Finally, livestream sumo!!!!

While visiting my wife's parents in Tokyo the summer after our daughter was born I was surprised to find out there was a sumo tournament going on.  Now, growing up in the countryside on a dairy farm in Ohio introducing me to sumo was like introducing someone who grew up in downtown Tokyo to pitching manure from the barn!!  However, since I don't speak Japanese and I cannot drive or read any of the signs, and it was also the rainy season, I had no other choice but to watch it as it was the only thing on TV every day for the entire trip!  After watching it for a couple days and asking questions that no one who grew up there could answer I started researching online about sumo.  I shortly found a new sport that I liked and began to enjoy. 

Goo Sumo website for Origins of Sumo

Most people believe it is just a bunch of fat guys wrestling.  However, there is much more to it than that and the sport has extremely deep origins that go farther back than any other sport that I know of!  Every match counts and you are either promoted or demoted based on your results after each tournament (basho).  The best wrestlers are not the fattest or largest but usually the strongest combined with the best technique.  While I have no one here that is interested in sumo with me that does not stop me from following it whenever I can.  For a few years we had TV Japan on the satellite to see the tournaments.  However, during the gambling and other scandals, NHK (the sports station that broadcasts sumo in Japan) boycotted one of the tournaments and we couldn't watch.  After that we cancelled the station. 

Last weekend while checking on the current Basho I found a link to a live stream broadcast of the Bashos.  It is all in Japanese and there is no replay or explanations of what is going on like you will get with NHK.  However, it is a full feed of the entire day from the first match of the lowest ranked wrestlers to the last match involving the Ozeki's and Yokozuna's.


http://sumo.goo.ne.jp/hon_basho/torikumi/eizo_haishin/asx/sumolive.asx

Here is a video from last Basho of the top two guys in the final match of the Basho!

Hakuho vs. Harumafuji

It is worth checking out and learning more about it.  Even if you are not interested there is a lot of history involved with this ancient sport and knowledge is power!  Someday you may be able to impress someone with your knowledge and change someone's lopsided opinion about the world around them just like my wife's family did for me!


Have a great everyone and enjoy!

A visit from a great friend!

Sorry for the delay in my follow up post.  A busy week and weekend rolled right into another very hectic week.  I started a different position at work for managing snow for one of our branches.  This requires me to be up at night and monitor weather conditions and then sometimes work during the day as well.  This is the first chance I have had to sit down to post in several days.

First of all some of you may have guessed my mystery guests!  It was David and his wife Robin from out in Montana.  They were at a wedding for one of Robin's family members and since they were over half way here they decided to surprise everyone with a visit.  

The biggest problem with short surprise visits is getting to spend time with everyone.  We were fortunate in the fact that Dave and Robin were able to stop in twice while they were here.  We thought they were going to have one more visit but time didn't allow it.  David's brother and I were ready just in case they had time though.   We got a fresh case of COORS ORIGINAL, a box of crackers, a pound of cream cheese, and a jar and a half of Jalapeno Jelly.  David and I enjoyed this treat many times in the past on days off from work!!  Only way it is better is with beer in the keg instead of the cans!

Jalapeno Jelly and beer treat!!

David and Robin brought my branding irons along with them when they came to visit.  I asked what for and David told me he had an idea.  So we built a hot fire and started heating them and went to the shed to find some boards.  The top one by my sons "Lady Bug Boots" is a barn siding board that David brought from Montana.  The second is a crotch slab board from an elm tree that I cut down on clearing for hay ground across the road.  The bottom one is a cherry board from the old cherry tree that stood in our yard when we moved in. 

Our CRF brand in some rough sawed wood slabs.

My plan for these should turn out really sweet.  I am going to seal the barn siding board from Montana and hang above the barn doors on my barn.  The Elm Slab I am planning on making a sign for the farm.  I want to put our house number on it with Conser Run Farm along the top.  After that I want to seal it and put up some kind of post in the front to hold it up and hang it with some old rusty chain!

My ornery children pointing at our brand!

My plan for this one is a little more special.  My plan is to lightly sand the board to make it a little more smooth.  I am going to trim it down so it is roughly the length of what is shown in this picture preserving the old Knot in the wood.   Then I want to burn all our names in around the brand and then seal it and I will hang it up in our house, hopefully over my desk.  Should turn out great!  I cannot wait to get it all done.  Now I just have to find a wood burning tool or make something up from the scrap pile in the shed!

Conser Run Farm brand on rough sawed cherry board.

I was really wonderful to see David and Robin again.  I wish we had gotten more time to spend with them but the short time limit makes the time we did spend together much more special.  I am cannot wait to get to visit them and our Pearl in Montana, hopefully, on a warm sunny week in June, either this year or next.  I am also very happy to hear they are doing well out there and that they are still very much in love with each other.  A lot of people questioned whether they would make it or not when they moved out west.  Although I never questioned their love for each other I did question their sanity in moving to a place that has summer temps as high as 110 and winter lows that consistently are in single digits and often well below zero!   However, I am thrilled to see they are proving everyone wrong and doing so well, even if they do have to be a little crazy to deal with the cold weather!!!   I wish them luck and we sent them on their way with a fresh jar of Jalapeno jelly for to enjoy while huddled next to the fire place on the cold nights ahead.  I also will keep a fresh case of beer and jelly ready for our next visit be it here or there!

We castrated piglets over the weekend and everyone is healing quickly.  I also got all five of the finished hogs and the one steer to the butcher with minimal problems and I am currently waiting to hear what they weighed.

Now I am off to bed for a quick nap before going out to check parking lots over night for icing.

Good night everyone!

Quick update

Just a quick note.  Hopefully going to get all the male piglets cut this weekend to make them little barrows.  Had a visit from a great friend this week unexpectedly but very welcomed!!   I will post some pictures after they leave.

Some hints as to who it was.  Related to someone who helps me with the farm.  Worked on my landscape crew for a while.  Is a business partner of mine and had a long long drive to get here!!!

I will try to get some pics of the piglets this weekend.  They are growing unbelievably fast.  The runt is 5lbs. the next size up is 7 lbs. and the largest is already 15lbs.  WOW!!

First round of the year of pigs and a steer go to butcher on Monday.  Will be nice to finally get some income to the farm.  Will also be great to not have to feed the big pigs any more.  They are plowing through 60lbs. of feed a day right now, and my mom thought us kids ate a lot when we were in high school!

More later this weekend!

Kenny

Piggie update!

So far three of four sows have had their babies.  I was up for two days straight waiting on the third one to have them.  However, Daisy and I seemed to be the only ones other than the one in labor that were up and concerned as you can see from the picture below.  This was at 7 am and they still hadn't moved from where they were at 9pm the night before. 

This is a hog pile!! 

So, as most people know we experienced the wettest year in history in 2011 followed by a hotter than average extreme drought year that covered most of the US.  These hot temperatures coupled with the drought made it hard to keep a good mud hole for the sows to cool off in during their breeding time and the balance of the summer.  The first three are all first time mothers as well.  So, when you put all this together you get small litters as instincts cause the pigs body to prepare for the lack of water and food that follows a hot dry summer.  My first litter was pretty good at 8 of 9 alive.  We lost two to crushing and immediately instituted the hot box we have discussed for a while now. 

Berky 1 in labor and daisy playing midwife to the new piglets.

 My second litter was from Berky 2 and she only had three babies.  Quite disappointing.  My third litter started at 2am this morning and was Berky 1.  She started off good with the first two coming on their own.  Then after watching her push unbelievably hard for over an hour I realized we were having farrowing problems so I got my wife up and asked her to come help.  We needed to check for a pig stuck in the birth canal and being her first time I knew I would not be able to reach in without causing other problems.  

Daisy in the hot box cleaning up the new babies.

So, at 3:30am my wife came out and helped.  The third and fourth piglets were so big we had to pull them to get them out.  We waited quite a while and she had a break in her contractions and got up to move around so we went in the house for coffee.  We came back out at 6am to find she had a fifth one and cleaned (passed all the afterbirth, or placenta) and was feeding all the little ones.   So, this puts our total so far at 14 piglets for 3 sows.  Normally, even with all first timers I would have at least 20-25 and with seasoned sows I would have about 30.

Alex helping mom check the babies in the hot box.

 After cleaning up and getting Lisa on the bus we took Alex down to see the new piglets.  He was thrilled.  He actually helped me do it again twice later on in the day.  

Berkshire sow looking into hot box for piglets.

You can see momma looking in the hole of the hot box checking out her little ones.  Then she sat up to see what my son was up to!

 Alex wanted to check the piglets and pet a couple in the afternoon.  He had a blast.

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow cross piglets.

 The hot box we made for the piglets has worked awesome.  We haven't lost or had another piglet injured since I finished it.  The piglets also pick up on it immediately once they realize it is really warm and there are others in there already.  The only good thing to the small litter numbers is that they can all eat on one momma so every time one of them lays down to feed they all come running and eat so they are gaining weight fast!

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow cross piglets in the hot box.

I absolutely love the color pattern on the Tamworth x Berkshire piglets.  Most of them look as though they were in a diesel garage and got splattered with used diesel oil!  The two by my glove below were the two that my wife had to pull out by hand.  They are bigger than any of the others and two of the biggest I have seen since we started having piglets here on the farm.

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow piglets. 

My son wanted in the hot box as soon as we got to the barn.  Him and Daisy both went in to check the piglets.  He then climbed up to sit on the edge and wanted a picture!

Alex sitting on the edge of the hot box for the piglets.

If anyone is reading this and wants some details on the barn setup and the hot box we built into the pens leave a message and I will get some more detail posted.  It works so well it is amazing.  The only disappointing part is that we didn't do it a lot sooner.  However, till I got the gates figured out we didn't really have room for it anyway.  With the gates in place I am able to double the pen size allowing for more room for the sow during birthing.  As soon as Daisy pigs piglets are a day old I will open the gates back up and let them out on the pasture again.  The piglets will explore but do not stray very far from the hot box when it is cold.  It is so cool to watch them all run out and eat and then immediately run back in to the warm spot!!


Goodnight everyone.  I will post pics as soon as the last litter is born!

Kenny

Happy New Year!!!

So, another year comes to a close here on the farm.  This was another fun packed super busy year!  We are starting to see the benefits of all the hard work and planning though.  

To end the year on a positive note my wife scheduled a little family getaway for our last weekend in 2012.  We went just out of state to a Holiday Inn Express with a pool in Newell West Virginia.  My wife and I got a stress free night without having to worry about me getting called in to work snow or some other emergency and without her getting bothered from work or having to cook or clean.  They kids got to play in a pool with a bunch of other kids who's families were having a reunion the same weekend!  Then before we left Saturday morning we took them down for another swim while watching it snow out the windows.   As I said in my last post, this was the first time in 10 years I haven't been plowing when it snowed.  I just found out my wife had a video of us all playing so I wanted to post it.

Next up is a little change to the pig barn.  We have had some losses of piglets in the past due to piglets getting stepped on or laid on.  We lost two of Lady's first litter to this same problem because of the piglets trying to crawl under her belly to stay warm in this cold weather.  We have talked about a heat box but couldn't decide how to do it.  We finally had a breakthrough with the introduction of the gates to devide the pens allowing for extra room for each sow and allowing us to use a portion of one of the pens for a heat box.  I didn't know if it would work at first but it came together really nice!

Heat lamp box for baby piglets.

The piglets were a little leary at first but after adding the second light and putting the cover on it was hard to get them to come back out!

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow piglets.

They quickly piled up under the light after eating and went to sleep.   We are going to open up holes in both sides of the box to the adjoining pens to allow for babies in those two pens to access the heat lamps without having to go around the end of the pen or have more than one mother in a birthing pen.  I also built new built in troughs for feeding the sows.  I will try to get pictures today in the daylight. 

Tamworth boar x Berkshire sow piglets

Our herd check went very well.  Everyone is healthy, vaccinated, de-wormed, and pregnancy checked.  Out of eleven breeding age females we have 9 confirmed pregnancies.  Most of which will all be born between march and may.  The open ones are Frosty and Kwanzan, Frosty had her first calf this year and is a little light in weight, I think this is why she hasn't bred back yet.  I may need to force wean her calf to get her to breed back.  We had the same problem with Candy Apple last year and she was bred shortly after the herd check and rebred just fine this year.  As for Kwanzan I believe she just isn't quite big enough yet.  She is old enough just not big enough to be settle yet.  I will recheck them in early spring.  If they haven't settled by then we will have to decide what to do at that time. 

Looking back on 2012 there are a lot of positive changes that have happened here on the farm and I see us headed in the right direction.

We upgraded our round baler to a much more efficient and newer model allowing me to take on more custom work for baling hay.  The bales made with the new one are much tighter and the baler is made to handle the wetter crops that I have been baling for the neighbors. 

We downsized the pig herd and decided to focus specifically on fair pigs and our own feeder pigs.  When Steven and I started we were going to sell feeder piglets as part of the business.  However, after I started tracking numbers I quickly realized that this was not profitable at all for our operation.  We moved to a Berkshire x Tamworth cross breed for our babies with the exception of Daisy Pig.  We kept her because she has awesome babies and she if from a show pig litter so it allows us to have some really nice fair pigs if someone doesn't like the others!

I finally have a feed bin and found a way to have the mill make our pig feed that they all eat when there is nothing to get off the pasture.  I am getting close to the perfect blend of alfalfa and grains to get the most out of every bite they eat.  They are much more fit as they still have to go to the creek to drink so they are constantly active and growing muscle instead of fat!

I have a majority of the supplies we need to build the cow shed and the site is mostly set up as far as grading.  As soon as spring arrives and the budget covers it we will be building the new cow shed and adding a feeding area for the pig shed.  This will allow me to move the cow feeder area under roof and contain the manure from both the pigs and cattle more efficiently so I can put it on the fields where it is needed the most!  Also, with the growing herd size I am out of room to get all the cattle in the shed for herd checks and such.  The new cow shed will allow me space to handle between 50-60 cattle and will have a building loading and unloading chute that will be connected to a headlock for catching and checking cattle and for vaccinations.  The feeding area for the pig shed will allow me to move all the feeder pigs out of the birthing pens so each of the four sows can have their own pen.  I will also be able to put a bigger feeder out there to handle 8-10 pigs at a time instead of 4 reducing fighting when they are eating. 


There are many times throughout the year where I lose track of how far we have come.  Since starting the farm I seem to always find myself in the barn on new years eve giving everyone a treat and just thinking back to where I was the year before.  I am always humbled as I leave the barn and realize how much more progress we have made and how quickly we are turning the corner.  I can see where we are headed and I cannot wait to get to the next level.  It is always a surprise how much the way things turn out and the way to expected them to be can differ.  We started the farm simply to have our own meat in the freezer.  We have now evolved into a farming business that brings income to the household and teaches our children and many others about hard work, planning, and that knowing where your food comes from is still important. 


The main thing that keeps me going is those few times throughout the year when I get to spend a little while out in the pasture or in the barn and clear my mind and just relax and watch the cows eat or the calves or pigs play.  Or the times when the family and I go for a walk in the woods looking for mushrooms or picking berries.

I hope everyone has something they learned and can grow from in 2012 and I look forward to the challenges and rewards coming in 2013!!  It is always sad to see a year go by and a blessing to see another one to start over fresh with!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Merrick Family