Go Pigaerators!

Following up on the previous post, "Garden Imaginings," today we tossed whole kernel corn around the new garden area and drove over it with our garden tractor, hoping to grind the corn into the soil, sort of like setting up a treasure hunt.

Then we released the pigaerators.

Here's Roxie diving in, digging deep with her hardy snout. Have you felt a pig's snout lately? Come on over if you haven't. They're impressive.

Tell me it's as good as chocolate. Hobbes thinks so.

"Better," says Calvin.

"What on earth is chocolate?" Roxie asks, while Hobbes waits to lick it off. "Can I, can I?" he says.

"Oh my," says Virginia. "We need a wet serviette."

Feeling Corny

Several of our chickens have discovered our corn. Lucky chickens. Not only do they get to freely wander in the rain and sunshine, they can gorge themselves on things they like -- for a while. Their counterparts in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), the homes of most of the animals Americans eat, exist on the floor of a warehouse filled with up to 40,000 other chickens. They might finally get to see daylight on their final day, when being trucked to the slaughterhouse, but then who needs a range to tour if you can't walk because you've been bred for your breasts, not your legs? Those breasts put the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to shame. In 1920, it took the birds 16 weeks to reach 2.2 pounds. Now, they can reach 5 pounds after only 7 weeks.

Any egg eaters thinking about congratulating themselves for not eating meat might want to reconsider. Egg-laying chickens find their homes in 12" by 18" battery cages, which they share with up to 5 other layers, stacked in a large house that may hold more than 80,000 birds. What a delight!

No windows? Well, there might be windows on the neighbors' houses, but they stay closed most of the time. All those chickens stink.

Chickens are enough for today, except did you know that in 2002, two Iowa counties had more than 800,000 pigs? In February 2012, the governor of Montana was trying to entice Chinese investors to open a pig plant in Shelby that would house over 800,000 hogs. A feeding operation with 800,000 pigs would generate over 1.6 million TONS of waste per year? That's 1 1/2 times the annual sanitary waste of the City of Philadelphia. Now that's a factory, not a farm.

How do we feed the world without doing things this way? Joel Salatin tells how, in his fascinating book, The Sheer Ecstacy of Being a Lunatic Farmer. 

"Isn't he the guy who says true American heroes don't go overseas to empire or nation build; they stay home, farm, and fuss with government workers who enforce regulations inspired and lobbied by the military-industrial complex?" says Virginia.

Maybe so.

Two Favors from Calvins

Yesterday, our friend, Tommy, arranged for us to borrow a 1-horse trailer from his friend, Calvin, a short man with a cowboy hat and a pipe.  Even compared to me, he was short -- kind, generous, and short.


This morning at 8, Tommy appeared to direct the show, him not one to let a friend's trailer out of sight with another friend. Borrowers, remember that advice, especially if you, like Tommy, have a heart operation scheduled the next day. It's no time to let a friend multiply your stress. 


We coaxed Velma in with whole corn, spreading it in a line to the front of the trailer, like Hansel and Gretel. She seemed suspicious, focusing on the feed near the entrance, then backing home to the paddock. The pull of hunger was too much. Soon she was stretching inside, hind feet on the ground. Tommy held the door ready to slam when she lifted the left leg up, then finally the right. BAM! She was in. We tightened three straps on the door and centered the "FARM VEHICLE" sign. 


I aimed the pickup down the road, smiling about how things had gone, but still nervous about the trailer, which may have looked normal when my grandfather only had one horsepower. Karen and Tommy, with Bennie (a goat), followed in our stationwagon.


About 3 miles later, as we approached Glasgow, I felt the trailer shake as if its hitch might be slipping off. It shimmied and quaked and my cellphone rang. "Pull over!" said Karen, "She's trying to jump out." They'd been watching Velma's snout push out the bottom of the door, and then she'd levitated herself onto the door, which was a half door, the upper half open to the sky. Smart pig, she knew why birds need daylight.


So much for easy. We gathered round the bouncing trailer and wailing, snorting pig, who seemed determined to make us regret our informal U-Haul arrangement. I tried to hold the door shut and daylight out, while sing-songing Velma and feeling like Peter. Her last day was supposed to be gentle. 


Karen returned home for lumber, drill, screws, saws, and whatever struck her fancy. She came back with a couple pallets and a bunch of wood. We set to work rehabbing the trailer so Velma couldn't get close to the door, and blocked as much daylight as possible. We were finally on the road again about 10. 


Perhaps I should mention that through all of this Bennie rested sweetly in the stationwagon. Who's smarter, the goat or the pig?

We wound our way through one switchback after another to the abattoir in Naola. Of course, we had to unscrew our rehab work before Velma could find the way to her pen of last resort. Meanwhile, Karen went inside, filled out the paperwork, and chose how we wanted our darling babies returned. The butcher's wife shared some tears and before long we were on our way home. 

Having done this once, moving Roxie was a piece of cake. We carried her 2 miles down the road to another Calvin, who had agreed to introduce his boar to Roxie. We're hoping she enjoys her vacation and comes home pregnant in a week or two or three.

We completely dismantled our work on the trailer, removed all the screws and nails, and cleaned it up so the next horse doesn't smell pigs and short Calvin might let Tommy borrower the trailer again, not for pigs. Six hours after we started, we found lunch at home.


"So you're real farmers, now?" says Virginia.


No, but we're learning.

Global Rupture?

The pigs are doing a good job roto-tilling a garden bed, their test site.  We're getting a little sweet corn from the field garden, which will be their next project.  Some winter squash seems to be doing all right in that garden, too.  If we put the pigs out there, will they stay inside their electric fence?  We plan to gradually move them around the big garden.  A fence break could badly mess things up.  Hitting a deer is no fun.  Hitting a pig wouldn't be, either.

If the field garden experiment works, then we may move the pigs or their replacements around the field.  Bit by bit we might be able to plant the field with native grasses and animal food, such as oats and barley.  Or blueberries, pumpkins, strawberries, etc.  I don't know about monoculture planting though, a quarter acre or twenty-five.  How big does it have to be before it becomes monoculture?

Reading Silent Spring, including Rachel Carson's account of the use of DDT on elm trees in Michigan and elsewhere, leads me to wonder if, 60 years later, the robins have returned.  Have we learned from that experience or are we doing the same sort of thing with "safe" treatments like Roundup?  There's so much we don't know.  We should be wary of introducing any inventions into our planet's ecosystems.  I'm inclined to apply the grandmother test -- if grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it, and think ten thousand times before spraying it on plants. 

"Hey, what's it matter?" says Virginia.  "The rapture is coming soon."

She's a kidder.  Too bad many other people aren't.