The new farm truck, my smart car and the wagon, left for the Hutterite colony just before 7 am this morning. I loaded the wagon with two great dane size dog kennels, and put 5 geese in each kennel, but it was too dark to back up and hook the trailer to the smart hitch, which my late friend Bil designed and installed. So, I rose early this morning to hitch up and it was a cinch. Bil spent a week with me last summer and he brought the trailer, one of his treasures which he decided to part with because he needed money. I was the most fortunate recipient of his trailer in exchange for some cash, and his visit when he took the time to install the hitch he designed. Connecting and disconnecting the trailer is simple because of his design.
So, off we toodle down the highway, with the geese relatively safely stowed in the kennels and protected from the wind and mud by the sides and top of the wagon. The top is secured by two bungee cords, in case, and the kennels are intermingled in the cords to keep them from bouncing out. After delivering the live geese, I immediately drove home the hour and a bit, checked the farm and left to pick up the pork and alpaca that was slaughtered by a different Hutterite colony in a different direction. Thank goodness the neighbour and his son set up the new freezer yesterday! Today I loaded the pork and alpaca in and there was enough room for the geese. I drove another hour and some without the wagon to pick up the geese, now in packages and plastic bags, ready to roast for the table. Then another hour and a bit home and put the geese in the remaining space of the new large freezer.
The first bed and breakfast guest arrived, then I finally went out to do the chores and separated the remaining lambs from their mothers. The crying will last a week or more. They can hear each other and sort of see each other, which is not ideal, though they are not adjacent in pens. After three weeks to a month apart the female lambs can be reintroduced to their mothers, who will recognize and accept the lambs again, even though they will have dried up and the lambs will no longer be nursing. This gives the ewes time to gain a little strength before breeding in December. The second bed and breakfast guests arrived and talked a great deal. Finally I went home and ate the remainder of yesterday's most delicious coconut curry soup with left over chicken. I am a little worried about the last bed and breakfast guest and hope she is safe and well. She has not yet arrived or called and it is already 11:30 pm. I do not have a contact number for her because her room was booked by the employer. Drat! I must remember to get contact numbers for all guests. I did call the employer, though she did not answer as it is very late and reasonable people are likely fast asleep. What a busy day it was. Hmm, sleep does sound good. ZZZzzzz.

Minnie Pig and Tasha Pig are gone. They were great on the farm, but began to eat the small animals, starting with the newborn lambs which they pulled through a small hole between the pens and then the birds. Over thirty ducks and chickens were demolished. So, once the taste of blood was sweet in their memories, Tasha and Minnie could no longer stay on the farm. First they were advertised for sale, but the fall is not a great time to sell pigs since most do not want to winter them over. No takers for Minnie or Tasha. The butcher came this morning and I cried for the loss of my friends. There won't be any more scratches on the ears for Tasha and Minnie loved belly rubs so much, she would fall over on her side in a trance when she got one. They got all the bed and breakfast left overs, which they loved and looked forward to each morning and evening. But, pigs can even be dangerous to humans. Stories have been told about hungry pigs devouring their keepers. Minnie and Tasha were well fed and had lots of room to roam and places to root. I could comfortably go into their pen and walk with them and they always came when they were called. But today, they are gone and it is a sad day. Dwayne and Ethel, the alpacas, were also on the list for the butcher and the four bodies left the farm to be hung in the cold storage before cutting and wrapping. Thank you for your presence and for the gifts of your lives, my friends. Thank you.

Minnie is the baby from my sow whom the neighbour now owns. She was the biggest of the piglets born and the strongest. There were 13 piglets, but only four girls. Minnie is a very fine specimen of a Berkshire pig with a long body and 16 teats. At first she was very wild, never having had any contact with humans except through a fence. She has been here a month and now she allows a gentle touch on her head or nose, but not for long. As she is more and more comfortable, she will most likely come for scratches and rubs just like Boris and Natasha, but Boris was traded for Minnie, so he will soon be going to live with my sow. The two are not related and came from entirely different regions and stock. At this time, I have no desire to breed Tasha or Minnie. There is little money in raising pigs in this area. People are not very willing to pay for pasture raised pork here and actually prefer pigs who are grain fed and did not get much of a chance to move around because the meat is sweet and tender. Pigs will consume a lot of grass and roots given a chance and they are very clean, only using a distant corner as their potty area. Even large pigs like Berkshires can be house trained, but they also can grow to a thousand pounds given a chance to live a long life. Who wants a giant house pig?
Minnie and Tasha will stay on the farm as the rototiller crew. They are responsible for tilling the hay and manure in the pens and that is a job they enjoy. Ideally, the pen should be left for a year afterwards and planted with good things for the animals to harvest upon their return. Once we have enough pens, this can take place. In the meantime, Minnie is a tilller in training and a darn cute one at that!

The Fat Ewe Farm is a grass based farm. Unfortunately we buy hay, though we have some beautiful fields of weedy grass, but so far we cannot get anyone to cut it for hay for us. We will try again this year. The fields are full of strawberries, wild flowers, thistles and dandelions, wild roses, and poplar shoots - everything a goat could dream of. There is not much better hay than that for goats and sheep, who do not prefer to eat grass unless it is a matter of starvation.
When the baby pigs arrived, they were undernourished and mineral deficient. They have improved immensely, but are still a bit too lean. The horses and llamas are on one side of them,  the goats kitty corner and the sheep on the other. For the longest time, even though they were given hay, the pigs did nothing with it. Then the horses decided to lean over the fence and eat some of the piggie's hay, so the pigs tried it. I also sprinkled their grain over the hay, so once in a while they had to take some hay with the grains. Now they look forward to their ration of hay and enjoy rooting through it for the best and tastiest morsels.
The chickens, ducks, geese and rabbit all eat hay, along with the pigs, sheep, goats, horses, llamas, alpacas and cows. Even the dogs and cats have been caught snarfing down some particularly tasty blades of the greener grass. In the summer the pigs eat lots of fresh green pasture grass, roots, dirt and all. Piggies love hay and grass, once they learn to eat it and it provides nutrients and roughage for their systems, especially in winter. They are the rototillers of the farm, so must keep their strength up in order to turn over the corral hay down to the dirt. As soon as the Cotswolds have their lambs and they are stable, the ram will be separated to the ram pen and the ewes will move in with the flock, so the piggies can have a field day rooting through the pen and rototilling the hay under. Thank you piggies...you are wonderful.

The piglets busted out this morning. I was sort of hoping they would stay a little longer, at least til the end of the month. They didn't, and that forced me to put the ewe lambs in with the Icelandics a few weeks sooner than anticipated. The youngest ewe lamb will be  7 months at the end of February, about right for breeding. The smallest ram is the Icelandic, so he gets the honours. It may be a while before they are ready anyhow so the two weeks is not crucial. 
The dogs alerted me this morning in somewhat of a frenzy. Come see, some see...something is not right. Robbie kept telling me he's got it, I just need to let him off his tie. When I am not outside, Robbie is still tied. I tried a 7 foot high kennel but he was out as soon as I turned around. To keep him safe, to keep him from going on the highway or fighting bad things in the bush or chasing the horses or llamas, Robbie must be contained. He is off leash for at least 4 hours every day with me and off leash in the house in the evening and night, so I am sure he is fine. He just was sure he could put those pigs back where they belonged and he did, right away! He has been in training to go inside their pen and stay quiet, just watching. The same goes for the rabbit/baby goat pen. He can go inside and must "down" and watch. That is all. He is getting good at it. 

In the meantime, the pen was beyond immediate repair and the piglets has to be moved to their new digs, with the potbellies. The boar is very mild mannered and did not object, but the sow is pregnant and was not too keen on those other piglets in her area. There are two sleeping quarters, so I am not worried that they will be ousted somehow. I fed them separately to ensure the baby piggies got some food, otherwise Mrs. Piggie would not have let them eat. They ran around sniffing and snorting the rest of the day and then went to rest in their shelter. The potbellies have taken over the sheep shelter, now that they are next door. Those baby piggies are sure cute at this age. Oink, oink!

Robbie is full of it. Always. Mischief and trouble with a capital T. He should be working on a cattle farm where he could bite the cows and move them along all day. That is where his lineage lies. We have been working on his commands for some time now and also on watching, not herding and not biting. He is slowly coming around and is especially good with the baby Berkshires. Today, I let the piggies out for a jaunt around the birds areas. It is good for the species to intermingle so that when the birds free range and the pigs are older, chickens and ducks do not become snacks for the grown up pigs. It helps the animals all become used to one another. The piggies were very good too, and Robbie made it his job to keep an eye on them. I eventually had to tie Robbie up with a leash and take him with me to get the piggies back to their own pen, because he would always head them off and send them away. They finally went in and were fed and watered and the door was closed. I can now pet them both, giving them some good scratches on the belly and behind the ears. They are so cute!