Pigs R'sss

I hate having the flu!!! I don’t like Council or ACT Elections either – do politicians listen to themselves? What about Scientists who say “trust me – our particle accelerator won’t end the world” – why play with things that they really don’t understand? I hate the fact that Politicians turn yellow once they are elected – I thought we elected these guy’s to be tough on the environmental vandals (big polluting business) and do what it takes to reduce the effects of climate change – but that ball appears it’s about to be dropped there as well. If cities use over 90 percent of the worlds available resources, why not reduce the size of them? Do we really need Merchant Bankers, Share Markets, Commodity Markets, Fashion Designers, Life Coaches, Dog Walkers, a million coffee shops, hundreds of styles of jeans or a thousand different mobile phones???? I wonder what the carbon footprint of the two wars in the Gulf and Afghanistan is. Sorry - that’s my rant for the week.

Looking back at some of the photos I can see that we’ve had a rather harsh winter this year. With too many pigs and not enough feed in the paddocks. A couple of the girls still haven’t picked up enough to go back to the boar yet. Both Star and Daisy are still running around every feed time instead of eating, I try to keep them some extra food but they just won’t stay in one spot. Maybe this weekend I’ll separate those two and try feeding them alone – only problem is getting them water.

By now I would have thought the barley grass would be coming back, I can see it emerging in the sheltered spots, but not as prolific as previously. I may have solved the over population problem as well, I advertised some piglets for sale and I think they are now all sold. Some are going to new homes which will be great, some are going too be fattened for other things – a bit of mixed feelings about that, but that’s farming. If I can turn over a couple of litters every other month then I can start extending the pigopylus and make the rest a lot more comfortable.

A lot of this pig stuff has been learning on the run, I’m not sure if we would have done things too much differently - except planned our breeding cycle a little better. Feeding is the big issue – a little more thought and preparation needs to be done on that this year and with little rain this year it’s going to be important. But, nothing we can’t over come. I think one of our big lessons this year is to have extra stored for the end of winter, like the acorns, and not use them too early.