Winter Farm Activities

Winter was supposed to slow down. So far we are still very busy! Here are some pictures of the latest activities on the farm.

Here the pigs are huddled in their deep straw beds while sleeping in on a snowy morning.

Marlin our neighbor is always willing to come over with his tractor since we pay him in pork!  Here we are loading a 2,200 lb bag of grain from the makeshift hoop shelter to the back of the truck.  In the front you can see our new pasture is coming up nicely.  It is dormant and will hopefully take off in the spring.

Here I am filling the feeders.  No augers on this farm, just good old fashioned muscle power.  When coworkers ask if I want to go to the gym with them, I explain that I work out at home. 

Here we are leaving Gary's Meat in Payson with the pork from 20 pigs.  You can see how our 1 ton truck is sagging in the back.  I think it may be time for a refrigerated trailer.

Here we are with a line of customers waiting for their pork.  We had 44 customers to deliver to and somehow every one of their orders seemed to be in the bottom of the stack of boxes! : )  We sure appreciate everybodys' patience while we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off. 

Our kids were so patient on Saturday.  We woke them up while it was still dark and loaded them into the truck at 6:30 am.  We then drove to the butcher and loaded the pork.  We drove around with our deliveries which went very smoothly thanks to efforts put forth by our customers to meet us.  Afterwards, we ran our weekly errands.  The kids never complained the entire day.  We arrived home exhausted around 9pm.  Hans and Dane helped me unload the remaining pork and get it into our freezers.  They were concerned and repeatedly told me that the pork needed to get in the freezers so that it would stay fresh for our customers.  Hans informed me that we only get one chance to impress our customers with the quality of our pork which is why he was helping me.  That way he explained our farm could keep growing.  He has no doubt overheard Hollie and I talking.  Not bad for a 5 year old.  This truly is a family farm.