Farm Girl

All 3 of my daughters were home for the Christmas holidays.  2 have gone home and my last daughter, who loves the country the most, is dreading returning.  She's enjoying every last moment with all of the animals before she has to leave. 

Heading for the barn with cat food.  And showing off her new teeth.  She just got the top braces off in mid-December.

Feeding the kitties, rubber boots and all.

Greeting Wilbur the pig for the last time.  She's heading home tomorrow and Wilbur is heading to the butcher on Monday. 

Does that look like a smile on Wilbur's face?

Maybe Wilbur will eat her first!

That feels sooo good!

The calves enjoying the new slant bars...

...so she joined them for their supper.

My youngest son agreed to go with her to the barn to take the photos.  I didn't think that he'd keep his housecoat on and wear crocs!

I guess he's had enough and heading for the warm fire!

Feeding Wilbur the Pig Table Scraps

Wilbur, get out of the trough!  Then we could feed you this...

...nummy supper!

First, let's have a back scratch.

Now, this is called anticipation!

At last!  Dig in, Wilbur.  Enjoy!!





Random Farm Photos

My daughter was home this weekend from university (a rare occurence) and mentioned that her roommate wanted to see some photos of the farm so these are rather random. 

These are 2 huge new doors that my son made himself.

Our very old truck and horse trailer (both need replacing) that brought home...

...these 12 brown calves 2 days ago.  The black calf on the right is older and one that we held back from the group of calves (75) that were sold about one month ago.  He, like Wilbur the pig, will grace our dinner table in about 2 months.  We'll have lots of chicken, pork and beef.

 Suppertime.  Isn't he cute?!  Speaking of cute...

these kitties are too.  These are some of the 14 (at last count) barn cats.  They do a good job of keeping the mouse/rat population down but have to watch out for skunks and racoons that would like a little kitty for supper.  They get fed cat food every day (sometimes twice), have lots of water (that doesn't freeze), a warm place to sleep and lots of feline company and they all seem to get along.  Not a bad life for a barn cat!

Wilbur, the Pig

Back in August, DH took the chickens away to be butchered and came home with...none other than Wilbur the pig. 

Wilbur giving us the evil eye.

Because DH didn't know that he was bringing home a pig that day, he was not prepared with something to bring him home in and ended up bringing him home in a large, plastic garbage can.  Wilbur was destined to die as he was the runt of the litter and I guess runts are put down.  (I didn't realize this.)  So, garbage can or not, that was his lucky day as he got a stay of execution but not for long as we fully intend to put him on our table some day!

Wilbur says hello!  This is what he looked like until yesterday.  His pig pen got cleaned out last night so he looks cleaner now (below) but actually the pen was warmer for him before.  The extra manure and straw gives him a place to burrow down under (hence the dirty nose!) which pigs love to do so we'll have to get a lot more straw in there with winter coming. 

 Shy little Wilbur needs a friend!  Maybe we can find another little runt!