September 2022

+ We finished the permanent winter pig pen for Ethel. And since our life is a circus, it was not a smooth process! Within hours of putting her inside, she managed to pull the gate off the hinges and frolicked around the property in all her newfound freedom. (She also made a mess of part of my food forest.) After half an hour of excitement, we finally convinced her to go back and take a nap. Oh pigs…

+ And speaking of Ethel: her due date came and went and we realized that she wasn’t pregnant after all. I had conflicting emotions because while I was sad we wouldn’t have any baby piglets, I was also SO grateful for a fall/winter of less work! Our new plan is to put Fred back into the paddock with her in December and pray for babies in the spring.

+ In sad news, our four sweet ducks flew off one day and never returned. We miss them. We also lost three more hens due to freak incidents. It’s been a hard month of loss and death.

+ The garden is pretty much finished for the season. (I still have tomatoes, jalapenos, figs and a few surprise strawberries left.) I chopped and dropped the dry corn stalks and started working the soil with the old chicken coop bedding. A layer of leaves will go on next!