COVERALL UPDATE POST

PIGS: the piglets are no longer piglets! They're HUGE! We are loving them! They're like puppies! Look how cute! This is Ethan with Bacon and Lane Michael with Gerdy! Now the downside to huge pigs is a HUGE feed bill! They are eating us out of house and home! The unfortunate part of that is that we'll have to slow their growth by feeding the fair pig oats in their feed, but the nice part is that this batch (the other 5) will be seperated out from the fair 4 and will be ready for butcher in probably June or July which is much faster than we had anticipated! But we're having SUCH a good time with them!

GARDEN STARTS:  The garden starts were probably started way too early! They're too bit and we had to move them out of their little pots and put them in cut off gallon milk jugs. I hope it gets and stays warm soon because they're simply too big to keep this up!!

Debt Free Progress: Epic FAIL! This summer will be better once we aren't paying for preschool but that's only a couple months! I'm really hoping the Wapak house sells quickly because maintaining 2 houses is killing us! We're making NO progress on becoming debt free but we are maintaining our current status so that's good but still frustrating. I know that our needs are met and even most of our wants...I think it's simply a level of comfort that a little cushion would provide.

Ethan has been slowly needing less of his meds, he's able to concentrate a little better and for longer periods of time, we are thinking of seeing a homeopath over the summer to see if she can't work with him. She said she would provide coping mechanisms for him to use, also foot and hand massage/stimulation, and a few techniques for him to practice and use. I'm putting some serious thought into it. He's started baseball and is LOVING it....he's really grown in his skill set this year, his batting is great, and seems to really enjoy it.

Lane Michael has been amazing with Ryan here lately, I think appreciating him more and just being kind and forgiving. Yesterday Ryan got left in the car with Lane Michael and me while Todd and Ethan went in to get a drink, Ryan suddenly decided he HAD to go in too so Lane Michael volunteered to take him and that's just one example, I'm amazed by the brother he is! He's also started baseball and while his hitting hasn't improved as much, his fielding has! Last night we were outside playing and he was throwing himself on the ground to stop the ball....which is a new skill for him.

Ryan is....God bless Ryan. He is funny, witty, sarcastic....on Easter Sunday we were all eating breakfast, he leaned over to his cousin Jack and said "come closer", so Jack leaned in. Ryan whispered (just loud enough for Jack and his mom to hear) "I watch you while you sleep", leaned back, took a bite, cocked one eye brow and just grinned at him. creepy little dude. He also told the whole school that the Easter bunny was just some guy in a suit. I am raising "that kid". Good news. He has little desire to hang out with the pigs, doesn't want to play baseball and is disgruntled by the disturbance it causes to his schedule. It's a good thing he's cute!

Piglets

Look how cute! 9 new additions! 7 Hampshires and 2 Durocs!  

See that dark brown or red looking pig (actually there are 2 in this picture), those are the Durocs. My absolute favorite! 



And this is Pops, he's like a puppy! He follows Todd and won't let anyone else get close to him, very protective, playful and loving! Has more personality than most of the others, but is a boar (meaning soon he will have testosterone running through those viens...we'll get him cut before long though so hopefully he remains comfortable and friendly).

Pigs so far are a pretty low maintenance animal, soon we'll have to get the boys out working them every day (twice a day through the summer) so that come fair time, they'll be ready to stand for the judges. But as of right now, we have a watering system that while messy is low maintenance (fill it every couple days and they're good to go) and their feed is in a dispenser and they self feed out of that and we just fill that every few days.

We were able to weigh our pigs this last Saturday and there's a pretty big gap from top to bottom, we have a couple who are only 60 lbs or so all the way up to 105 lbs! The 2 fatties weighing in at 105 will go to butcher sooner rather than later...they go at about 250-280. 

1 Week Old Sprouts

If this is just a week, I can't wait to see what they can produce! I'm excited to see what we get this year out of these little starts!

Garden Sprouts already!

Planted the seeds last Thursday. Watered them that night, watered them Saturday and again today...when I went to water them today I noticed these little beauties! In the bottom row, the 2nd plot has a sprout and in the next row up the 1st and 4th have sprouts! That didn't take long! Ryan was so excited and honestly so was I! they started so fast! I'm excite to see what we get!

Garden Starts

Living in the country is NOT a foreign concept to me. I grew up in the country, my closest neighbor (our only neighbor) was on the other side of the cornfield. After living in the barracks and in apartments for most of our military career, I couldn't ask Todd to live in town. We bought a farm, a small 5 acre farm with 5 horses, a drafty house, and an over the road truck driver for a husband. I had 5 horses (mischevious, escape artist type horses), twin 2-4 year olds, and worked full time, there was no time for a garden. So this summer, while Todd and the boys are home for the summer, we want to put out a garden, a small one to start with, grow from there. When we get to our permanent home, we plan to put in a much larger garden. Planting enough to feed us through the summer and can for the winter. We also want a small orchard to eat and can from, we talked about it this weekend and I think we want 2 cherry, 2 apple, 2 peach, and 2 pear. I also want berry bushes...but that's someday. Last week Ryan and I started our garden starts. we planted rows of beans, snap peas, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, peppers, accorn squash, onions, and a few other odd and ends. Our best friends are putting in rows of sweet corn so we did not plant sweet corn but hope to trade for some. Ryan loved helping me plant the seeds, hope he enjoys weeding the garden just as much!