Circle M Farm

It is odd how ecstasy has no x. Anyway –
The barely-started month of May continues to have its extreme ups and downs here at Circle M.

The obvious agony has been our rather harrowing farrowing experience, so different from last year’s uncomplicated and productive delivery of 8 live babies that all grew up to be delicious bacon, among other things. Last week, after having 6 live piglets, one of which was chilled and had to be taken into our house, monstrous Piggy Lou gave birth to five others that didn’t make it. Some were stillborn, one lived briefly to struggle and never figure out how to nurse, and two were born dead several days after the original delivery. Then yesterday evening, while shifting in her nest to allow the piglets to suckle, she laid on and suffocated one. These piglets have died in pretty much every possible way—except for being eaten by their mom, which is the story one is always told when word gets out you are raising a few pigs.

I can’t imagine Piggy Lou ever doing violence to one of her babies. She’s actually a really really good mom. In fact, when I saw she was laying on the one yesterday, I tried to move her to get him out. Suddenly that seemed to make her realize something was wrong. She immediately got up and started nuzzling the smothered piglet. I watched, curious, and also afraid she’d go into some frenzy of piglet-eating. Quite the contrary, she gently pushed him around for a while, talking quietly. After about 15 minutes of nuzzling, she picked up a mouthful of hay and gently tossed it on top of the piglet. Then she walked a few steps away and commenced to bury him by tossing dirt and hay backwards through her legs. Quite tender, I thought.

The loss of so many piglets is a bit of a blow to our farm economy here, as we not only paid for artificial insemination “materials,” but also fed the hugely pregnant Piggy Lou (and all 11 pigs-in-utero) through a very long, cold winter. We’ve also felt the blow to our confidence and emotions. The experience has nevertheless driven us to do some interesting research on pig-rearing options, still within our sense of what entails a humane lifestyle for the hogs. We’ve had some really fruitful conversations with neighboring farmers and local veterinarians about what we might do differently the next time around. Farming is an endlessly-evolving puzzle and getting to figure it out in community with others is one of the sweetest things about it.

Another wonderful thing about farming on a diversified homestead like ours is that when one venture fails, several others are likely doing marvelously. And that is certainly the case here.

For one, our house pig Napster is doing well and is an endless source of amusement and wonder to our family and visitors to the farm. In addition to enthusiastically guzzling down bottles of warm sheep’s milk, she’s now slurping up water and sampling, then falling asleep in, a dish of grain. She’s also got a little square of sod and dirt, to snuffle up some iron, a ball to play with and some beanie babies for companions. As all pigs do, she’s chosen a potty corner and sticks to it. When that starts to stink, I’ll be in a big hurry to get her out of the house, but for now she can stay.

Potty over here.

Napster and Beanie Baby.

Meanwhile, outside, the gardens are at last getting planted after a long wait for warm enough weather. Peas are up and beautiful, along with salad mix, radishes, kohlrabi, scallions, cabbage and spinach. The pastures are finally growing now, too, so that means we’ve been able to move all of the animals to fresh grass. Moving animals to new food is something that always gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure. I’m reminded of Psalm 23 – “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.” Now I have some sense of how much pleasure it must give God to provide his creatures with good things.

Watching new lambs play in new pasture softens the blow of last week’s losses.

Our dairy goat, Cream, just had two strapping bucklings who finally look different enough to receive names: Bucky and Bronco. Bucky is white and Bronco is, well, cream. Both are tall and very beautiful, as all Alpine goats are to me, and in a week or so they’ll start sharing their mama’s milk with us. Yum! Our other milking goat, Tapioca, is due to kid any day as well, and we are very much looking forward to seeing her babies. She’s a nearly-earless La Mancha, while our buck, Congo, is an Alpine with great big bunny ears!

Ecstasy – raw milk and fresh veggies on the way, dozens of eggs from the henhouse every day. Lamb and beef grazing peacefully in the fields. The meat chickens are growing well, to be followed in the brooder by Cayuga ducks and Chocolate turkeys. All of the trees are suddenly budding out in a riot of green, and best of all, the wild plums in the hedgerows have burst into bloom, blessing us with the glorious sweet fragrance of hope and growth and fruit.

Yup, life is pretty good.