First post in oh, a while.

Ah, farm life. Fresh air! (uh, no, not really).

It's kidding season again. So far, we've got 9 boys and 4 girls. One that 'hatched' was eaten by Pig. Oh, I didn't tell you about our pig. We have a pig. No, wait... we have TWO pigs. One regular eating pig and one potbelly pig named 'Mimi'.

Mimi came to us from a woman near San Antone who was moving and had to get rid of Mimi. We needed a companion pig for Pig (big, pink pig) and she was it.

 She's about the crankiest potbelly pig there is. Seriously. Mimi-the-crank. You can't even pet her without her grumbling about it. She, unlike Pig, is a bit of a picky eater. Loves carrots, loves peas and corn, of course, but won't eat much else in the way of veggies. We set her up in the shed (after we cleaned it out) because the shed already has a doggy door on it so she can come and go as she pleases. On really cold days, we don't see her in the yard at all. We also have a heater JUST for the shed, JUST for Mimi. She has destroyed an old futon I got back in the early 80s - during college days. Mike was all upset because Mimi had ripped open the covering for it so she could get to the warmth underneath. We've been hauling that damned futon with us everywhere we move and I'm actually glad to be 'shed' of it. Particularly for a, um, _sweet_ creature like Mimi.

The OTHER pig -- he's more troublesome. The night we got him -- we, uh, were kind of forced to get him, the people who wanted to trade a goat for it called us at 7pm at night and said they were on their way. Well, we didn't have a stall set up for a pig and didn't quite know what we'd do. But we finally decided to put it in the buck pen and would deal with it in the morning.

It had other ideas.

It escaped immediately and was bitten on the leg and butt by Brisket before it ran around the edges of the farm trying to escape. Mike tried to get it from one end and me from another. I almost got it, but it gave us chase for a while. Mike put the dogs into a field that could be closed off so they would stop barking and trying to get it while we chased it around. The poor pig was pretty traumatized and we managed to herd it very near the opening where it got out under the fence that surrounds the buck pen. Mike made sure the dirt was dug out further so when the pig (who knew it was safe inside the pen) got close, he'd be able to go under the fence to get IN. It worked. We were able to herd it in, fill in the hole and voila!

Pig hasn't tried to escape since then.

Mimi came into heat last month and we decided that piglets wouldn't be such a bad idea (we'll see), so we put her in with Pig so he could do his thing. He did. Now Mimi, whose friendliest during her heat, isn't friendly at all, any more. Just a total crank. Reminds me of old men I've known.

For now, we are trying to put together a bunch of supplies we're going to need to be able to process this pig ourselves. Yes, folks, we're planning on killing it, hauling its carcass up and 'harvesting' it. I bought some hide scrapers and Mike and I are putting together a temporary cold smoker so that we can smoke some hams. This is all new to us and although it's exciting, it's also terrifying at the same time. This porker's huge.

Back at it. It's Friday. TGIF.