talk to a madly barking crazed spinning Pumpkin. That’s when I give in, what the heck, there is only seconds until the clock goes off. Sitting straight up in bed I holler "let's go", Max leaps off the bed and Pump goes barreling down the stairs, still barking madly with an occasional spin. I'm halfway down the stairs she is tearing off into the house, returning only to bark at me; making sure I'm really following her. Every now and then she grabs Maxi by the leg attempt to drag him along with her. This performance does not stop until we are out the back door, checking out the new day with my special little orange girl.

Ducklings Everywhere

Finally, we had a duck successfully hatch her nest of eggs. Bluebell ,our "duck in the hole", has twelve little fuzzy ducklings tucked under her. The secret to her success is that she picked an almost impossible spot to get into for the location of her nest. One morning ,I was walking past the pig/goose/duck pen, in a wired off side shoot, there behind chicken wire, staring out at me was Bluebell. That smart lucky duck had gone to the back of the pen, found the blocked off entrance to the side area and dug under the board blocking it. Bluebell had been sneaking in and out for a month laying her eggs and fluffing her nest without us noticing. When the time was right, she settled in for her thirty five day incubation period. That’s the morning I found her staring out at me, in her fenced in fortress, the perfect spot for ducky nesting. I swear she knew she had outsmarted me and all the other ducks. The poor other ducks had chickens, and those darn Guinea hens were dropping eggs right and left under them. They were stressed, always having their nest invaded. We even had one chicken hen decide it was her nest, and took it over. Not smarty feathers Bluebell, she was neatly tucked away down a ten foot hole, on a pile of downy feathers, looking out me. She had it all to herself, not one bird had caught on to what she had done or how she had gotten there. Meanwhile another duck I call Big Mamma adopted 19 ducklings and 1 special needs gosling (Lucy Goosie). These babies were hatched in the brooder and put out in the back of the duck pen under a heat lamp. After two weeks I cut them loose so they could venture out into the yard to graze on grass. This can be a very nerve racking time for me; keeping them safe, making sure that they don't get to close to a big cranky goose or beaten up by a giant turkey. The second day I cut the babies loose, I noticed Big Mamma talking to all the little guys and they were listening to her. Muscovy's have a gentle whispery call that you can barely hear. Big Mamma was gathering up all the babies to watch over them. She started marching around, giving out whispering ducky commands and they all followed her, even poor little special needs Lucy Goosie. If any undesirable bird dares to get to close to her brood Mamma snaped at them with a loud hiss to chase off the dirty bird. Looking out in the backyard, I can see Big Mamma with all 20 of her brood piled around her sleeping, while under her watchful eye. For once I could breath a sigh of relief, this is one less group that I had to watch over endlessly. If you have never experienced a "duck pile" you haven't lived. When it is nap time, the ducklings make little fuzzy piles of yellow, black, brown ducklings, smashing together with little wings, bills and big webbed feet sticking out in every direction. Lucy Goosie is usually the center of the pile since she is the largest baby in the group. My little Lucy Goosie was hatched out from mystery goose eggs given to me from Martin and Hennelore. She is the only one out of eight eggs that hatched. The poor little thing had a horrible struggle the first 3 day of her life. Lucy's left webbed foot was curled when she hatched; all her toes were curled up in a ball instead of a normal flat webbed foot. I have experienced this problem before with ducklings but not to this degree of deformity. Out comes the medical tape, a plastic lid from a Chinese food container and the scissors, time to make a little brace for a tiny webbed foot,I like to call this MacGrubering, for those SNL fans. It took me two attempts to get the fit correct, Lucy peeped in protest the whole time. Do you know how hard it is to take a tiny foot, shaping all the little toes and taping the foot to a tiny piece of plastic the size of a penny? Did I mention the whole time the booth tiny feet are kicking in the air, with Lucy peeping wildly while I'm attempting to tape her little curled foot.Finally I finish Lucy's foot and put her back into the brooder with her little friends. Lucy immediately gets up and clumsily marches around the brooder on her new flat foot. It took her a few tries to get used to the tape and plastic that is holding her toes in a normal position. Now all I can do is wait and see if the foot heals properly. Geese are a very heavy bird, they need both feet to support their weight. After three days, Lucy had bounced back from the ordeal and started to act like a normal three day old gosling; running wild in the brooder, stomping around with her foot brace. On day four of Lucy's life, I decided it was time to check the progress of her little foot; while pealing off the medical tape she protested even louder then before and kicked much harder. She is a nice strong baby now. Honestly I did not expect poor little Lucy Goosie’s foot to turn out as good as it did. Her tiny webbed foot looked almost normal. I put the crazy peeping gosling back down in the brooder with her friends and she started running wild! Every day now when Lucy comes padding up to me with her big feet, one of which is a little deformed I think of how lucky she is. Picking her up and nuzzling the fuzzy gosling fuzz while I still can as she peeps contently, I realize how lucky I am.

Farm News

Okay, I know it has been a while since my last update but I finally got my third cast off my arm, hopefully for good. Typing is still a painful challenge. Yes once again I was my ever graceful self and broke my wrist while attempting to impersonate "Stupor Woman". Only half the company (my day job) watched me fly through the air in our café only to smack to the floor because of a wayward ice cube. My first cast lasted two weeks, second one made it five days, finally is was given the option of a water resistant material for the third cast. The third one only had to last for eight days, obviously gortex, fiberglass and farm work can really "ripen" a cast. There is so much going on at our farm I almost don't know where to begin. How about everyone has gone broody, that’s when a girl bird must sit on a nest of eggs. Whether it is a chicken on a clutch of duck eggs or a duck and a guinea on a bunch of chicken eggs or a chicken, duck and guinea trying to sit in one box on every egg they can steel. It is absolute mayhem. Not to mention the turkeys, oh those poor girls have a nest in our old dog house. It’s a free for all in there, every girl just hops in and drops an egg and leaves it for the poor turkeys to sit on. Luckily Clover and Whisky are very tame turkey girls, I can check under them every day, take out the extra eggs deposited. I'm not so lucky with the Guinea hens; they are determined to remove flesh if you try to take their eggs away. For a while I could block them with my casted arm and quickly pick eggs with my other hand. Now it's just bare flesh and their beaks. Those crazy things make a hissing noise, while jabbing their beaks to rip flesh at blinding speed. The hissing noise ads real drama to the whole deal; I keep thinking of the scene in Jurassic Park where that big bird spits in the guys eyes while hissing and then eats him. I'm sure eventually that would be my destiny if the guinea hens had it their way.Any minute all of those broody birds' eggs should be hatching out, that’s when the real fun begins. Oh I have been hatching eggs for two months using incubators and Elvira. There are chicks, ducklings, goslings, turkey poults and Elvira with her brood of chicks running wild all over the place. El is a Silky hen with a wild chicken feather do, who is a great mother hen. There is nothing like having the birds do what they love to do, hatch and raise their brood. It is amazing to watch the hens giving calls, clucks or whispers to their little guys, teaching them the ins and outs of the farm; stay away from that big goose, it will bite you, watch out for that little orange dog, she will sniff your butt or look that’s the person who gives out good treats, run to her. Pretty soon there will be babies swarming everywhere.Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin, our darling orange, snorting, butt sniffing, face licking, bird poop eating, precious dog. She is always my faithful alert, assistant, as you can see in the attached picture. Pumpkin watches over her feathery domain, never missing an opportunity to butt check a bird. Bird butt checking is a very delicate process. First Pumpkin waits until the birds are very, very distracted by something, like say mating. Yes nothing is sacred in our yard; she scopes out who is mating with whom, the window of opportunity is always open. Pumpkin scores a butt check, the birds just score. Okey dokey, onto the next subject; Meat birds, Finally we have a small supply of frozen chicken in the freezer again. It was pretty rough for three or four weeks this spring without our chicken, now we are flying along smoothly. After this coming weekend we will have more fresh chicken if anyone has a hankering. The Quail are coming along slowly, very slowly. They should be ready in about 5 weeks for eggs and meat. Their eggs and the pickling of them will be the bane of my existence. Who knew pickled eggs would be such a hot item? Those tiny, little eggs that take for ever to peal have turned out to be one of our best selling items.

Porgi and Bess

When will I learn, nothing is every easy. Bruce and I had decided (mostly I decided) that we need to raise more of our own meat for our consumption. We have been getting a little fowl lately dining mostly on chicken, duck, quail, imaging the suffering. This year swine and cattle will be added to our menagerie. There is so much to look into before committing to going swine; the cost, how long to raise them, who will eventually "salon" them. After many discussions with a previously chosen farm, the pig arrangements needed to be made; the date of pick up, the ages, weights, breeds and to alter or not to alter the boy pig. Finally I agreed to have the boy pig castrated, they offered to do it for me 5 days ahead of his pick up and he would be all "healed up" by time I arrived. The other pig would be a girl. So off I go in our farm truck, it’s a beautiful Friday afternoon, the day before my birthday, who wouldn't be excited about getting pigs for their birthday? I agree to meet the woman selling me the pigs at an intersection in Ma, and then follow her to the farm. The drive went well, traveling through the Berkshires, viewing small houses/farms out in the middle of nowhere obviously barely surviving. It was sort of shocking to see either beautiful homes or destitute houses and not much in-between.Finally I arrive at our meeting point, so far so good. I then follow my pig raisers back 2 miles into the mountains to a farm that I would have never been able to locate or find on my own. We traveled about 1/2 mile down a mud road (the term road is used loosely) that slips into the creek at the base of the mountain. Eventually we came upon a shack and what should be a barn, the woman tells me to drive down to the next house so I can turn my car around. The next "house" was interesting, the road ended there but I had enough room to turn around. Cats started darting out from under and around the house which was a very old cabin. Then a chained up beagle darted under the house and a little old lady came out the back door to see who was in her front yard. Smiling I waved, hoping she did not produce a shot gun from around the corner of the house, luckily she waved back. The front porch was lined with old furniture and chairs with stuffing coming out from all sides, crates and boxes and a rope holding thread warn laundry, blowing in the breeze between the porch supports. It all looked very tidy with order yet very old. This was the best part of my pig experience. With my truck turned around, I drove back to the mud pit in front of the first shack and barn. There we all exchanged greetings, there is a woman and two men, and I felt somewhat secure that maybe everything here isn't as scary as it looks. When will I learn, go with your first gut instinct. I unload the crates for the pigs and the fun began. I'm slowly looking around, I should have taken pictures but that would have been a little obvious. The pig people disappear into the "barn", it is to dark for me to really see what is going on. Suddenly there is tremendous squealing, and one of them hollers how he's "got one", I'm hoping it’s a pig. One of the men drags out of the dark recesses of this barn a male pig. He proceeds to choke the pig with bailing twine until it passes out at my feet, and then loads it into the crate to be loaded into my truck. Mean while I'm trying to stay calm, I'm not squeamish but jeese, I start yelling at the guy "if that pig dies, it will be on your doorstep", on the doorstep of what, their shack? Then from the dark depths of the barn one of them catches another pig but they are slightly more "gentle" with this pig. The woman is hollering at the guy to loosen the twine, pigs trashing, in the darkness…. Yes I'm actually experiencing this alone in the middle of no where with the cousins from the original Chain Saw Massacre story. When will I learn, nothing is ever what it seems to be.They seemed so nice; the phone conversations, when I met them at the intersection to follow them to the farm, what the heck? Quickly I write up a check, toss a dozen eggs at the women, thank them and jump into my truck. Ruhhh ruhhh ruhhh, the starter is struggling, my heart stops, I feel the panic slowly creeping up my chest, finally it the truck turns over. Very carefully I put the truck in gear and slowly drive off as fast as possible, through the mud, hoping the truck does not stall, become stuck or slide into creek. When I reach the main roads, I breath one huge sigh of relief, I'm on my way home and those poor pigs will be living in sunlight on a clean farm full of love, care and the respect they deserve.Only it's not over yet, when I arrive home after my 1 1/2 hour drive, carefully I back the truck up for pig unloading. While turning the truck off, I realize I need to be a little farther back towards the yard; I try to start it up and realize it is dead. I was one click away from being stuck in Deliverance with a load of pigs and crazy people. Now the fun begins, we have pigs and the neighbors show up to help us unload them into their new pen. We did not choke, dangle or carry them by two legs; we lifted the crates and gently place them into their new home. That’s when we noticed the junk hanging out under the boy pig, extra parts that didn't belong. Frantically I call back the freaks from whence they came ranting that there is extra bloody junk hanging out of my boy pigs parts! The Deliverance woman explains that this is from his "castration" that they did on 1 1/2 days ago and it would fall off in a few days. Wait, they were going to castrate him and have him healed by time I picked up the pigs, which I pointed out to her. She continued to assure me this was normal, he would be fine and she would keep in touch with me to make sure the pig was okay. Well between slitting him open, 1 1/2 days later strangling him, then dangling him by two legs to "load him up", I'm not buying this "he's okay thing". The pig did not look anywhere near okay, he actually looked very sick at this point. The next morning, the pig we now call Porgy did not get up or move. We called our local veterinarian for advice and he prescribed antibiotics for Porgy, he had a very bad infection in his nether not there any more region. If I had known this would be so dramatic for the pig and how filthy the farm was, I would never have agreed to the castration in the first place. Unknowingly I was under the impression this was a clean, farm that followed humane practices. I can not stress enough that people need to go see first hand where their meat is coming from. There are many farms like this, who supply farmers markets with their organic farm raised meat. Yes it may be a tiny bit better then those factory farms but not really. If you are going to pay for organic farm market meat, check out the farm supplier first, then see if you still want to eat that meat. You will be surprised. I have been unlucky enough to have seen many of these supposed humane, organic farms and that is why we are raising all our own meat from now on.Okay back to Porgy. I spent two days slowly hand feeding Porgy, mashing healthy food into this poor boys mouth before he could get back on his feet; let me tell you pigs have big teeth and very strong jaws. He is about 100 pounds of pig and could have bitten my hand off at any time he felt like it. By day three he finally ate on his own and started to walk around looking interested in his surroundings. Bess his girlfriend pig was by his side the whole time, I'm amazed at how social and dedicated they are to each other.Now another adventure slowly begins, Porgy and Bess start to check out their yard, which is our yard, the bird's yard, the dog's yard. Let the excavations begin! I have new roto-pigtilled garden spots all ready to plant, almost. Porgy's junk is healing, he's eating like a pig and our yard looks like a bulldozer gone wild episode. But that’s okay, we can replant, rake, fix the yard??? Ugh so now we have a fence starting at the barns, splitting the way back yard/field from our back front yard. We need to replant the immediate back yard this spring with field grass for the birds anyway so what the heck? You try to explain this to Bess who has turned out to be the "I can push my way under or through the fence once I find the weakest spot" pig. She is a sneaky little devil; I think she shares her ideas with Pumpkin. We are going on week two and she still has found a way to sneak in the immediate back yard on a daily basis. Porgy is happy where he is and just fine with the back field, unless he is separated from Bess. We have pig nose prints running down the house, on the back door and once I have seen the shadow of a big pig's ass going out my kitchen door as I was walking in from the dinning room. Pumpkin alerted me to that deal. No more leaving the doors open on a warm sunny afternoon. Pumpkin works hard following them around barking at their butts, keeping them in piggy line. As for Porgy and Bess, they totally ignore her.Week three, Bess still sneaks in, Pumpkin still walks around behind them barking, not as much though and Porgy's junk has still not fallen off yet? It is time to get out the big guns, now I have to call a big animal veterinarian, which does house calls. I call the local farm vet, explain the situation, the vet yells at me "Take him back", I yell back "That is not an option, we believe in only humane animal practices on our farm" the vet then yells "its gonna cost ya, someone is going to have to examine the pig", I yell back "well stupid that’s why I'm calling you". Literally this is what's happening, if any one knows our local big animal vet, you know what I mean. This is just the way it is; we went around for a while yelling back and forth, finally he say's "I might be able to make it later this afternoon". That’s all I need, a "might be able" commitment is as good as done, Porgy will be getting his junk checked and properly taken care of. At this point I can not take one more day of this drama, hence where their names "Porgy and Bess" came from. Normally we do not name our eatables but this has been a special exception to the rules. The next ones will be called pork and chop, keeping it simple and to the point.The vet arrives a little after 5pm; we corral Porgy into his pig pen, Bess waited outside happily munching on a bowl of grains and treats. Porgy goes down for a little nap time, now the fun begins. Once again, luckily I'm not squeamish, as for Bruce I was waiting for him to pass out on top of Porgy. After assisting the vet with his surgery on (that’s all the detail I dare to give) we are now sure he will be fine, healthy and continue to thrive humanely on our farm. We still have keep watch over him and make sure continues to he heal properly. Our vet's comments in-between the yelling was; how filthy the farm had to be where the pig was kept and how they didn't know what they were doing when they "cut" him. Then while the vet drove away when all was done, he yelled at me where to get our pigs from now; sigh, yes I had already reserved pigs from this recommended farm.You would think I'd have a nervous tick by now….next the cows are coming.