Harry Porker

Here on the farm, we try and cover the costs of our homestead with our homestead! Which means expanding/upgrading can sometimes (usually) take some time. One of the things we've known we would do in the future was replace George Kune with a better boar. 

I've never been a big fan of his coloring, and he doesn't have wattles. We sell the Kune Kune piglets for $50 more if they have wattles as wattles are a desired trait of the breed. Knowing we were going to have some piglets this month that would make up for the cost of our new purchase, we decided to jump on a boar that we saw online and fell in love with. 

Meet Harry Porker! 

He has long, curly hair, which we love, and wattles! 

As soon as he came home, we introduced him to the three girlies we needed to breed this year-- Magnolia, Peony, and Daisy. He's actually the same age and size of Peony and Daisy, so it worked out perfectly! 

You know the saying "don't count your chicks before they hatch"? Turns out the pigs weren't pregnant. 

Just fat. (This is the second time this year this one was supposed to have piglets and didn't.)

We gave them a few weeks in case we did our calculations wrong and then put them back in the rotation. This time, we put them in with George Kune (who no one has wanted to purchase just yet) and Oscar. We are going to leave them in with the boys for three months. I'm determined to get piglets out of them, haha. 

Now with turkeys, we were fully aware to NEVER count your chicks before they hatch. Better yet, don't count your turkeys until they are full grown. So we weren't surprised (just super bummed) when we went to check on them in the hoop coop and found all five babies dead. We made the decision to get out of turkeys and sold our remaining three adults for $195. 

I rrreeeeaaaaallllllyyyyy wanted to use the money to buy a peacock (Sam turned that one down real quick, haha), but I decided to use the money for ducks. Our ducks were missing/not laying and we have some customers in need of duck eggs (not to mention the cute blue cartons I purchased specifically to sell duck eggs in). However, I couldn't find the breeds I wanted nearby. I wasn't in a super hurry, and it's a good thing I listened to the Holy Spirit and didn't push it because........

The Lord surprised us with ducklings! For the first time on the farm, an animal nested outside of the barn and survived. We were impressed (not to mention it takes 4 weeks to hatch ducks instead of 3 weeks like the chickens) and super excited! 

We then noticed the male duck hanging by himself instead of with the remaining female. It took a couple days, but we were finally able to see the second female duck long enough to follow her...and we found another nest!

We didn't want to chance her being found (her nest was in a more exposed spot), so we moved her and her eggs to the other half of the hoop coop. 

She was sitting on 16 eggs! Add that to the 3 adults we have and the 7 babies we just found, and we certainly are going to have enough ducks!

During all of this, we noticed the first momma duck was missing part of her beak. Pippa suggested it was probably a run in with a snapping turtle in our pond. 

As fate would have it, I saw a snapping turtle walking through the yard a couple days later. I ran outside and managed to kick it (gently) into a metal trash bin. Believe it or not, we had someone from Harrodsburg that came and picked it up that night. He catches snapping turtles to butcher for meat. He's supposed to be coming back soon to set more traps in our pond and see if we have any more. 

Which is good news for the ducks and great news for our fish! We want to be able to restock the pond, but it'll cost us about $250. We have more pressing farm projects we need to get done before then.  In the meantime, the kids are enjoying watching the tiny Blue Gills grow, and they even went "fishing" in the pond. Unbeknownst to them, Will Will's fishing pole has a fake fish on the end and Rylee's has a fake grub and spinner without a hook. (And Luke has a giant stick). It was actually pretty comical watching the Blue Gill grab Rylee's grub in their tiny mouths and try and swim away with it before her fishing line jerked it back. 

The kids had a really fun time but unfortunately, I think we have some SUPER mean bugs that live in the tall grass next to the pond. Rylee woke up with bug bites on her face the next day. We kept giving her Benadryl as the bites were large red splotches almost like hives. The next day, she woke up like this....

We took her to the pediatrician, and they were able to give her an oral steroid that cleared her up in three days. Unfortunately, she had tball pictures the very next day after the day pictured above. 

Other farm shenanigans: 

We did a little bit of brush cleaning up along the driveway. I couldn't resist taking pictures of the storm clouds while we worked. 

We had to make our almost-monthly trip to the feed store and then had to spend an hour or so fixing the meat chicken pen feeder because Rosie broke it (we had her in there when we thought she was going to have babies). 

The three boys that are part of our herd share were very excited thinking that they were going to get some of the chicken food (they didn't, poor buddies). 

Luckily, Mena Grace took a nap in her bouncy while we worked. I also took the time to fix some holes in the netting and pick up some trash that had accumulated in the pen. 

Sam and Luke buried a line to connect the lower quadrants to the upper quadrants in the pig rotation. We'd been using just a piece of electric fencing wire tied from one to the other, but this was going to be MUCH more efficient at keeping the pigs from breaking out and visiting their neighbors.  

Speaking of visiting neighbors, we also discovered that Lily had been going off the farm and visiting the neighbors. Apparently, she played with them so often that the grandkids caught her and posted a missing dog post on facebook to see if anyone would claim her. They really wanted to keep her. Whoops!

We ended up purchasing two Tractive devices, and they have been well worth the money. We attached the devices to Allie and Lily's harnesses and in the app we are able to draw a custom perimeter we want them to stay in. We get an immediate notification on our phone if they leave the perimeter and we can play a sound. They have already learned when they hear the sound to come straight back to the house. 

On the home side of things:

I found a really neat website which you can use to identify arrow heads. The neatest part for me is that they give an age estimate! 

I gave the boys haircuts and after thinking on it for a few days, decided to give Rylee some layers. I ended up accidentally cutting off about 5 inches, and I almost cried. I was SOOOOO sad. Luckly, she said "but Momma, I look so beautiful." So she loved it. 

We had to do some rearranging of the decor to make room for a new painting, and the kids had fun trying on our hats (that they don't understand why we don't wear and only use for decoration). 

I ended up having to give up milk and after about two weeks, Mena Grace was a whole new baby. She started sleeping through the night, and I was able to set her down more frequently during the day. Usually, she isn't calm unless she's being held, carried, or bounced. We also discovered that she loves this chair. 

While trying to do some cleaning up, I found some material we acquired from Grandma. A table cloth and some old curtains, I believe. So I made Rylee a cute dress with a matching kerchief. 

Mena Grace learned how to smile, and it's been super cute watching the kids talk to her to try and get her to smile. 

I put Mena Grace's hair in her very first pony tails! Rylee told me she looked like an alien, haha. 

It's kind of hard to see in the pictures, but her hair is thinking about being red. We were told Sam's Mema had auburn hair her whole life, and it seems like this might be the color Mena's hair decides to be. 

Definitely not as red as Alanna's, but it's fun having a little red head for as long as it lasts. Everyone always comments on her hair!

We developed a chore chart as a sort of positive reinforcement. Mainly for William, but it also helps Rylee out. They earn stickers they can spend on things like TV, candy, and popsicles. It helps motivate them to do chores, and William responds well to the threat to take a sticker away. 

For mother's day, I was looking for embroidery/cross-stitch gifts and came across needle minders. They attach to your work with magnets and then you put your needle across it when you have to step away for a moment. I found these cute tree ones and also found a Mary, Undoer of Knots medallion that I gifted to Pippa. 

I bought some rugs and this cute shelf at an estate sale down the road. I wanted something I could put all the flower jellies on at the craft fair this year. I paid $5 for this buddy!

After the kids and I gave it a good cleaning, Sam cut a piece of plywood for me so I could nail it to the back and cover it with some vintage wall-paper we were given by Nonni. All we have  left is to put a sign at the top that we can write on with chalk markers!

And Rylee addressed her very first envelope to her cousin Alanna! I wrote the addresses on the board during school, and she copied it to the envelope with absolutely no help from me. She did so great!

Pax Domini cum spirito tuo temper sit,

Torey, Sam, Rylee, William, Luke & Mena Grace

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