Some pics from work and new piggies!

I as I have stated before I have a full time job as a project manager at Enviroscapes in Louisville, Ohio.  I have been working on a small project at Lake Mohawk for the last few weeks and wanted to share a couple of pics.  

It has been a while since I have done much brick work on a job.  Mostly I do bluestone an other cut or natural stone that is mortared on.  This customer preferred a brick patio so we followed some similar steps with pouring a mud pad to lay the brick on but instead of mortar we screed sand on top of the concrete to lay the brick on.

With every project I do I try to come up with something unique and different that sets it apart from any other project anywhere.  My best specialty is top rock and natural stone.  It has earned me the title "Rock Master" at work.  The patio we installed is on a small house and is almost 1000 sq.ft..  I wanted to add something to the area on the front of the house between the patio and the house to break it up the wall of windows without taking away the view of the lake.  It is also on a steep hillside so there is no room to pull patio back from house.  So I decided to put a rock in the patio.  My helper suggested adding another smaller rock to it to give the effect of bedrock being exposed.  The end product turned out pretty sweet.

 Here is  a shot from near the edge of the patio.  The homeowner loved it and it is pretty unique.  I have done this before but every time it is a little different and no two rocks are the same. 

Here is a picture of the fire pit area with the field laid out.  These are the pieces that do not need cut.  Everywhere you see missing brick is one that needs cut.  It took as long to cut all the pieces into the pit area as it did the entire patio up top.  The end result however is phenomenal!  I will get more pics when we finish the project this week.

The weather this weekend was absolutely awesome.  I spent most of my day yesterday doing some misc. items and helping dad with some stuff at his house.  Hay season started this week, two weeks earlier than normal, so I decided to take it easy and enjoy the day with the kids as I will not have another weekend like this for a while.  We started out going to check on Mallory who I penned up yesterday to have her piglets.  She had six by the time we headed out so we left her alone to see if she had any more and headed across the pasture to see if we have any new calves.

On the way we were treated to a rare sight.  A family of Killdeer birds were running around the pasture.  While it is common to see Killdeer it is not common to see the babies.  When they hatch they are literally  the size of your thumb and leave the nest almost immediately.  The parents will play injured to lure predators away from the little ones so you never see them.  But today we saw all four.  You will have to look at the picture in large size to see the little one.  It is standing just up the bank from its parent!

This is a pic from yesterday.  Pearl was laying behind the steer that is staring at Lisa and Lisa wanted to pet her.  Well, on the way to her she got in a staring contest with one of the steers.  Lisa won!

This morning Legacy and Pearl were both hanging out together, as they have been since she was born, with Pearl's momma Precious. 

The pigs also found the pasture this week and have been enjoying the green grass.  I went from feeding them 150 lbs. of feed a day in the barn to 50 lbs. since turning them back out on the big pastures with the cows.   They are growing gaining weight quicker already and look way much happier.  I didn't like having them on the pig lots as long as I did but I needed to get fences completed and thing needed to dry out.  The wet year last year destroyed the pasture and it needed time to recoup before letting them out again.

Here we have Mallory in the barn.  Instead of penning her up in the pen I decided to try something different and give her the entire half of the barn.  With all the others out on the pasture this was easy to do.  

She is just deciding where to put her nest.  She doesn't look as big in this pic till you realize that the pen she is in is 8.5ft. long and 6.5ft. wide.  When she lays down in it she fills most of the pen up.  This leads to the problems with the piglets being laid on right after birth.   Having more space should completely eliminate that problem!

The six she had were all of them.  I was hoping for a litter like her first, she had ten live ones, but she only had six.   On a good note all six look very healthy and really cute!

The kids wanted to pet them and with more space and still laying down Mallory didn't care.  Her first litter she was really protective but this time she seams to have calmed down a little.

Then, our piglet midwife daisy had to step in and check everyone out and clean them all up!

She does so well with the pigs it is amazing.  I just have to be careful which ones she gets in with and when because some don't care at all and others will think she is trying to hurt them.  

Well, I am off to bed to start the work week.  Doing all my first cutting this week as well as finishing up the project at the lake for work.  I picked up some more ground this year so I am excited to see how it all goes.  Going to try to plan it out better this year so that I don't run so ragged.  Also going to try to everything all at the same time so I am not constantly having to switch equipment and run around.  It is still going to be a lot to get done but the reward should be some great hay and hopefully plenty to sell at the end of the year!

Hope everyone has a great week!  I will be posting pics of the new calves when ever they arrive.  I can't wait and they are past the estimated due date so I am really getting impatient!

Kenny

Spring is under way!!!

Spring is definitely here!  We pulled the pigs back off the garden a couple of weeks ago and this weekend we mulched it to get ready for planting.  All I had to do was rake the ridges down along the edges from where they rooted to the fence and we were ready to go!

 The kids wanted to help so after I got done with the rakes they decided to rake for a while.

 

We ran just a little short on the last bale so my wife was stretching it out a little bit to cover the last little bit.  If you look closely you will notice that we used two different types of material to mulch with.  I normally use the end bales of our silage hay tubes as they are not good enough to feed.  However, we are switching over to a Styrofoam plug which will save me about 15-20 bales of hay a year so we will not have any more after this year.  So, I decided to try a bale of corn stubble.  I bale corn stubble bedding for the neighbor and I get some in exchange for bedding the pigs and cows.  I was awesome to spread.  So much easier than the rotted hay that was all stuck together.  Just have to wait and see how well it does for holding down the weeds.

 As soon as we got done Lisa helped mommy plant the lettuce and her own little section of the garden.  She even fenced it in with string and put a sign up for her little portion!

I was finally able to let the cows loose in their new pasture ground.  I let them out Friday night and they haven't came back across the creek or even looked at the barn since!  They are so happy over there and enjoying it a lot and it makes me happy to see them having fun.  

 Below is Sally, on the left, and her son Big Red from last summer to her right.  He will be one year old at the end of the month and is already nearly as big as our two year old charlais x angus bull.

Here is a pic of Thunder, our charolais x angus bull. 

Thunder our Charolais x angus bull

 This is Precious and her first calf Pearl.  She is also the Thunder's first calf as well!

It didn't take the piggies long to find the new field either.  This is Daisy Pig.  She was laying in the shade without a care in the world!

Her is Lady.  She is the Berkshire guilt I picked up at Christmas time.  She absolutely loves to have her tummy scratched.  She comes running to us whenever we are in the pasture and if you scratch her belly she will flop down and roll over like a puppy to get some good scratchin!

Another project I have needed to complete is a new hanger system for my pig barn gates.  If we mount the gates low enough to keep the babies in the pens with the mommas then they are too low to swing over the deep straw bedding we have in the pens.  The only way to then swing the gates is to disassemble them and that is a major pain in the butt, not to mention that they are useless when not on the hinges.

The idea I came up with was a bar system to hang the gates on that would allow them to slide up and spin when needed but still be locked down when I want them to stay put.  I also needed to be able to easily remove the gates from the barn when not needed, for cleaning, and for replacement if damaged.  I used thread all that I got at the store and welded 4' sections to the bottom hanger for each gate.  I then cut the threaded end of each hanger to the needed length and welded the small pieces I cut off to the top hanger for each gate.  I then added a thread coupler and a couple of nuts and a washer. 

If you look at this pic you will see there is a nut and washer spun down to hold gate to bedding.  The top nut locks the coupler in place connecting the two sections.  If I need to remove a gate I simply loosen the lock nut, thread the coupler up, rotate the bottom section slightly and spin the retainer nut and washer off, and then slide gate up and off the bar. 

Above is one of the gates sitting on a tub to show it raised and below is a pic of it sitting on the ground.   My plan is to separate each pen with a gate.  This will allow me to remove the door to each pen that I use to keep the sows in with a day or two after birth to give them more space but still keep them isolated from the pasture.  In summer I may not even use the pen doors as they mainly will be needed to create a warmer, draft free pen for birthing in the winter.  This will also allow the piglets and sows to get to know everyone else before they can actually run together helping lower stress levels when I release everyone.

I also was able to finally finish the rubber flaps on the bottom of the doors.  Steven and Josh did a quick fix to put them on during the only cold spell we had this winter and just screwed them to the inside of the doors.

I pulled them back off and added a 2"x2" along the bottom of the doors and then cut flaps to the length needed and then screwed them to the board I added.  This allows them to hang under the door out of the way so the water sheds off and they do not rub the walls when sliding open and shut!

I also got tired of having to move my hose for the temp water to the pens every time we wanted in the barn.  So I ran it through the new rafters of the barn and snuck it out under the roof and down the corner of the barn right by the hydrant I hook it up to.  When I finish the cow shed and concrete all of the pens and the barn this year I plan to install underground water lines to fully eliminate the need for this hose.  However, for now, this is a much better system than I had with it just laying on the ground.

I also had help from two of my customers with prepping for the customer party this month.  We did a full spring clean up and mulching in early April!

I wasn't able to do this last year and everything got out of hand.  It is so nice to have everything neat and clean again and looking good!

These are a few shots of the alleyway between what is now the two new pastures for the cows and pigs.  This used to be a constant battle for me to keep cleaned up. 

Now the cows are eating right down to the edge of the spring stream and keeping the weeds down.  No work required!

This is the southern most end of the alleyway.  There is a gate to the left and the right.  Once they finish the three acres on the right I will open the gate to the six acres on the left and vise versa.  Once I am sure this will stay pasture I will split the six acre side into two 3 acres sections to make it better for rotational grazing.

Well, I hope everyone has a great week.  I am looking forward to an awesome year and I can't wait to make first cutting!  It is coming up in two weeks!!!

I am also anxiously waiting for the arrival of Frosty's first calf.  She is due any day now and I can't wait much longer!

Kenny

Shroomin and such!

Well, my daughter and I made our annual trip to see a very good friend of mine in Quaker City Ohio yesterday to spend the day picking mushrooms.  We got to my friend Richard's house just after ten.  We planned this trip a couple of weeks ago.  We are used to getting wet as it seems to rain every year when we go to see him.  However, it is usually warmer than 40 degrees out.  With the warm winter and even warmer spring we have had I expected it to be quite nice.  It was 78 on Friday when I got home from work and loaded everything up. 

 We had to improvise some ponchos to deal with the cold rain!

We took our new atv with us to allow us to access more places easier but we spent most of the time using the truck to get around.  We tried taking the atv's out after lunch as the radar showed the rain clearing out and it had stopped so we thought we were good to go.  However, less than five minutes after we headed out it really started raining and we got soaked.  My daughter was  little trooper though and we got through all our spots and back to the truck to change and warm back up. 

We did find 44 morels total.  Not as good as last year but they were all really nice 4-7 inches tall and clean so we were not let down.

 My buddy let us bring them all home to make it worth the trip and we all had fun even though we got soaked and froze our butts off.  I am planning a solo trip down to hunt with him again next weekend in the hopes that the rain and the upcoming warm weather will kick them into higher production by then. 



Some quick updates:

Legacy is doing well and with the addition of his new friend Pearl (Precious' calf) he seems to be enjoying life so far. 

Mario got another pedicure this week.  His feet are looking pretty good now.  One more trimming and he should be back to where he needs to be.  The Farrier said that he was showing signs of getting too much grain after he got done trimming his feet.  I have noticed him getting into the pig feed lately so I put him back out with the cows after we got done.  He seemed to like that change as he quickly trotted out into the pasture and started checking out the new calves.

We ground another batch of pig feed today.  They are eating 2200#'s in three weeks now.   I sold all the babies from the last three litters except for two.  One of those two we are raising for a roaster pig for my buddy Richard and the other we are keeping here to fatten out.  Mallory is due on the 5th and Marshmallow is due on the 24th.  I can't wait to see what Marshmallow's first litter looks like. 

While I was waiting for Josh to bring the mixer to make pig feed I decided to button up a couple more items in the pig barn.  I properly reattached the rubber flaps to the bottom of the doors and moved the one wall mounted feeder to a better position.  I also opened up the doorway to the cattle pasture for the pigs.  They quickly found out and spent the entire day out in the big pasture with the cows.  I am hoping that letting them out there gets them to stop tearing up the barn as they have been getting more destructive the longer they have been couped up. 

Hope everyone has a great week. 

Kenny

Project I'm working on at work.

Got a patio going up top with a fire pit to the left beside Gabe.

My buddy Willie took the new four wheeler for a ride!

I made the mistake of telling my buddy Willie to go try out our new four wheeler.  He thought it was a submarine!   Took us an hour to get it running after we drug it out if the creek with the Tractor.  All good though!

Mushrooms, New Calf, and a Priceless moment!

Well, it has been another very busy week mainly due to work.  We decided to try a new idea at work this week and started mulching our large commercial properties at night to avoid traffic, people, and interruptions.  We increased our productivity two to three times more than what we do in the daytime on the same properties.  The downside was that I was up all night and it took all week to adjust, going back in again tonight for a second week.

A benefit to being on night shift is being the early bird to look for mushrooms.  They started very early this year but just a few have come out to peak so far. 

 I found these little guys in my woods.  Haven't found any anywhere else.  Hoping it warms back up again so they will start producing soon!  I am craving them bad.  These barely made an omelet.

A priceless moment!

 Clearing a new area of field of trees and stumps, grading it out, and seeding : $700

Finding a used 4x4 honda atv, purchase and fuel to bring home : $1450

Getting your five year old daughter and two year old son to pick up sticks and rocks from field for an hour and have fun doing : PRICELESS!!

After picking up the rocks from the new field we brought them all down to the house and used them to fill in the bare edges of the beds where I lost some gravel mulch while cleaned up the lawn and beds last weekend.

We also have a new aviary guest living here on the farm.  The other day I thought I saw a large white pigeon in one of the trees in the pasture.  Then yesterday I was out working in the yard and there it was, eating the leftover sunflower seeds on the ground below the bird feeder.

My wife and kids had some friends over yesterday.  They played all over the farm.  They checked out the pigs, the pasture, and the cows and even got see a new calf right after it was born!

This is Precious with her new baby heifer.  This is her first calf and it is 50's first grand daughter.   This picture was taken just a couple minutes after birth.

She is also Thunder's first calf.  She is quite big, I am guessing her to be about 90-95's.  My average calf here is about 65-75's.   She got up within minutes and was eating within the hour. 

I am very happy with the color.  Her momma is 1/8 Hereford and 7/8's angus.  Her daddy I thought to be 1/2 Charolais and 1/2 Angus.  He may be mostly Charolais as I wasn't expecting such a light colored calf.  She is very cute and I am very happy with her!

She and her mother were off to explore as I headed up to the house to visit with our guests.

I wanted to drop in a picture of the pigs enjoying the garden.  I will have to take them out this week as they have completely cleared it out and are getting close to messing up the grapes.  After taking them off the garden I am going to borrow dads large tractor tiller and till it and rake out and mulch it to keep the weeds from coming back.  If it is loose enough I may just try to rake it out and not turn it any more. 

Have a great weekend everyone.

Kenny