So, long time, no write. Yeah, life on a farm; it's busy. It goes like this: get up at 6:30 in a great deal of cold, dress, scrape together some breakfast while listening to NPR, drive down the hill, feed and water horses, pigs, and turkeys, and sheep, do a lot of different chores and projects, move the cows, finish projects for the day, drive home, shower, cook supper, eat, go to bed by 9ish. The chores and projects have been anything and everything: troubleshooting electric fencing, manning the farm store, weed-whacking the corn maze, cutting pumpkins, weed-whacking the pumpkin patch, moving the turkey house, putting up fencing, loading animals into trailers, driving to the butcher, making deliveries all over Asheville and Hendersonville, packing boxes, putting out trash, making apple cider, cleaning up the cider room, working on making our house habitable and free of wildlife, drafts, and mould, and herding pigs. I would like to take this time to discus herding pigs in more detail. As a rule, one should not not attempt it. My first experience herding these little pinkies landed me crawling miserably through thick labyrinths of multiflora rose where two very crafty little porkers kept retreating despite our very best efforts to get them to move with their buddies into the next field. Let me tell you, a multiflora rose thicket can get the size of a large truck, and you can't see daylight out the other side. We considered getting our hands on a pneumatic air cannon, or else a couple of paint-ball guns to encourage our two fat friends out, but eventually abandoned our efforts and bush-hogged the field the next day.
On a separate occasion, we attempted to move seven pigs about a mile from one field to another. On the first attempt, they got as far as the gate, turned and ran all the way back. On the second attempt, they got as far as the gate, turned and ran all the way back. Mind you, this is seven pigs verses four adult humans. Very, very ,very gently, very calmly, we managed to get five pigs past the gate and into the pasture, two ran for it. One we abandoned and let him go wee-wee-wee all the way home. The other we cornered and managed to hold her within five feet of the gate. We reached a stalemate. She stood stock still. We stood stock still, slowly, we edged her towards the gate, but always she retreated. We waited, to see if she would go in on her own. We stood and looked at each other for a solid fifteen minutes before she finally decided, on her own terms, that she would join the other pigs in the pasture. Ever heard the idiom "stubborn as a pig"?
We're killing Turkey's at 5:30 tomorrow morning (before any more of them die of their own accord). Mmmmm, death for breakfast. . .