Red had pigs this weekend. Historically she is a good mother.
We also harvested our popcorn this weekend. I had taken a couple ears a few weeks back. I popped them in our Whirley Pop and it was great - so time to harvest the rest.
Oremus pro invicem!
Sad Update: Well we lost the litter and the sow. Turkey vultures came after a couple. I drove them off - I think permanently, but then we noticed that Rusty (sow) was eating or moving around much. Then her piglets started to get lethargic - due lack of nursing. We put the most energetic with Floppy's litter and it seem to take. In the meantime, we found a rupture in Rusty which was unrepairable. We transferred the remaining two energetic piglets of her litter to Floppy and put Rusty down. This morning, the transfers were dead. We tried, and Floppy tried, I am not sure she could handle 3 more.
Update: Or 8. or 9! Everytime I go out, there is one more! I think she is done now.
Under a tremendous (and tremendously needed) rain, Rusty had her litter. Only 7, and one is really tiny. I don't think it will make it.
Red is not due for a few more weeks.
Oremus pro invicem!
Update: More pics of Floppy and litter:
Came home from Mass yesterday to find that Floppy has 14 live births. So far all are still well, although I had to save one this morning - Floppy had trapped it between her back and the fence. This is her 2nd litter.
Rusty is due with her 2nd litter any day now also.
Picking tomatoes, patty pans (or scallop squash), cucumbers, kale, Swiss Chard.
We got behind around here because of illness. I was sick more or less for a week - highly unusual for me.
Lots going on with Turkeys growing, our first set of meat chickens in the brooder, and baby pigs dropping.
Oremus pro invicem!
All my summer classes at two institutions have been cancelled due to low enrollment. I guess Physics and Astronomy are not so popular. Lots of time now - but not the $$. Isn't this the case?
But this is also an opportunity. Certainly the homestead and gardens have never looked better (if only rain will come!).
I have started to layout the Daily Prayers for the Church Suffering booklet, which we can print ourselves in limited quantities. Too bad I didn't save the layout files. I am sorry we didn't have more. Recently I was at a wake and met an old friend who told he and his wife do those prayers together everyday.
Stay tuned.
Oremus pro invicem!
We were licensed for foster care in 2016. After numerous children over 6 years, in March we decided to stop doing foster care and closed our home.
Wouldn't you know that the last two children we had in care (siblings) for 27 months, came back into the system right after we closed our home.
However, we scrambled around and reopened so these children could have a familiar place with us again.
The joy is here!
Oremus pro invicem!
I was supposed to get up early today and butcher at least 1/2 the hog I put down on Saturday morning... but I slept in just a little bit, and then had coffee, and then went outside and could feel the heat coming on. We will try again on Thursday.
We did get to the scrap metal place today. Metal was selling for $10 per 100 pounds a month ago. Today it was only $7.
We also planted some more tomato plants (Roma's) moved a pig and fixed some fencing.
My last day of classes and final exam is this week. Then I get 10 days off before the summer session starts.
Planting was a little late around here. (I still have to get my cantaloupe in), but we are picking lettuce, swiss chard and peas.
I guess there is lots to comment about in the news and politics. I am just not that motivated. It is funny, when Mrs. Curley and I were first married, I was writing letters to the editor and losing sleep over all kinds of outrages. Mrs. Curley didn't understand why I got so animated. Now the roles are reversed.
Oremus pro invicem!
We have 7 calves. One is 5 months old, but the rest are young like these. It has been rough getting them to this point. They didn't get colostrum and we did alot of nursing.
What I did for spring break (from 1 of my colleges - the other is on next week):
Farmer's sink, new faucet, and butcher block counter tops.
I didn't finish, but had some tremendous (and unexpected) help from friend Joe.
I have been promising this to Mrs. Curley for years. Now it's easier to bottle feed 7 Jersey bull calves!
Still a lot of cosmetic stuff to do, but we have water in the kitchen again.
Oremus pro invicem!
So we bought a Jersey bull calve back in October. A week ago we brought home 2 more which need some tender nursing care. Not learning my lesson, I brought home 4 more Jersey bull calves yesterday. There is a lot of bottle feeding going on.
(This is my secret plan to convince Mrs. Curley we need a milk cow again!)
We weaned 2 litters of pigs yesterday and moved the sows into a new breeding pen, which Mrs. Curley helped put together.
Tomorrow we put in the strawberries.
Oremus pro invicem!
Lots going on at the homestead this week.
On the plus side, we brought home a couple bull calves, we put in 10 blueberry bushes and 2 fig trees; we continued to hack away at the overgrown muscadines; and we worked on a new area for the breed stock (pigs.) Finally our neighbor loaned us his electric chain saw chain sharpener on a semi-permanent basis. Now I just have to learn how to use it.
On the down side, we discovered my livestock trailer needs important work before I take it out again. Also the truck is needing something electrical - it could be the battery, but most likely something else is draining the system.
I have a start on next year's wood, and several people approached me this week about wood on their property which needs taking. Now I just need the time.
Oremus pro invicem!
Big Red has not given birth yet.
We put in broccoli and lettuce today. We have been working on fencing new pig pens, trimming back long overgrown muscadines, and figuring out how to get new bull calves home with a broken trailer and an iffy pick up truck.
Oh well....
Oremus pro invicem!
Mrs. Curley and I processed a hog this week - not too big - maybe 200 pounds. We think that this is the first time Mrs. Curley participated actively. She sawed the pig in half after evisceration and butchered with me on Thursday morning.
Red is ready to bust! I would be very surprised if we didnt' wake up to a litter in the morning. This will be her 3rd litter. She has been a good mother.
And, here are 4 really good looking girls from our litter born 3 weeks ago or so.
The kids came home and then left. We've had 2 litters of pigs, 2 snow storms, 1 ice storm, and lots of other things. We have another litter due this week.
We are in the midst of Spring garden planning - some things should go in the ground VERY soon.
We have finally finished collecting wood for this winter and are working on next winter. I won't be caught so short again.
We have been working on pruning muscadine vines which have been over grown since the day we moved in here - finally getting them under control.
I hope to document more progress this spring - but who knows?
I finished a few books recently: Anthony Esolen's "Defending Boyhood", a book (can't recall the name) about hunting and fishing in SC-a personal memoir. Now reading RJ Snell's "Acedia".
Last year was sort of a homestead disaster, between my work schedule and my weekend commitments away from home on pig business. We are trying to regroup and refocus on why we are here. (We are also thinking again of getting a milk cow????)
Stay tuned.
Oremus pro invicem!
May the Nativity bring peace and joy to your family and throughout the Earth!
Oremus pro invicem!
I know everyone has covered this ground, but......
So Food Lion is selling "Holiday Trees"! Really? Which Holidays are they? New Year's Trees? Hanukkah trees?
Radio stations playing "Holiday Music". Which Holidays are we talking about. In this case, there are a few generic winter songs, but the rest - Christmas!
I really don't have a problem with someone saying "Happy Holidays" as this does historically encompass Christmas, Holy Mother of God, Epiphany, and minor feast in between.
BUT Holiday trees?
Sorry for the rant.
Oremus pro invicem!
Our children are spread all the country this Thanksgiving - on G is home, and my in-laws are here. Two days ago we had a bonfire so we could use the "hole" for target practice.
This morning we put in our 28 lb turkey, which G was invaluable in helping with, in the oven.
Oremus pro invicem!
Mrs. Curley and I have been talking about Christmas this year. There was a year in the tight Requiem Press days where we made all (or just about all) our Christmas presents for the children. The shop and sewing room were very busy that year. As I recall there is a Little House on the Prairie episode which inspires this kind of Christmas gift giving.
We have been talking about the supply chain and lamenting out personal dependence on it and China. But I read this at Front Porch Republic this morning. Here is the "money quote", although you read the whole thing.
With the supply chain tangled, we have what may be a brief moment to consider its flaws without being blinded by the glare of its surface efficiencies. Perhaps, we can craft a Christmas experience not dependent on plastic molded an ocean away. As David Cayley, author of a fine introduction to the work of renegade priest Ivan Illich, noted on a recent B.S. podcast, we should beware of an institutionalized Incarnation. The more we farm out our expressions of affection to things and entities designed to do the work for us, the more we miss the point. More gifts rooted in real engagement and fewer dependent upon shipping containers could be one of the benefits the broken supply chain delivers.
Mrs. Curley and I had already discussed moving back towards opening the workshops for this Christmas. (I hope this doesn't set out panic in my children - if any of them even bother to read my blog anymore.)
Oremus pro invicem!
Last week we drove up to Pelzer, SC and bought a couple turkeys (Thanksgiving and Christmas). Then we drove down to Kinards, SC and bought a couple bull calves.
Now when I buy bull calves, I always ask whether they got colostrum from their mother. People do lie about this, but there is no reason to deny the calf the colostrum. You can't use the first day or more of the milk from the mother because it is all or mostly colostrum.
We are still cutting wood, but now are burning it occasionally too. Two mornings we have taken the chill off with a small fire in the wood stove. More to come....
Weaned another litter of pigs this week. What an adventure! The sow kept breaking away from the breeding pen to get back near her pigs. This from a sow who was digging holes under the fence daily to let the pigs out! Now pigs (rather hogs) from her first litter (now 160 pounds) are trying to suckle off her - and she is letting them. I have never the seen the like. Wish I had a camera with me.Sometimes unrelated articles converge to an idea or conclusion. So this past week I read Phil Lawler's piece on the state of the public schools and his advice:
Educate your children at home, if you cannot find another school. Find other parents who share your concerns and will match your commitment, and start your own school. Scrimp and save and do your best; it will not be perfect, but it will be better for your children than the indoctrination program that now confronts them.
Don’t wait for the next outrage. Don’t wait until your children are seriously hurt. Get them out of the public schools. Now.
And then I read the seemingly unrelated piece by David Cooney explaining why the unlikelihood of capitalists being woke is really not so surprising:
Conservatives will claim that it is because the news, education and entertainment industries have been “taken over” by liberals or leftists, including many socialists, who indoctrinate our children in school and the public in general through education, biased news reporting and the underlying message of our entertainment industries. There is an element of truth to this observation, but it doesn’t really explain how they were able to accomplish all of this.
In my view, the blame for that is mainly the conservatives themselves. It was the conservatives who failed to learn the lessons of recent history. Every socialist regime that has arisen in the last century has employed the same tactics of taking over education, news and entertainment and ensuring that only one point of view could be presented. Taking control of educational institutions was always a high priority because the socialists knew that they might not be able to change the minds of adults, but that they could use schools to indoctrinate children to believe things contrary to their parents beliefs and values. Conservative capitalists knew that liberals and socialists were “infiltrating” all of these arenas in our societies. We know they knew it because they have spent decades complaining about it. Yet, they did nothing significant to resist it.
So here is the convergence. Why and the solution, but immediate and for the future. Will anyone answer the call?
Oremus pro invicem!
