Winter on the Farm

Winter is just gearing up and already I’m feeling somewhat defeated.

This is our first winter with more than just a hoop house and chickens.  We have added the goats and pigs to the mix and it’s no small change.

Last winter, we finished our three pigs at the very beginning of November.  We hadn’t yet built a structure that would be dry enough or warm enough to make it through the coldest months.  We also weren’t ready to entertain the idea of breeding, which is what we seem to have done now (entertained the idea… not yet bred).  Our current collection of five pigs includes three that are destined for the plate, one breeding sow, and one boar.  And they are getting pretty big.

We will need to finish the three “eaters” before the beginning of February.  They are only going to get bigger and feeding them has become expensive, as well as an exercise in taking my life into my own hands.  When they hear me approach with the feed bucket, they gather, shoulder to shoulder at the fence like fat, naked linebackers.  Like any good quarterback, I have taken to jumping the low fence, running the outside of the field, dumping half the feed into one bucket as quickly as possible and, without breaking my stride, racing to dump the remaining feed into the other bucket, and making my exit on the other side of the fence.  It might not be a touchdown, but it’s definitely a first down if I make it out untackled by pigs.  I almost always do.  Add to this twice-daily fun the fact that the muddy pen is trying suck my boots off when I’m in there, and you’ve got yourself some high comedy (assuming you are watching, and not participating).

Maybe I’ll make a video.

The soundtrack here is not just pigs grunting with the occasional rooster call in the background, but also the bleating of the goats who are watching the pigs from their nearby enclosure.  They always get fed last and since goats are perennially hungry (I think they cry for food even WHILE they are eating food), they cannot abide watching everyone else fed before them.  This bums me out because I hate for anyone to be hungry ever for any amount of time and because there is so much less material available for the goats to browse during the winter months.

Note to self: Stop acquiring animals who bum you out.

I am madly in love with the goats, though.  They are very close to dogs in their constant need for attention and love of affection, but are way more independent.  And they’re beautiful.  They’re kind of perfect.  Except for the perpetually hungry thing.

Once everyone is fed, there is the issue of the frozen pig water to attend to.  We have run a heavy duty extension cord from the house to the chicken coop to power the water heaters that keep their water from freezing.  A second cord runs from the coop to the goat shed for the same purpose.  The pigs, however, would eat an extension cord in about -10 seconds and so their water is frozen almost every day now.

Our solution to this is the hot water hose.

Since the entrance to our cellar faces the animals, we have developed a system (not a great one, mind you, but a system nonetheless) that helps us provide water to all the animals daily.  In our cellar is a slop sink we installed for my pottery studio.  To this sink, we have attached one end of our 200 foot length of hose.  We keep the hot water turned on and store the hose in the cellar when we aren’t using it so it doesn’t freeze.  Every day, we open up the cellar doors, drag the hose out, remove all the kinks, and shlep it down to the pigs, down to the goats, over to the hoop house, up to the chickens… wherever water is needed at the time.  Because we can pour hot water directly from the hose, that gives the pigs a real treat and buys us all some time before their water is likely to freeze over again.  Also, they like to climb into it and have a little bath.  But who wouldn’t?

So, why am I feeling defeated?

Well, it’s cold and it’s muddy and there’s nothing good to forage.  I’m a grade-A anthropomorphizer and I’ve made all sorts of decisions about how the animals feel about this.  I can’t imagine that they aren’t hungry/bored/cold at any given moment and it’s totally stressing me out.  I’m fairly positive I would have the rabbit, all the chickens, both goats, and the entire drift of pigs in our living room by the wood stove eating a lovely root vegetable stew if I lived alone.