Simple Pin Makes Back Yard PIGS Possible (and pleasurable)

I don't like this at all. I do not see Stud. And with Nellie in heat, where in the world is Stud? Nellie's in the stall. It's not like them to not be together. Stud is our bull. He's huge, full grown, almost full grown. And Nellie is our little 8-month-old calf going into the heat first time. So he's wanting to mate her, but she's too young. Let's go ahead and take care of these chores first and see if we can't find Stud Muffin. Oh well, you know, Bear's missing too, so that's probably okay. You guys know where Stud and Bear are? I mean, the gate was latched. They're probably just in the woods. Donald, I heard you again last night. I don't know if he's just waking up at 4. Or if he's warding off owls. Regardless, I don't see any— I don't see any evidence of a disaster. Man, I'm loving that auto feeder. I didn't have to bring any feed out. It's raining. It's got a cover. Thank you, Premier One. Although with Cornish Cross, we want to limit our feed though. We should have put that up. On the roof last night. You see, with the Cornish Cross, they grow so fast, you only want to give them about 8 hours or 12 hours worth of food during the day. Let's move this too. I've got that 7-gallon water we're filling up. You know, while that's filling up, let's go account for Bear and Stud Muffin. Today we normally do updates. I'm sorry, y'all, if you really enjoy that, but we've got so much to do. I— we can't do the update. There's too much going on. Need to be up across the road there. Working on extending the pigs' forest paddock. Hopefully the rain holds out. I mean, I'll take the rain if it comes, but if the rain holds out, we need to be working on that. Got milking or cream separating to do today. Rebecca's wanting to get in the garden if it's not raining. I see somebody. I do see somebody. Okay. Well, hey. Hey there. Good to see you guys. You guys worried me for a second, but they're fine. Look at that view though. The house way down there. It was worth it just to see this view. Okay, good. We got that filled up. If I'm gonna do that though, it might be time to break out the second one, especially if we start rationing it. Well, especially when we start rationing, which will hopefully be tonight. Look at these amazing curds still left, and we're gonna do more cream separation again. So far I think I've given these pig pork pigs, maybe 4 pounds, 6 maybe. Grain. I forgot, I don't need to do the pig pork pigs. I need to get the breakfast posse fed and a head start on those chicks so we can let those chicks out later. Good morning, come for y'all soon. Feed the load up here too. You know, put 3 loads in there and wet it. There's a slight chance it could have heated up. You want to test it? By the way, some of you are asking where did I get this compost thermometer. I'll link it down in the show notes. Oh, it's already heated up, y'all. You have to get the thermometer, the actual deep compost thermometer, and then the, the guard that goes on it. 80. We're at 80. I assure you it's not 80 out here. I'm still climbing. It may get to 90 if we left it in there long enough. A couple more muck piles and that thing's gonna be lit. 140, 160. Good morning! I didn't know how much I would love having pigs in my backyard. It is so fun. Come out here and we— we weeded yesterday just to see and hear these guys. It's so fun. Give them a sanitary— just sanitary by the sun feeding pan. Half of their ration right now. They're not too crazy about vegetables. They'll eat them. But you know what they're crazy about? Curds. And probably not too crazy about apple cider vinegar, but it's a little bit of maintenance, health maintenance here. Get their old feed pan out. They haven't touched their salt yesterday. Some days they devour it and some days they leave it. You know, partner with the chickens right here. Pigs got a little picky. See if you guys will eat it. If you don't eat it, the garden will. If the garden won't eat it, gonna put it in the compost pile. It surely will. These more traditional hogs, I've noticed, are a little more picky than the guinea hogs. The guinea hogs would have cleaned that up. It doesn't look like I can count on nature's sanitizer to come out today, so we're going to use another nature's sanitizer— is vinegar. Uh-oh. Starting to rain. I'm happy and sad about that. I'm happy because we need it on our pastures. I'm upset about it because it might mean we can't work on our forested pig paddock. This is where our solid tarp is coming in handy, keeping these wood chips dry. That's the key. That's the key to keep this pen dry, otherwise they get hoof rot. Otherwise they get— that compost heats up crazy and it gets warm in there. This keeps it nice and dry, non-smelly. Yes, they only poop in one corner, but we spread the mulch throughout the whole pen. It's only a 12 by, uh, what is it, 12 by 10. Only 12 by 10 area. It's only 120 square feet, y'all. What a pleasure. This is by far my most favorite chore right now. I don't even have to do this system. I could put them in the forest with everybody else showcasing this, but it's wonderful. It's wonderful. I think I will do this next year. Look at there, guys. That was last night's score from over there, our raspberry patch that we planted last year. How are you this morning? Does somebody need to take you out?

You took her out? I already took her out.

Have you checked her bandages?

Yeah, she looks really good still.

Okay.

And I did feed her and she doesn't like her mat.

Go on. Oh.

What happened? Okay, just walk away.

Too much excitement.

I might have to— I might have to give her the sedative if she starts getting crazy.

Time to get the milk out of the fridges and onto the counter for cream separating. 11-ish gallons, not bad. Not too intimidating of a cream separating date. Plus, Rebecca, you only have like 3/4 of a gallon of cultured cream to make butter. Guys, we have— we, we don't really have to buy butter anymore, do we, Rebecca? We have like—

we do buy butter for cooking because I don't want to use my nice raw butter. I want to eat my raw butter like raw on like on stuff. Yeah, so we still do buy butter for like sautéing and stuff like that.

Yeah, because there's no point to We've even been freezing some of it just to preserve it. Let's get the niños up. Buenos días, niños. You know what'll do it every time? Turn the sound machine off. Qué pasó, Jonas? Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Lily. You gotta let your chickens out. Hey, Mr. Brown. Guess what? I did all your chores. Yay! Yep. Let's get up. Let's milk. That's it. Maybe work in the forest if this rain subsides. Hey! Good morning! How's the milking going?

It's going great. It's flowing. All right. I'm barely having to milk anything.

Yeah, you know, I should say cream separate. All right, get this up. You're getting that up to 100 degrees, Mr. Brown. I don't see why we can't go. Oh, let's get you a snack. Well, we were gonna milk 23 minutes later, but we got it finally. I got everybody ready, and then— well, wait, where's your shoes, Mr. Brown? Oh my goodness. And we got a huge mess, some grain and a smoothie from last night. Here, take that and put it to the chickens, please. The little chickens. Millies? Yeah, that's fine. I think in the past I would have left this until somebody would got upset about this. Every day and every way I'm getting better. Ah, that wasn't enough. All right, got a cloth. Amanda, how you doing this morning? Boy, it's really pouring down the rain now. You look prepared. The boys are gonna go do the forested pigs. I'm gonna start milking. The good thing about a rainy day is there's not many flies about while we're milking. Just how you keep milking. Here, let's, let's pour it out. We got a reserve here just in case she bumps the bucket. Here, just like— I'm gonna give her some alfalfa, or you want to give her some? Mill. Joe, stop. You go tell Mom I'm— Crank it up now that I got you flossy, huh? So I need to hurry up and get you Phyllis.

Well, I've got plenty to do.

Okay.

Oh shoot, you're not gonna filter it for me?

All right, so where do I filter it to?

Just filter it into there. You can just get it started, that should be fine.

Here's the mill. The warm mill. You don't have to heat it up, it's already 100 degrees, right?

Yep.

I had filtered it. Through this and I hand it to her. Skim on this side— I should say pig feet on this side, Rebecca feet on the other side. That's a snack, cheese and apple. All right, let's switch them out. She, she likes the stanchion the most. It's hard to get her out. Come on, come on. There you go, there we go. Come on. No, no, where are you going? Lily, shut that door. No, shut the door. Come on, where are you going? You ready? You ready, Aunt Phyllis? Got the other one to Mom. That's it, huh? You were just waiting on me.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, I'll go put her— put them back out. All right, we're done milking. Yeah, that's okay. Are you ready for them out there? Is the pasture ready? Okay, I'm gonna get Phyllis in her stall and then we'll herd them out. We're gonna put Phyllis and Nelly in the stall, I think, 2 more days, and then we'll try it. So today— oh, hey, hey, hey, come on! She's huge! Hey, hey, hey, hey! All right, you ready for them? Whoa, whoa! Hey, hey, hey, hey, come on! They want to come in here and get some alfalfa. If we can get Bessie out, we can herd them out. Come on, you come get Bessie. Stay away. There you go, good boy. All you gotta do is let her out and she'll go to mom. All right, you gonna herd them out? Okay, I'll help you. Do you know where any of our umbrellas are? I'm just gonna have to get you guys a little wet. All right, ready? Let's go! Come on, come on, let's go, let's go! Come on, come on, come on! Because Jonah's opened up a new pasture right here. Looking nice. All heads are down eating. Sea monsters are under shelter. Supper time! Cucumbers from the land. Have you tasted them yet, Rebecca? No, I haven't. I'll let you have the first taste.

I already tasted mine, it was delicious. No, well, you didn't get this. This is cucumber I just picked.

Oh, this is it. You gotta close your eyes. Silence, everybody.

So good, so good.

Niece Faith here. How is it, Faith?

It's really good.

This is mostly from our land. Salad and beef and broth. We're doing good.