Anyone in this part of the country has probably heard of Deep Wells and Horizontal Well Drilling. Chesapeake is the company who is doing most of the drilling in our area. The picture above is of their well site on the south side of my grandpa's farm. I was helping the neighbor move some bean stubble bedding home and we took a different road back and came around the corner on the next hill over and a perfect view of the site. The rig may look small in the pic from this distance but we are about a mile to a mile and a half away. The entire site is about ten acres. Where it is sitting used to be a very steep hill covered in woods. There are some serious risks that stem from mishandling of the byproducts from drilling on the surface and a lot of unfounded concerns on both sides of the argument. This will also bring a lot of money into a part of the country that has been living in poverty for many many generations. How this plays out will yet to be seen.
Well, the time has come to wean Mallory's piglets. We sent her to the pen next door to see her boyfriend today. They have been grunting and arguing all afternoon. After five days without the piglets she will come in heat and everyone will be happy again!!
Everywhere she goes he is right behind her. It will be this way for the next 5-7 days!
We also let our new Berkshire gilt, Lady, out today. We have kept her penned up till now because with the little ones running around Mallory has been very strict about letting others around them. The first time we tried to let her out Mallory chased her all over. So we penned her up till weaning. By the time Mallory comes back Lady will be settled in and Mallory will be calm and not mind the new one as much.
She is checking out the feeder. It is very similar to the one she grew up on so she knew exactly what to do to get to the feed!
Steven also brought his special gilt over today. She is from a very high end show pig litter. He is planning on breeding her artificially next year but wants to breed her to the Tamworth boar first to get a litter from her and get her cycles started. If we get her bred to a good show boar the resulting piglets will be worth a lot of money. It is amazing what some people will spend on baby animals just so their kids can win a show. We were always taught growing up that winning isn't always getting a ribbon, it is what you learn along the way!!
Mario was simply staying out of the way all day watching the chaos!
Apparently this feeder pig felt she could find milk elsewhere! Even though she is almost ready for the butcher she is still trying to nurse from the cows! Don't worry, the cows immediately let her know that is not an option with a quick pop to the nose!
If you go back to last years posts you will notice a lot of snow in the pics from my January posts. Even though it warmed up briefly in February last year it was quite cold and miserable from December of 2010 till mid April of 2011. This winter we had no measurable snow in November or December and have only had about 1.5" so far this month. Today was the coldest day of the weekend at 40degrees. It was 55 on Friday and it is supposed to be in the upper 40's throughout the next 7 days. I am hoping it stays mild all winter as it would make up for the long wet cool summer we had!
That being said, the cows didn't want anything to do with the happenings of the pigs today and decided to go down along the fence line and relax in the sunshine.
After watching the cows and pigs for a while to make sure everyone was gonna be ok Steven and I headed back into the barn to check the babies only to find Daisy already keeping an eye on them.
She absolutely loves to watch them and help the momma's take care of them. Now that the momma was in a different area Daisy took charge and got in the pen to make sure everyone was doing ok and getting ready for bed.
Well, I am gonna head to bed. Because of the wonderful warm weather we are able to complete a concrete pour on a project at work that we thought would have to wait till spring.
Hope everyone has a great Monday and an even better week!
Kenny
1 comment:
Love this blog!
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