Another day, another opinion.

So a couple days ago I went off about the term "Fair Trade" and the difficulty in getting fair prices for farm products. Immediately after posting my rant I thought about pulling it. It was whiny and the word flow was jagged at best. But I left it and was greatly surprised at the responses I got over the next 24 hours. Seemed I hit some nerves. Most dangling on the same side of the spinal cord but some were firing on the other side of Fair Trade but either way it was a great discussion.

You know you're out there blogging your little fingers off and you wonder some days "Is this thing really, truly even connected ?" because you receive zilch feedback and the next day you rant and folks get fired up right back and then you get all full of yourself being all fired up and before you know it you are off and blogging again.

Monster. Created. Happy?

Well now that you mention it the pigs are well. With the addition of Wally our new Red Wattle Lover Boy we now have two good old boys getting the job done, With another couple of large farrowing huts to be built very soon we should have two well defined hog breeding groups; The Mad Max Mob and Wally's World. (Yeah, me too, a mini-Ferris wheel is just what this farm needs to bring in perspective buyers)

We keep a large breeding schedule on a piece of white poster board where we track spotted breeding's, farrowing, weanings, foreclosures etc...We have found the "scientific" approach helpful but far from perfect. Only one thing really works well and that is just keeping an eye on things.

We have three sows due to pop soon. Morticia, a full RW is on our board as being due today 9/16/11 but her belly tells us differently

Rounded but no real udder making. But if you look at Spot directly behind her with a due date two weeks from now you can tell even this far away she is hanging lower. So, which sow did we move out of our large pig group and into their own farrowing yards with large accommodation ? Yeah, both of them. Cause I am the wife and I asked him too, that is why.

In the meantime Miss Debbie, full RW who farrowed 8 weeks ago is tiring of her brood who never stay home anyway and love running under all the electric wires and in and out of everyone Else's yard.

She can now move freely back to her large group home which she does during the day but still she ususally sleeps with her babies. We'll officially wean her 9 piglets in a couple more weeks, or maybe tomorrow if the way Miss Debbie just tossed one of them back and up over her hindend just because the wee one got too close to her own share of milk soaked grain, indicates anything about how Debbie feels

I don't blame her. What mother has not dreamed of being able to toss a kid or two up high in the air when they are acting out?