Chilly but beautiful sunrise, project and Piggy pics

I wanted to attach a pic of the pet of the litters.  This is Nick.....it is never good when the kids name one!  He is the runt of the litter and the smallest one that made it.  My wife (holding Nick), kids, and Steven's girlfriend Lea, bottle fed him in addition to momma's milk for the first week of his life to get him big enough to eat on his own.  He is doing much better but is still very small compared to the rest.

The runt of the litters 

 I also got a picture of a few of the others.  They look like little body builders and they are growing so fast!  The spotted one is about two weeks older than the one in the back ground.  The bigger ones are pushing 30 lbs already and the other are not far behind at 20-24 lbs. 

Here is a picture from above to see the difference in size.  The spotted one is a Berkshire x Tamworth cross.  The other two are from a Duroc/Hampshire sow and Tamworth boar. 

Here is a picture of feeding time.  By the time they get to this age it is a free for all every time one of the sows lay down to feed.  Unfortunately Lady is very good at getting someone else to feed her babies.  Fortunately, Daisy pig is very good at feeding anyone who wants to eat!  Lady is the one in the back checking out all the babies eating.

As anyone living in this area knows, it has been very cold this winter.  For the first time in weeks I got to see a sunrise from my own house.  Being a manager for snow I am at work a lot keeping things running smoothly.  We finally got a break and I was able to eat breakfast with the family.

It was actually quite pretty looking out our new kitchen window that my wife put in last fall.  Even with as pretty as it looks I still prefer the green version over white any day!

Here is a picture from on top of the hill looking down on one of my current projects.  As I mentioned before I started this before Christmas and have been whittling away at it ever since.  However, given my track record for completion times for projects like this I have decided to try to expedite this one a little.  I gave a call to an excavator we use at work a lot and he stopped by today.  Monday he will be out with his large excavator and I will be on hand with Steven to top trees and cut off stumps.  Hopefully it will only take a half a day to knock all the remaining trees down and pile the stumps and tops to burn in the spring.  I want to be planting this by March so I am setting a steep deadline to meet on purpose to get it into production this year.



Having grown up on a farm and working my whole life I find it hard to relax if I am at home.  On a day off I can make it till about 9 am before I go stir crazy in the house and head outside to do something.  Since I had a large number of trees to get rid of I decided to cut and split some wood.  This picture was taken today.  I have already sold three cords of wood from the original pile and Steven and I just cut and split another cord and a half yesterday.  When is spring gonna get here so I can take a break?







I promise to take some pictures Monday of the big excavator for everyone to look at.  Should make quick work of it since it is a 314 caterpillar.  I can't wait!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Kenny