WHY WE'RE NOT RAISING PIGS THIS YEAR (AND WHY THAT'S OKAY).

 We love pigs... most of the time. Most of the time the pigs are well-behaved, sweet, and ultimately nutritious (I am, as I write this, cooking sausage from last year's pigs for breakfast). But then there are the times they are not: they are gone, out of the fence, in the garden, in the woods, who knows where they are. It's those times that are most prominent in my mind right now as we prepare for a really big season on the farm. We're doubling our CSA, we're taking on a lot more debt, and we have to wonder... are the pigs worth it right now?Are they worth the stress to the farmer, the risk to the gardens, the upfront cost, the sausage? The answer? Begrudgingly, maybe not. So I'm having to, for perhaps the first time since we've been farming, make a reasonable decision here. We're going to skip the pigs for the year.The reality is we just don't yet have the infrastructure to properly manage them. They wind up costing a lot more time and stress than we make back on them; than perhaps the pork is worth.This isn't in any way the end of our relationship to pigs. We just need to clear a little more forest—which is currently too dense, unmanageable and inefficient for portable fencing. We need to find more sources of slop—restaurants, shareholders, etc.. And we have to get through this year first. We do that, and we may have pigs again next year. We don't make it through, and heck we'll probably do pigs again anyway. Because if you can't win for losing, you might as well have some pork to show for it.-Jesse. 

PIGS IN THE WOODS.

We are having mixed feelings about the pigs lately.We love the pigs. We love raising pigs. It makes a lot of sense for our farm and our land. But somedays, it is really, REALLY frustrating.We raise our pigs in the woods, rotating them frequently in small paddocks using solar-electrified fencing. This means that every time we move them we end up getting the fence caught on every twig and briar and branch, every few seconds. Tripping over hidden rocks and logs, falling in the mud and poison ivy, cursing the heavens. It means that when a pig gets OUT, as it definitely will sometimes, we end up chasing that pig through the woods in the middle of the night. and that means more cursing. It is, as I said, frustrating.We dream of having pastured pigs. Or stationary pigs. Pigs that stay put and don't require a stumbling five minute walk through a dense cedar forest with two five gallon buckets every day. Plus, we have plans to do more faming in our woods - mushrooms, nut trees, nettles, and so on. Pigs don't exactly fit into that plan.But then we move them into a fresh paddock, and they are so happy. SO happy. They are romping around, chomping on nuts and making gleeful piggy sounds, and it is clear that this is how they should be raised, as maddening as it is at times.- Hannah.

THIS & THAT.

Some random photos from the past week.We got this years pigs! But they are completely terrified of us, so the only photos we can get of them are creepy paparazzi-zoom shots.We moved our bed downstairs for Further's birth, and it has stayed that way, out of convenience and the fact that it is usually a raging inferno upstairs when the woodstove is going.We set out a ton of transplants before the rain - always feels good.The old plum orchard is in bloom!

NEW STRATEGIES.

As we deal with the fact that we are possibly having a baby any day now, we are trying to simplify some things around here. Since I am currently not as capable as I once was of chasing escaped pigs through the woods, we have them living in our garden where there is a permanent fence that they can't (theoretically) get out of. Jesse has been bringing them lots of treats since there is not as much for them to forage. And in perhaps some sort of reverse-psychology scheme, we have been letting the goats out every morning for an hour or so. They eat along the fence row for awhile and then simply walk back into their fenced in yard, content for the rest of the day. Cross your fingers that these strategies work for a little longer!- Hannah.