Day 3 Farming: Wednesday 12.16.2009

I got up and headed over to the farm at 4am today to attempt to hang this fence before these hogs roll in from Lewis county. I really wanted to see the sunrise, and was watching out pretty close. Turns out I was watching the city slowly turn on its lights while the sun was rising on the hill in back of me. The old barn owl greeted me again today (i.e. scared the crap out of me). It started raining pretty hard, but it seems to be warm enough. Hung 300ft of field fencing around the perimeter of the loafing shed and a small outside space. Gosh a roll of that stuff must weigh 200lbs! I felt pretty beat up, but it was a satisfying feeling to get it done just before the girls arrived. I ran to the feed store and got some feed and a water trough to hold us over. I found an old steel gate in some brambles just behind the shed, I dug it out and fixed it to the shed, it fit perfect! Not a moment later the truck showed up with the sows. It was an intimidating sound, I thought it may actually be a trailer full of idling Harley Davidsons, but the driver assured me they were my pigs. He backed it up to the shed, and I watched 14 mammoth chubbos queue up, pausing at the one foot drop as if they were looking off the high dive before spewing out into the shed. Immediately they commenced rooting and foraging finding all kinds of snacks in the ground that I didn't even know were there. The bunch is much more diverse than I remembered. Two of the girls are a little skinny, gonna have to address that. Discovered that there is no electric to the well. Good thing it is a friggin monsoon, I just stuck buckets under the downspout and fed the girls rainwater.