Where Are The Piglets?

28 December 2008 Joy was due to have piglets yesterday and they have still not arrived. We wait in anticipation. We have already managed to pre-sell 6 of them. We can only hope she has at least 8 so that we may raise 2 porkers for ourselves. Yesterday we attempted to put Arthur and Phyllis in their new temporary home by the pond. We set up the electric fencing and cut off part of the driveway so that the pigs could walk out the gate in their current paddock into their new paddock and back again at will. We figured a day or 2 of that and they would feel comfortable in their new home and Joy would not feel so lonely being only across the drive. It took a good half hour of gentle persuasion to encourage the pigs out the gate. I can’t think why, as they’ve had no trouble walking out it before. I can only put it down to the electric wire either side of the gate giving off an unnerving pulse. Arthur walked out first and then Phyllis and quickly they were off exploring the pond paddock. Within 5 minutes Arthur was standing looking at the wire. He touched it with his nose ‘Zap!’, he squealed loudly but unbelievably, instead of backing off he ran forward, pulling the wire and strainers with him. Quickly extricating himself he ran off down the drive. I ran after him. Aaron went up to the unit and turned it off. And then Phyllis saw Arthur on the other side, walked straight up to the wire and pushed herself under it. Had it still been on she would have had yet another bad shock, possibly losing her babies a 2nd time. God damn-it. Noooooo! Arthur and Phyllis snuffled around in the pile of woodchip still on the drive outside the paddock. I pulled out the fencing standards next to the gate, went inside and dragged the food troughs noisily across the ground. Phyllis and Arthur bolted inside in eager anticipation of food. I walked out the gate and locked it. “Well that was a waste of bloody time wasn’t it?!” And so we debated the options and eventually decided our only real option was to leave all the pigs together and hope for the best. This option is of course less than ideal. A large pig rolling on piglets is a recipe for disaster. We now have 3 very large pigs soon to be sharing a home with at least half a dozen very small piglets. While I have noticed that Arthur has now taken to sleeping near the entrance of the shed, Phyllis frequently snuggles up to her sister at the back. Unless Joy becomes extremely protective and territorial of her chosen spot in the shed we could be facing a real problem. Aaron and I took down all the electric fencing we’d taken so long to set up that morning and then later in the day we removed the last 2 floor pallets from the shed and covered the spot with wood chip. The floor area for the pigs is now huge and we must hope like hell that this will be enough to save the little piglets from harm. I feel uneasy about the situation but am now well used to things not working out as anticipated. So now we wait and whatever happens in Joy’s situation will dictate what we do with Phyllis when her time comes. Phyllis is not due until the 20th of February so we have at least some time to sort things out. 2009 will hopefully be a good year for meat. We have 4 very robust looking lambs due for slaughter in March, 1 steer in February, hopefully 2 porkers for us in September. Our older sheep appear to be pregnant again, so that could mean more lamb in the freezer in December, not to mention more porkers from Phyllis’ litter. Where Are The Fruit And Veg? What we need to get sussed now of course is fruit and veg. The fruit trees seem to be doing okay on the whole but we forgot to spray them in spring so the first set of apples on our cider apple tree appear to have some form of rot. I’m not too phased. It’s still a very young tree and with only 4 apples on it I wasn’t going to get much cider out of it this year anyway. The bronze beetles are back but I only remembered to spray for them when colleague Raewyn mentioned they were back in force this year. By then the bastards had eaten most of the new growth. Despite only using pyrethrum spray it’s not a selective killer. Good or bad, any bug in the vicinity is going down. It’s less than ideal. Of course the idea is to start embracing permaculture principles rather than just talking about them but I’m struggling to know where and how to start. The fast growing, smothering kikuyu grass is a nightmare to deal with when trying to create a balance of flora. Nothing can compete and I just don’t have time to scrubcut it every weekend. We are hoping that a few piglets, ducks and chickens will keep it in check but then of course it will not be possible to grow anything else. This is not permaculture. If only it were flat land we could have brought in a rotary hoe and continually dug up, turned over and removed every rhizome, root or seed we came across and started afresh. Of course it doesn’t help that I am obsessed with “If only we had…” statements. Because if only had we had a multitude of money and useful shit life would be soooo much easier!