Spring Celebration & More Pigs

This week has been so intense, the blog is delayed and the party we had last Saturday already seems so far gone. It was a wonderful evening with friends and family who gathered to celebrate Tristan's and Brian's birthdays. The potluck spread was phenomenal and Tristan's pulled pork sandwiches were scrumptious. He brined the pork for a week and then smoked it for several hours -- yum! Crannóg Ale's collaborative brew with Parallel 49, Suspect Device, was the perfect pairing. Unfortunately, we were all having such a great time, no photos were taken!

The day after the party, Maggie started to farrow. She started out quite large, so we were all wondering how many piglets she was carrying. As it turns out, she was carrying 19 of them!?! Two of them were still born and then 4 didn't make it through the first night. That was to be expected and meant that she would be able to feed the remaining piglets. The week has seen several more disappear or die, leaving us with eight piglets. Although Maggie had no health issues related to her farrowing, and Peggy is now doing fine after hers, our first experience with farrowing has been a little too stressful for my liking.

Once things had settled down with Maggie, a carload of us went up to Spotted Moose Farm in Celista. After being on the farm for only two months, there is so much happening there! They've got turkeys, chickens, guinea fowl, two peacocks, Indian Runner ducks, and pigeons. Not only that, they've got Nubian goats and black mulefoot pigs. They've also just fenced 2 acres for a veg garden -- be prepared to see them at the Celista market with their delicious food!

The main task this week has been weeding. Carrots have been hand weeded, along with baby lettuce, spinach, and new mustards/radishes/hakurei. The last few items were done in the nick of time -- re-covering the beds with remay as the rain blew in.

The photo above shows the pea trellising system we're going to try this year. Unfortunately, my battery was dying, so I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. The crew got to try out our post hold digger and use some of our fencing posts as anchors. We still need to drop twine to the plants, however this should make picking much better this year!

Yes, this means our strawberries have started! The veg crew did the first sweep of the patch yesterday and we'll have a few pints coming to market on Saturday. With a bit of sun, our strawberry patch is ready to explode with ripe berries.