Well hey there everyone. I have been meaning for months to start a blog and I am finally getting around to it! There are so many fun things that go on around the farm and so many crazy things that happen too it just seems like others might get a kick out of hearing about them.
A bit of background on our farm and family. I live with my husband Jim on a 44 acre farm in Oregon. Our land is mostly in pasture with just a tiny belt of woods and brush running through the bottom pasture. When I moved to this farm 4 years ago, I was a horse person. Period. That was it in terms of animals. I brought over 20 horses with me to this property. We did raise one batch of meat chickens for our freezer that first fall but there were no cows in my plans, no goats and certainly no pigs.
Ahhhh.. Fast forward a couple of years. We now have only 10 horses and somehow other farm animals have managed to squeeze their way onto the property and into our lives. First it was a steer for the freezer. Well, he was lonely and kept escaping into the neighbors cow herd.. So then there were two steers.. "Two Bits" and "Cow", yeah I know odd names huh, but there you have it those were their names. It was my first experience hands on with cows. Hmmmm.. they sort of grew on me. Loud at times yes, and stinky at times yes, but not to bad. "Ok.. We can have cows" I told Jim.
Then our brother in law asked if we wanted some goats. NOPE I did not want goats. I had had them before years ago and it was awful. Goats never stay where you put them, they climb on everything, they eat EVERYTHING and they are just basically a pain in the.. well, you know. So no, we did not want goats. Then he said no problem, he'd just put them in his freezer, at the same time his wife said "NOOOO!! they're just babies. You can't eat babies!" Ok, I took the bait. Now we have goats. 4 of them. a momma, two semi grown baby does and.. wait for it... yes... a buck!! UGH!!! Stinky was his name. He was agressive so he didn't stay long. Just long enough to get all the ladies pregnent. Opps.
So, now we have lots of horses, a few cows, and a few goats. I've had chickens in the past and always liked that they would eat kitchen scraps. So we got a few chickens. but they don't eat ALL the kitchen waste. There is stuff they don't like. Somewhere in my mind came the solution. A pig, we needed a pig to eat the extra stuff that the chickens didn't like. That notion simmered for a long time. I'd never had a pig before, but I was pretty sure that one was the answer to my problem of kitchen scraps and really, how hard can it be to raise a pig? One week, Jim went on a business trip and took a copy of Mother Earth News with him. Who would have guessed the effect that simple act would have on our lives.
He came home from his trip and somehow we got on the subject of me wanting a pig. "Ok. Lets get a pig!" came Jim's response. But he figured if we were going to have a pig, we ought to help save a rare and endangered breed while we were at it. Well, I have had odd breeds of horses for years. I raise American Bashkir Curly Horses, so it just seemed natural to find a rare breed of pig as well. After some research and contacting breeders of different hogs, we settled on the Red Wattle Hog. Getting these hogs home was an adventure in and of itself. Perhaps some day I'll write it up.
The pigs took the whole family by total surprise. No, not that we had pigs, we knew we bought them. lol But what we didn't expect was how much we were going to LOVE the pigs. Everyone loves the pigs. Me, Jim, and both kids. It was a complete shock to find that underneath all my "horse person" veneer was a budding pig farmer just waiting to get out. 3 pigs quickly turned to 7 pigs, which even more quickly turned to 12 pigs. Now just a little more then a year after the first pigs arrived we have more then 20. The numbers flucuate because of sales and freezer camp participation, but trust me for someone who hasn't had pigs before, 20+ is a pile of pigs! Interestingly as the number of pigs climbs, the number of horses declines. We now have just 10 horses.
After the pigs came chickens and turkeys. Again, we went with heritage breeds. A few months later, more cows. This time we got Dexters. A small heritage breed known for being dual purposed.
All in all, we now have a multitude of animals running about. I counted a few weeks ago and came up with something like 94 animals in residence. But since then we've had 2 clutches of turkeys hatch out and two litters of piglets born. So I'd have to count again. Needless to say, we have a bunch of animals. Animals keep life interesting. One never knows what is going to happen during the day. Just because we, the humans, have a plan for the day doesn't mean that the animals have the same plan. In fact you can almost guarentee that they don't.
Anyway, stay tuned and I'll post farm happenings as they occur.
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