Grad student ? Come on down !

Really, last week was fantastic with all our numerous farm visitors. Seems everyone is interested in our Gentle Giants

From left: Pregnant Red Wattle Lacey, Pregnant Red Wattle Debbie,
Far From Pregnant Red Wattle Farmer Keith, Pregant Crossbred Leopard
and Very Pregnant Red Wattle Morticia

On Friday we had another graduate student, just like Sasha, except this one was female, did not have a beard (hey, you never know, some of us middle age women lose track of our hair chins from time to time) and attended school in Massachusetts. Specifically her name was Kristin from Goddard College. Her topic was, "The Central Illinois Farmer Photo-Dairy Project" and involved an interview, a tour, photos she took and the opportunity for me to submit photos as well. Kristin also taught me the meaning of the phrase "Visual Ethnography."  Now, over 3 dys later, I of course cannot remember the definition, but I did log the phrase into my notebook of Name Ideas for Future Alternative Rock Bands.

Kristen Thiel, dedicated grad student, fighting her way
past the ever ferocious Fannie to get photos of naughty
Freddie locked away in the feed shed.

Unfortunately, the weather was cold and rainy. Very cold, and rainy and a tad windy. Then a F3 windy. So windy that just as we were finishing up with Kristin and right before the Pollock family arrived with their girl Barbara, our large calf hutch was lifted up into the air and thrown  mercilessly to the ground, releasing several animated calves into the yard.  Herd dog Freddie, still mostly untrained , would circle one calf while three others ran past him, then he'd chase that group leaving the one he did have under control to start running the wrong way. What a zoo !

Eventually all the wind blown animals were restrained into a makeshift yard of single wire electric fencing allowing us to thank Kristen for her time and usher the Pollacks down to the barn so their gal, a stunning Red Wattle looking for love, could be unloaded between tornados. In between rain showers we were able to load Mad Max out of his pasture and into our trailer and escort him to Barbra's love lair. Funny thing about that Mad Max. Loading him required virtually no effort on Keith's part other than telling Max why he had to get into the trailer. He practically RAN into it, the little horn hog that he is.

Mad Max to the right and the petite Lady Barbara to the left

Once Babs and Max were properly introduced, "Pig, meet pig," they seemed only mildly interested in each other. They were however, greatly interested in the grain Keith spread out for them. But you learn quite a bit about someone the first time you share a meal with them, so who are we to question their priorities ? This will be Max's first girl from another farm and we are all looking forward to the results. Hopefully a happy healthy litter of the still critically Red Wattles in 4 months time. We know they will be gorgeous because that Barbara is some looker. The Lucille Ball of Red Wattles I would say. Shiny copper red hair with a glimmer of gold. Made our Max look a little dull but of course I did not say this out loud. Would hate to deflate that ego of his when he needed it most.

After dinner, the couple takes a stroll. Max waits to make his move.

Putting these two together required (by me) the writing of my first semen contract. An interesting list of do's and don'ts regarding who was responsible for what, when and where. Although it  was fairly simple, I took the contract writing  very seriously until some goofball cousin of mine, via Facebook, suggested I should now be referred to as "Semen Meister".

I get no respect. Nada

New Logo. Same place.

The decision to change our name was not an easy one. We had been Green Acres Farm for 15 years. It worked well for us in this small neck of the woods but when we began to offer our product in the Chicago area it became more confusing. Seems a few others had thought Green Acres was a nice name for their farm too !

So after several corporate meetings (Keith and I and the occasional drop by adult child) and some secret voting (I hid my ballot under my pillow), we hit upon South Pork Ranch. "South" because we are south of  I-80, "Pork" because our hog business is growing much faster than our dairy business , and "Ranch" because no one has a ranch in central Illinois. Everyone has farms. I spent 10 years in South Dakota where everyone had ranches but no farms. And I have a soft spot (in my head) for SD being as two of my children were born there. And finally we liked it because "South Pork" sounded  like South Fork and South Park, both humorous shows in their own way.

The new logo was designed by niece Micah Tompkins and originally consisted of a large hog and dancing cow and twirling duck. Very very cute but I knew it was a little busy for a logo. So I found professional Ramona Killin on Ebay. Yes, Ebay, and we struck a deal. She played with the logo so it still looked like the original but was more print worthy . Its friendly and cheerful and still reminds us of the small family farm we are. Your thoughts ?

South Pork Ranch is proud to announce...

the arrival of our first Red Wattle litter. I told you a little about it yesterday but without pics what is the point ? The bambinos are doing well this am. Mama Debbie is not being bothered by the other 3 sows and in fact when she gets up to go outside the hogcienda to eat, the little ones are smart enough to find their way over to Lady Anna's wide bottom. They snuggle up against her hide end until real comes back. Then Debbie  makes this little bark noise and they all get up and come back to her.

Debbie had no problem with me being in  her space this morning. I went slowly with my back to the open doorway (just like they teach  us nurses to do with psych patients) but she was totally OK with me being next to her. I scratched her ears, rubbed her neck and she fell back asleep.Suddenly, she lifted her head and growled this low, deep, alien coming out between her udders , menacing growl. I thought "here we go, she is going to make an HLT (that would be Human-Lettuce-Tomato )  sandwich out of me !  Then I noticed from behind me, one of cats sneaking in for a closer look at the new arrivals. The cat got Debbies hint very quickly and RAN out of reach.

The piglets remind me quite a bit of human babies with their delicate see-through  skin, their little wrinkles, the fine hair on their back. But those crazy ears ! Never seen those on a humanoid. Good thing.  

And check out that nest Debbie made ! Keith put in three big bales of straw on Wednesday but did she use that ? Nope. Obviously that building material was too common for her. Instead, she tore away at the big bales of organic hay just in front of the hogcienda and used it for the king size mattress she built with JUST HER MOUTH. If I had to rely on just my mouth to make a bed, well it would still be unmade. In fact it is still unmade now at 10 am. So what was the point of that comparison ? I have no idea. I have flights of ideas lately but no real solid ones. I blame it on the plaster dust from our recently sanded , lead painted windows, walls and trim.

What was I talking about ? Oh yeah, global warming . There is no such thing.
Oh, I almost forgot , we have Red Wattle babies and we like them.

Fritz, we hardly knew ye.

January 1, 2009

Yesterday when I started to bed our 5 big hogs I noticed our boar Fritz was not moving. Upon closer inspection (I am an experienced nurse you know) it became obvious he was not breathing. Dead as a 500 pound doorknob. Sad. I was instantly sad. We had only owned Fritz and his farm mates Debbie and Anna for 2 months but they had all grown on us. Really, they all got bigger AND we had started to feel affection towards them. The cause of his death is at this time unknown. He was found in the middle of the group of five as if they were all keeping him warm. He looked as if he just passed on in his sleep. Heart attack ? He had not been ill, had not been off feed. He was only a year and a half old. He had suffered a little stress lately with the photo I posted of his backward breeding style but he seemed to understand it was just in good fun.

Seriously, Keith and I do take our animal husbandry seriously and although we understand that animals have life expectancies just like humans, we feel responsible when an animal dies unexpectantly. What did we miss ? What could we have done differently ? His prior owner told us that Fritz had been attacked by a coyote this past summer and nearly died, perhaps it was a complication related to that. (See the scar on his right thigh, he is the hog on the far left of the pic above. ) I've got some research to do. In the meantime we are hopeful that the four sows that ran with Fritz are bred so we'll have some little piggies to help us remember our first Red Wattle Boar.

Our new hog shed is almost complete and our remaining four large sows will be moved to the front east acres this next week. Too bad Fritz will not be part of that new adventure.

That leaves us with ONE Red Wattle Boar. Mad Max age 4 months. I'm thinking we should bring him into the house to protect the breed. There is a lot riding on that little guys shoulders.

Red Rover Red Rover Send Wattles on Over

October 19, 2009

Our lives are moving at breakneck speed since we made the decision to expand our pork business. I actually caught myself watching me sleeping and wondered why I was being so lazy when we had so much to do !

Last week while in Indiana for the Covered Bridge Festival, we also ventured over to Morgantown Indiana to visit with Dot and Brian Jordan of Kiss My Grass Farms. They very graciously showed us their farm and herd of registered Red Wattle Hogs. Now ordinarily a pig is just a pig but these pigs were the cream of the pork chop. These big porkers were not just pretty they were friendly too. Walked right up to us, shook our hands and introduced us to their offspring. Mama sow with her litter was not one bit disturbed by our visit and daddy pig was first in line for some ear scratching. We had read about the friendliness of these pigs but to see it with our eyes was amazing ! We hope to be buying our first "family" (2 females and one male) of Red Wattles from Brian and Dot soon.

Keith and I were very happy the hogs were so friendly as they were quite big. My husband is 5 foot 11 and you can see by this picture, the Red Wattle sow is longer than he is tall. This means we have some serious hog houses to be building in the very near future.