The !@#$% Pig is Gone

It hasn’t been a great two weeks. Last Sunday when we thought we delivered Gellert, it was Mona.  Lisa and the buyer both figured that out on Tuesday. I was down in Cambridge, so we didn’t try again until Saturday. It didn’t work.

On Sunday we did it the way we know. We let all six pigs out and chased them up the road. When they came back down, Lisa lured Gellert into the trailer and slammed the door on him. Then we marched the other five back into their pen and all is well. Lisa did the pig swap today while I programmed, and we can now return to our regularly scheduled farming.

Today was hideously cold. As I said on Facebook, it was a perfect January 82nd. The sap didn’t run. This is good because we have 120 gallons of sap on hand and have spent the last three days on Gellert. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. The sap will run, so Lisa must boil (I still have to program).  We’re back to playing catch up.

We’re also having incubator issues. I sprang serious bucks for a Brinsea incubator (vs the farm store styrofoam jobbers)  because we were getting megarare Icelandic settlement chickens. It worked great for the first few hatches, getting 95% vs 50% from the styrofoam jobbers. But the number hatched slowly declined. I could not figure out how to clean the heater/fan assembly. After messing with it, the thermostat is dead and the hatch rate is zero. We need an incubator. We can’t buy a new Brinsea for every third hatch. I won’t do the styrofoam jobbers: I’ve seen the chicks that almost make it, and well, I think I might do that to Dick Cheney but I’m not actually a nice person. Any suggestions?

On a happier note, does NPR broadcast agricultural weather in your state? NHPR and VPR both report how the sap run is going. I like this. It goes two ways: Yankee farmers listen to NPR.  Beancounters and stockbrokers in New England take a day off to boil.

On a less happy note, I want to take my marbles and go home. Bush/Paulsen and Obama/Geithner both poured my money into AIG to pay Goldman Sachs at 100 cents on the dolllar. There are many lamp posts in both DC and Manhattan. I bet there are more lampposts than Congressionally confirmed appointees or Wall St. M BAs. Is it a rope shortage that we have?

4 thoughts on “The !@#$% Pig is Gone”

  1. Frank, You were the one to post before the election that you were now going with the party of Dukakis. Bush was bad but that doesnt mean it cant get worse. If George had said what obummer said about special olympics he would have been castarated. But the media makes Obummer a hero because he invites the SO to the whitehouse.
    to bad we didnt choose McCain and the cheerleader from Alaska, I mean her income of just $160,000 might of brought a level of middle class to Washington. But now we just give it away. yeh the republicans sure foul up but as for the Dems that cant stand capitalism why are they now bailing them.
    1-20-2013 that is the day I wait for. Also i intend to treat your president just the way you treated mine. – Hugh

    Reply
  2. Hugh,
    No partisan credit on the bailout. McCain and Obama voted for it. Geither was Paulsen’s sidekick, but Paulsen was Bush’s guy. And my neighbor Judd Gregg helped write it.

    Karen,

    Fan yes, egg turner no. I’ve heard that 50% hatch rate from many people BTW.

    Reply

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