THE PIGS OUTTA THE BARN.... NO SERIOUSLY...

So there I was standing between a pig and the back door...

She jived to the left so I jumped in front of her.....

She goes the right, the dogs about pooped themselves....

Sometimes the pigs get out.... Its just a fact of life...

An entertaining one at that....

Did I mention this pig trapping occurred in my dining room??? O ya! I said it! the other night our female pig ran three laps through my house...

In through the sliding glass door into the living room through the kitchen and dining room... lap.... and again..... and again....

All the while I'm laughing hysterically and trying to forget how small my bladder feels with this pregnancy.... Not existent.... I practically have to drink my fluids on the toilet... too much?? But so so true... Ha!

Mind you, this all started with Dexter.... Yes the Showtime series which Spencer and I are sucked into this winter. There we are sitting watching, biting our fingernails, anticipating his next move when.....

What is that?

Do you hear that?

I look over at Spencer as he simply sighs and says, "Oh, babe..."

He paused the show and then I heard..... Pleasantly loud oinks coming from the back porch. We stood up walked into the dining room and there they were, standing calmly at our sliding glass window.

For whatever reason once the pigs had made it up on the deck they couldn't get back down. What you can go up stairs and not down?!?! Well apparently they couldn't, so around and around the deck we went trying to block them so as to push them towards the stairs....

Well right about that time little farm girl hears the commotion and comes to try and help mom and dad. She had good intentions which let to the great pig chase in the house. She opened the sliding glass door to see the commotion and right as I turn around to tell her to go back inside.... In darts the pig right past Ireland and into the house. At this point she so excited by the frenzy that she almost let the other one in!

Well we finally got everyone safely penned up for the night.... After a goat tying rope made it around the gilt so we could get a hand on her.... And boy was that a loud affair!

The horses must have been intrigued by the commotion as all 6 came over to stand in a perfect line and watch the show!

Let me just make it clear... if you're looking for entertainment just let a pig loose.... no grease necessary....

You see sometimes in the life we run into some not-so favorable situations. We could have panicked and argued about who checked on the pigs last instead we found this to be hilarious. This wasn't our first rodeo... Or better yet pig wrangling... In these times of stress it is best to just laugh...

The bottom-line is pigs escape. They're crafty, smart, and love testing the limits of their pens. The saving grace is that though they may escape from time to time, they're 100% food driven. They don't get out to escape and run away, they get out to explore and EAT! They're not wanders which I am so glad for.

Alas with a worry wart control freak like myself there is no rest! I simply couldn't stand the risk of something happening to our precious bacon or dealing with an angered neighbor whose garden was ruined. So, we rebuilt their new enclosure out in the barn near the other livestock. They aren't tiny babies anymore and need room to run, so yesterday they were moved from their baby brooder pen into the pig boy pig pen which was oinkers' humble abode last year.

Safely tucked away in their pen with no gate they will happily await their fate. After all we are raising these hogs to feed our family and a multitude of guests we will host throughout the summer season. They will be slaughtered the first week of June, humbly by our own hands, here on our homestead. We will give them thanks and not an ounce will go to waste.

I cannot wait to incorporate scraps and head cheese into our dogs diet to supplement their regular dog food diet as I slowly transition to feeding the dogs solely from our homestead meat projects or making all their food from within the homestead. This is a great way to use what we won't (or Spencer WILL NOT eat, namely headcheese) eat and leave nothing to waste!

As they say.... Waste Not Want Not!

So it goes!

Q

100th PAGE VIEW!

Hi Ya'll

When I began this endeavor I was worried that no one would ever find my meger little blog tucked away in cyber space.

Well that is inherently not so! Just today the HD Homestead blog hit its 100th page view! Woot Woot!

I am happy to say that I don't rely on page views to fuel my drive for this blog. I rely on the support of my family and friends, my handsome bearded fiance, our loving little Irish gem (and her soon to be little sister), and the piece of ground we have been so lucky to work and mold into the perfect setting for our budding homestead.

Thank you to all of those of you out there who may have passed over my blog intentionally or otherwise!

Stead updates:
This week we experienced some very unfortunate weather. What felt earily close to hurricane force winds swept across the property with a vengeance destroying most everything in its path.

We rose to quite a disaster. Several sheets of metal roofing had been ripped from the barn, esposing part of the hog pen to the elements, needless to say the pigs enjoyed a little mud play in the still quite warm blustery weather. Anything and everything that was ever left out anywhere on the property was plastered along our northern fence line. Six count em' six of our beautiful aspen trees met their demise, but will be salvaged, cut, and sold for firewood. That's a homestead homerun, free wood from a terrible storm? We'll take it! And one whole bale of hay cast to the 4 winds, my poor lover man did his best on that feeding disaster.

Other than the said state of our homestead from the storm we will be trying to cross a few more things off our list this week:

We will be moving the hogs into a larger pen out under the pole barn and setting up a permanent piped watering set up for them.

I am beginning to condition our two mares... from the ground that is, I can barely wait to throw my leg over ole Sweet Pea after baby girl Gardner makes her appearance in late May.

Continuing our general yard work is a must, as we have so many leaves and other debris to clear out of the garden beds and the water feature.

I have accumulated a large amount of cardboard boxes in order to start creating some new garden beds which I will begin working on this week.... I will be sure to make a full posting on my progress.

I also want to start some seeds indoor this week, our fodder room... which isnt currently growing any fodder.... but has a great deal of open counter space and great window with sufficient sun exposure... If anything I'll set up a grow light to help germinate the seeds.

Holy cow its already February! Much to be done...

Dreaming of Summer riding...
Quincy

KICKING OFF 2015: PART II

In 2015 I want to learn.

I want to try things I have never tried before.

This year I want to begin slowly expanding our homestead.

So this January I will take you through our 2015 Homestead plan. This plan will show all of current projects with their tasks and any updates or additions they need. As well as new tasks or skills we want to incorporate on the farm. This month is one of brainststorming, planning, and preparing, for there is much to be done before spring!

Lets get started!

So If it isn't already obvious I love animals. Spencer, my fiance, refers to it as my animal addiction.... He might be right! I'm not sure when/if I'll ever hit that point where I feel I have too many. My poor parents painstakinly endured many many of my animal experiments and projects, praise the Lord for their patience. I look at my little managerie as a privelage that I am so grateful for. My animals rely on me for all of their basic needs, somehting any animal enthusiast, or horder ;, never takes lightly. For ifI were to see anyone mistreating my fur babies, girlfriend would be one amgry mama. For one, ok, two main reasons I feel this way. 1) my animals all serve some purpose or provide some service, from my bull dog Dixie to my horse Sweet Pea, every breathing animal serves their divine purpose in the grand scheme of our stead. And we could not be more blessed to receive the gifts they give us of all sahpes, sizes, and forms. Spencer would say he is most grateful for those animals whose purpose is so feed our family. Currently these animals consist of our laying hens, laying ducks, 2 pigs, and our meat rabbits.

In the spirit of prepping and my anxious excite about animals I jumped the gun when a little extra money came in and invested in our rabbit program, this is where our intro to 2015 begins..... rabbits. Following the reccommendtaion of a fellow blogger, Shaye, at The Elliot Homestead, we decided to begin our breeding program with 5 rabbits. So, mid December 4 does and 1 buck came home to the farm. Though I may jump head first into my projects and sometimes a bit hap hazardly, I always do my research.

(A side note to anyone looking to trade urban for rural: Be ready for a lot of reading, the wealth of information available to the modern homesteader via book or internet is limitless, and is the easiest and quickest way to learn a new skill or research one you want to learn, which at the end of the day is the whole point of our endeavor... To learn to cultivate and preserve a humble healthy lifestyle to pass onto our children in the the spirit of getting back to basics and living a wholesome life.)

So, I spent weeks and weeks fawning over homestead magazines with nest box blueprints and webiste after website of how to's and facts for the meat rabbit raiser....have I said this is my first time over seeing an animal husbandry project? Holy cow I've only dreamed of baby animals my whole life and what better to start with than fuzzy kits! Gah! This mama is so ready for babies!

Firstly, I had no idea where to begin... So when in doubt sister simply typed meat rabbit into Pinterest... watch out! You'll be enthralled for hourss just like I was... Eventually I found so much great information that I setttled on 5 breeds that seemed to be the best for meat breeding. New Zealand, Californian, Silver Fox, Satins, and Standard Rex are the most commonly bred meat rabbits. Alas I knew what to look for as my plans began to come together, so I set a budget according to what I thought I needed for housing them and how much it would be per rabbit. When looking for my rabbits I did not bother to care about pedigree and registered status as these rabbits will never be shown, they're simply our little farm bunnes.... Although wouldnt it be fun to start a rabbitry for farm baby when she is a little older? I'm entertaining the idea, this would be a great way to incorporate her into the farm as she grows and teach her some valuable lessons along the way.

Secondly, we at The High Desert Homestead are working on a conrnerstone of homesteading and micro farming, frugality.... Not that I ever spend money unneccessarily on myself or material things, I just tend to over anticiape additions to the homestead and at times may jump the gun when money might be better spent somewhere else. Granted it usually works out in our favor. Becoming more frugal and saving more is a serious goal for this farm mama this year! So... when it comes to purchasing animals, equipment, or farm materials I rarely have to look past another of my daily addictions.... Craigslist. I dont care who you are or where you are, there are always a plethora of animals and equipment floading this oh so wonderful black market network.

Back to the drawing board....

Where will the rabbits be housed..... Next to the chickens underneath the eve of our barn....

And in what.... A homemade rabbit hutch that cost... wait for it.... Nothing! We were able to build it completly costless from recycled materials and some gifted supplies from my unlce... Who by the way gave me the courage to start this rabbit endeavor after he told me about all of his rabbit experiences, and he even said he would help show Spencer and I the whole butchering process! Another homestead lesson in the bag... in about 11 weeks...more on that later!

How much will each rabbit cost..... In central Oregon rabbits prices vary but here's a breakdown of our rabbits cost:

Chester - New Zealand buck (6 mos): $20
Ariel - New Zealand doe (9 wks): $10
Fiona - New Zealand doe (9 wks): $10
Snow - California cross doe (2 yrs): $15
Belle - New Zealand cross doe (1.5 yrs): $15 (with these two does I also recieved 1 rabbit transport cage, 2 water bottle, 2 feeders absolutely free from the breeder who was liquidating his commerical breeding program, homestead win!!!)

As you can see rabbits aren't initially very expensive as far as start up goes and its free to breed them to your hearts content as long as you are prepared for a lot of babies and are sensitive to the mamas' needs throughout gestation, nursing, and weaning. Aside from the cost of the rabbits ($70... Which I might add I won in a game at Spencer's company christmas party!), one large water bottle ($10), and one large feeder ($12) our start up was virtually free. The costs associated with feed are recuring at $11.75/ bag/ month from our local feed company, HayStack Naturals, (20 miles from our house!!! Making Local Habit!) which is sold throughout the county.

Ok, ok wanna see the fur babies???

Pretty dang cute huh?!? The top picture is my main man Chester! He is a broken red New Zealand and boy is he frisky. He always thumps his feet at me when I'm trying to catch him. The second picture shows Snow on the left with the Californian black ears/ nose and Belle on the right with black spots, she is a broken black New Zealand. Last but not least little Ariel the broken red and Fiona the chesnut. As you can see from the picture the two little girls are living in a temporary home until the finishing touches are put on their side of the hutch that the other older girls are sharing. More about out choice to colonize our rabbits instead of individually house them latet!!!

So there you have it!

This is my first step toward a more sustainable food source.

AND... my first new homesteading task to master this year! With the help of Spencer who built my amzing huthces (pics to come later) and always completes my ridiculous requests, and my unle who has experience with meat rabbit raising( and who also happend to be a custom knife maker.... oh ya he said he would make me some of my own processing knives!) we will be well on the road to baby rabbits without stress...

By the way... Snow is expecting her first litter by Chester at the end of this month! Soon we shall seperate her from Belle and give her a nest box this weekend to begin making her nest.

Follow here and the other girls progress her at The High Desert Homestead

Overly excited!
QB