The Trailer
I bought this 2-work horse trailer about two years ago from a retiring farmer in Danville, Maine. Although financially it was a big purchase, it has been well worth it. It allows me to pick up all the pigs in the spring and handle them only once (to get them in there), move the pigs from one end of the farm to the other (they don't herd very well) and trailer the pigs and turkeys to their final vacation spot (at separate times of course).
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This past weekend we moved the pigs to the strawberry patch. Yes, sorry the strawberries are done for the season, but the pigs are happily gleaning the patch and rooting up all those dang weeds! Moving the pigs from consecutive pasture to antoher takes about 35 minutes, but the big move with the trailer involved takes about an hour...and some help from Zach.
As many of you know, these pigs are pretty gregarious. And generlly pigs are super curious. So once we open the door to a new spot, they come tunbling out to explore. The first trip around is to check out the perimeter boundary, then for the best eating spot and finally for the best lounging spot. We do have one blind pig this year (Blind Melon), and he took a little longer to come out of the trailer. But he has very good hearing and once I started hosing the others off, he made his way over to the piggy sprinkler too.
The farm is sprinting along. One task leads to another, and many times multiple tasks need to be accomplished at the same time. Although there have been some surprise rain storms with quite a bit of rain, nothing is too saturated at the moment. In fact, I am happy with the soil moisture at this point. Although it has made killing weeds a bit tricky. I seem to be able to knock them over, but then they just grow sideways. Hmpf! And the veggies? Well, you know when you are in a warm shower and then someone else decides to run the hot water and you get a shock of cold water? Well I think that is a bit how the plants have felt this year. The temps have fluxuated so greatly between night and day, not too mention from 60 to 90, they are a bit shocked! I find myself waking up at night feeling sorry for the lettuce and spinach in the heat. They are making it through though.
This Week's Harvest! lettuce, arugula, spinach, chard, tat soi, garlic scapes, chinese cabbage, shell peas! sugar snap peas?
Next Week: lettuce, beet greens, turnips, peas
