Monday morning

Ready for a new week.  I have to finish baling the hay I cut last wednesday.  As always, check on pigs first thing this morning..  We are suppose to have new babies waiting for me this morning,  One sow looked extremely "piggy" when I checked on her last night. 
To Do list for today:
      Go to coop and get mineral supplements to mix with our corn to make more pig feed
      Return mower I borrowed last week
      Feed pigs
      Grind feed
      Check for heat and breed
      Get wagon for pumpkin patch
      Get high school students on task
      Bale hay
      Pull weeds in garden
      Get pork delivery orders ready for tomorrow
Things get pretty busy around here sometimes

promotion

    Sarah has promoted me to head blogger.  I am not sure if it is a promotion, title to make me feel more needed, or merely a way for Sarah to simplify her life. 
   Since her last post, she has a full time off farm job. She also has PYO pumpkin patch set to open this weekend.  Matt is back in school and Tina is back in school.  Me...busier than ever on the farm.  Papa Weaver continues to grow. Our deliveries are becoming more and more demanding.  Thank heaven for "Lucy", our
gps unit.  She always gets me home.  I am currently driving about 600 miles per week making deliveries and moving pigs.  
   Pace on the farm is picking up.  Spring planted crops are nearing maturity.  We are checking machines getting ready for harvest.  Lots of baby pigs are being born.
    Bernie was a friend of mine who I met at a very young age.  He  worked for my father and later for me.  He was more than an employee.  He was a man was who became part of our family as I grew. I learned from him. I laughed with him.  I grew to respect him.
   During the later years of his life, diabetes had taken a toll.  His kidneys had stopped working and he had last both of his legs.  During a visit, I asked him how he was doing..  With so much of his life gone,  his response surprised me.  " I am having a good day.  My feet hit the floor this morning".   Meaning, he was alive. 

That's the right outlook.  If your feet "hit the floor", every day is a good day.

Oh, the wonders of cell phones. When they work.

Cell phones are a marvelous thing.  When you aren't desperately trying to get ahold of someone planting corn in a no cab tractor, or someone who is cutting hay where there is very little to no cell phone service.  Came over to Harrisonburg today to pick up meat, and happened to find a hole in the radiator.  I was frantically trying to call everyone I could think of, but knew that Dad was planting corn, and very unlikely to hear his phone in his pocket (or possibly in the truck) and knew that Matt was out cutting hay on another farm that has very horrible cell phone reception.  Luckily, Mom answered the phone, went and got Dad, and they are currently on their way here.  That's why I decided it was a fantastic time for a blog update!

Life is still busy on the farm- the way it will be until November.  Dad is busy planting corn, and replanting a field that did not come up, or a plant came up here and there, and no one has any idea really why.  Matt has started hay season.  He's the one that stays super busy in the hay field from first thing in the morning until close to dark.  He normally cuts the hay, and then bales it.  Either Dad or I end up raking it into windrows so that the baler can then pick it up.  

I have four sows having babies this week- three are supposed to have babies tomorrow, and then one Friday.  Sows have an average of an 114 day gestation period- how long they are pregnant- but ours have been going a little longer, normally around 117 days.  We still want to move them over with plenty of time so that they are all in the farrowing room, and can have heat lamps put out to keep the babies warm!

My pumpkins are being planted either late this week, or first thing next week!  I'm super excited!

New recipes and Pictures!

Also, please go check out the new pictures and recipes on the Facebook page!  (www.facebook.com/papaweaver)!  I have uploaded lots of pictures from the farm this spring!

Planting Corn, Soybeans, and Rain

So I know that it has been a really long time since the last blog post- completely my fault!  We have been busy on the farm since it is prime planting time, planting corn and soybeans, working ground, and still taking care of pigs and cows.  We have babies being born right now, even though they were all supposed to be through last week!  We try not to induce labor unless they are REALLY overdue, because most of the time we just let nature do its thing.

Matt came home last week, so he is back to helping out on the farm.  Right now, we are dealing with major amounts of rain and thunderstorms.  Good for the corn and soybeans, but not so good at getting other things done on the farm.  Luckily we have just about all of our corn in the ground, and all the soybeans planted.  We have to wait until it dries up some to finish planting corn on the river bottoms. 

Matt and Dad are out working on a cow who had some problems after she had a baby last week, hopefully they are staying dry in this weather!

April Already?!?!

Time sure has flown by since the last time that I had a chance to blog about the farm!  During March, it seems like all of a sudden time starts to speed up on the farm!  The slow days of winter all of a sudden seem to fade away as it starts getting warmer and the days stay lighter longer. 

We are busy getting ready to start planting corn in a few weeks!  I can't believe it is already that time again!  We want to plant earlier than normal this year so that we can start harvesting the corn earlier, just in case corn gets low.  With corn prices at the super high prices that they are now, it's not much fun having to buy corn if we run out!  I have been busy bush hogging old corn stalks, getting ready to start plowing any fields that need to be plowed before Dad starts planting.  Right now, he's even still out on the farm!  He is out spreading manure on our pasture fields, getting our manure spreaders ready to go into high gear this week!  We use the hog manure from our hog barns as fertilizer on our fields.  It is our way of being eco-friendly, and recycling all the nutrients that we have!  It is much better for us and the fields to be able to do this, instead of having to use commercial fertilizer.  We have to wait until this time of year to spread the manure, because it is against the law to spread when the ground is frozen.  Since Dad got the newer spreader, we now have two that we can use to spread.  According to him, tomorrow (if it isn't raining) he and I are both going to be on spreaders out in the fields! 

I am super happy that is is getting warmer outside- I can bring my 4-wheeler back out!  This is my favorite time of year, when I can take my 4-wheeler and just go for rides on the farm.  Tonight before I came home, I went down next to the river with my 4-wheeler just to ride and see what I could find.  There were lots of gorgeous purple flowers that I have never seen before that were everywhere down by the river!

I am getting ready to start ordering all my seeds for my projects this year!  I have a wishlist of all of the pumpkin seeds that I want, and the flower seeds that I am going to grow to sell at Farmer's Markets.  I am super excited to think about my pumpkin patch; even if I do have two more months before I can start planting them!

New Recipe and Combine Shopping!

I just put a new recipe on the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/papaweaver).  It's a new recipe that Mom made the other night for dinner that was absolutely delicious!  It was a pork tenderloin that she cut up, fried, and then made a sauce with blueberries to go on it.  I'm not the biggest blueberry fan, but I thought it was amazing! 
Dad and I have been pretty busy this week, but the most exciting thing that we did yesterday was go look at a combine that is going to be for sale next week!  Dad's afraid that it might be a little out of our price range, but it's going to be at an auction in Fauquier County next Saturday.  It was much newer and bigger than the one that we had previously, and I really liked it.  Dad was also looking at a manure spreader that he thinks might go in his price range, and I want a wagon that I can use to carry people in for my pumpkin patch. 
Everything just keeps getting greener and growing on the farm.  All of our wheat and barley is growing.  We had one field of wheat that got planted late, and it just came up this week!  Everything else has been out of the ground for over a month, and we thought that that field just wasn't going to come up.  Even the wheat that got planted on the same day in a different strip in the same field was up!  It was pretty strange, but at least it is up and growing now!  I guess it just needed those warm temperatures last weekend to give it the final kick that it needed to pop up!
Since it's supposed to be around 80 degrees today, I went down to the barn and have all the doors wide open to get some fresh air in for the baby pigs.  They certaintly seemed to appreciate it!  This afternoon I have to go back down and move two sows to our farrowing room that are supposed to have babies this weekend!  I don't think they will though, I imagine it's going to be the first of next week before they actually do!

Dry Out!

It's a beautiful day outside- so nice after all the rain we have gotten in the past week!  Dad said that we ended up getting over 5 inches all together between the two systems that came through.  The Rapidan River goes through the bottom edge of our property, and down on the river bottom the river had gotten out when we went down on Friday morning and looked.  When I was down yesterday, the river had gone back down a little bit so there wasn't all that water in the field.  There is still water standing in the low spots in the fields where we planted our barley and wheat, but that should be gone in the next few days.  With these warm temperatures and those five inches of rain, the barley and wheat and all the rest of the grass is going to jump up!  It's so nice to see the pastures be green again after being brown all winter.
We have been on a major "spring cleaning" event in some of our barns- just getting everything all cleaned up and walls washed and after our woodstove has been burning all winter.  It's so nice to see it after it gets cleaned- looks like an entirely different place!
Last week Dad, Matt, and I started building a pen in the field next to our house to catch our herd of cows here.  We were able to get most of the posts dug- Dad used old electric poles from the electric company that are cut up after they came through and replaced electric poles a few years ago.  Then he uses old guardrail as the sides of the pens.  We have two other lots that are already made like that- they work GREAT.  We don't have to worry about boards rotting or getting broken like we do in our pens that are made out of wood!  I had to empty out the holes after we dug them to get all the loose dirt out, and then I had to "tamp" the dirt down- pack it in really tightly around the post so that they don't move.  My arms and shoulders hurt really badly the next day- great upper arm workout!
We sold the first of our beef at the Farmer's Market in Spotsylvania  yesterday, and were really pleasantly surprised by the response of all of our customers that came by.  We are really hoping that everyone enjoys it, and keeps coming back for more.  We had barbeque made out of a chuck roast on Friday night, hamburgers yesterday for lunch, and then Mom, Dad, and Matt had steaks last night.  I was really upset I missed the steaks- Dad said they were excellent.   I did have some of the hamburger patties yesterday at lunch time with bacon, they were DELICIOUS.  I love hamburgers, but I think these were some of the best I have ever eaten!
I already have been talking to Quail Cove Farms about getting them some beef to sell, but with the way that it is selling right now, it might be a while before we have any extra!  We have already gone through so much of it that Dad is already getting ready to schedule a time to take another animal over so that we can get some more beef back! 

Papa Weaver's- not just pork anymore!

Papa Weaver's Pork is no longer JUST pork!  We have started with beef as well!  We have always had beef cattle on the farm, and with the high demand for locally produced, naturally raised animals, we have made our way into the beef market.  We took our first animal over two and a half weeks ago, and just brought it home yesterday.  Beef animals don't have quite the same turnaround period as pork, beef needs to age some before you can bring it home to eat it.  We are really looking forward to being able to sell our beef, and hope that it will sell well at the Farmer's Markets, which is where we will initially be selling.  All of our beef animals have the same promises as our pork products- no antibiotics, no hormones, no MSG, no Nitrates, no growth promotents.    

Why, Hello March!

I can't believe that it is already March 1!  The weather certainly hasn't felt like typical end of February/beginning of March weather recently.  I can't believe that yesterday we had thunderstorms and tornado warnings!  Knowing the weather, in two weeks it will be snowing again!

Things are starting to pick up again on the farm.  Dad is starting to get everything planned and ordered for everything he wants to plant this year.  The wheat and barley that he planted last September/October is really starting to jump out of the ground, and that happened just with this last spurt of warm weather!  The cows have been eating less hay- the grass is starting to grow some, and the fields are starting to have a little tinge of green to them.  It certainly makes me much happier to see that than all the brown that we have in the winter! 

This morning, I made some phone calls for Papa Weaver's Pork to get everything situated with Quail Cove Farms for their order this week, and then went down to the breeding barn, farrowing room, and nurseries to get everything fed.  It was too muddy to get the feed truck down this morning to put more feed in the tank, so dad had to bring the tractor down that had the feed on it.  

After we finished feeding, Dad and I worked on putting up a new electric fence for the cows around the corn field.  The cornfield behind our house still has some corn cobs and corn stalks in the field, and the cows love to get in and eat them.  We had to put an electric fence up on one side where there is no fence so that they won't roam everywhere- which they would if we let them, including in the road, and then down the road to our nearest neighbor's yards and gardens.  They really love flowers and other people's gardens, which can make for a big inconvenience.  

Dad and I are getting ready to head back out for the afternoon, to work on some more jobs.  Dad is going to head to Harrisonburg in a couple of hours to pick up meat so that he can go to DC and Northern Virginia to make deliveries this morning, and I have some jobs in the barns that need to get done. 

New Recipe just in time for Valentine's Day

Check out the new recipe I just posted on the PWP Facebook page!  Mom made a delicious Chocolate Spiced rub on a tenderloin last night for dinner.  Dad and I were pretty apprehensive at the beginning, but after I tasted it I was super impressed!  All the ingredients go together so well, and really enhances the pork.  It would be perfect for a Valentine's Day meal!  Enjoy!

Busy Afternoon ahead!

Well, we got some snow last night, about half an inch, that closed all the schools around here.  However, the snow is already gone!  Thank goodness.  It just makes a mess.  And after all the snow that we have had recently all the red mud just recently dried up enough so that I could make it to the barn and back, and not have to use 4 wheel drive and worry about getting stuck!  I am definitely looking forward to the warm weather that is supposed to be coming tomorrow through Monday, because it has certainly been cold the past couple of days!  We have had the wood stove in the farrowing room burning as much and as hot as it can because it really makes a big difference in the entire barn.

On Monday, Dad and I spent some time moving some pigs around from the cold nursery up to the finishing barn.  It took us almost an hour and a half to get 35 pigs loaded!  It can be very frustrating trying to move them, because ten 150 pound pigs don't always go where you want them to.  Or they stop in the hallway and refuse to move anymore, and there isn't much you can do about it by yourself.  So I would get up and use our rattle paddle that uses noise to get them to move and we don't have to hit them.  Dad used the sorting board behind them so they couldn't back up, and with some patience they finally moved and we got them all loaded up!  I checked in on them in the finishing house, and they are doing great up there.  

Dad and I also replaced the plastic curtain that hangs up on the sides that helps keep it warmer in the barn on Monday afternoon.  It took some time, but it's much better now.  Next week we have to replace the curtain on the other side. It's a pretty long process, because you have to tear the old curtain down, pull the nails out the boards, and then measure out the new plastic sheet.  Then, we had to take the rod that holds the curtain up, and put it through the new curtain, then hang it back up and nail it back in.  It's really amazing how much heat the curtains keep in the barn!  Then in the summertime, we can lower them so that we can let the hot air out during the day, and put it back up if it gets too cool at nighttime.

This afternoon is going to be a busy one for me!  Dad just left to get the pigs loaded up to take them to Harrisonburg, and then I have to go feed four bales of hay to some of our cows.  After that, I have to work on moving some sows around and back to the gestation barn, and pressure wash and then disinfect some pens in the hot nursery so that I can move the weaned pigs over tomorrow.  It's a big job, but it is very important that the pens get very clean and disinfected before I move new pigs over!  

We had two new sets of babies born this week!  One litter was born on Monday morning, she had five babies that are all doing well.  Then we had another littler born this morning!  They were still trying to figure out the whole walking and eating thing when I was down there this morning.  It's pretty entertaining to watch- they will be trying to go one way, and their legs won't cooperate with them so they go another!  It doesn't take long for them to figure it out though- by the time I go down later this afternoon they will have it down.

New Picture and Recipe!

Notice the new background for the blog?  That is actually a picture that I took on our farm!  It is one of my favorite pictures that I have ever taken- in the beginning of May when all the flowers are blooming and the grass is super green and growing.
Also, check out our facebook page (www.facebook.com/papaweaver) for a new recipe!  This is a super easy recipe that I make on a regular basis- my boyfriend even makes it!  I have made it for both breakfast and dinner and love it both ways!

Visit to the VA Pork Conference and Warmer Weather!

Dad and I made our way to Franklin, Virginia last Friday to go to the Virginia Pork Conference that is held every year.  There were quite a few very good speakers there this year, and Dad and I learned a lot!  The first speaker was talking on moving pigs and what kind of stress it had on them and how to help with it, and then the second speaker was the best.  He talked about nursery care for pigs, or the wean-to-finish plan.  That is where the pigs go in one pen at the time that they are moved, and stay there until they are finished, or ready for market.  We don't have the facilities for that, and we use the different rooms for our nurseries to move our pigs throughout as they grow.  But, he did have some great information that I wasn't as familiar with about some new techniques that can be used with the pigs after they have been weaned and go into the nurseries.  We are going to buy some new creep feeders, and give our weaned pigs a special mash- just feed mixed with some warm water- to help them better adapt to new feed when they are weaned.

The last two speakers talked about the Chesapeake Bay initiative, and what it's impact is going to be on farmers, and the possibility for many more regulations that will have to be followed.  It was pretty scary to think about what is possibly coming for farmers throughout the United States! 

We certainly enjoyed the warmer weather that was here over the weekend!  It is always nice to have 50 degree temperatures in January- until the next day when all the mud has thawed out, and red mud makes a big mess when you are trying to get around to the barns, or to feed hay.  There is still snow on the ground, and I will be very glad when all of that goes away, and the mud starts to dry up, so the probability of me getting stuck goes down!  I think the warm weather is gone for a while though, with the rain coming in and probably going to stay for a while. 

Are you ready for the snow?

I think the snow is coming! Around the farm, we are going to spend the rest of the day doing jobs inside.  According to the weather, the snow is supposed to start around 3 this afternoon.  Dad just got back not too long ago from his trip to DC this morning, and I had to go deliver pork loins to a CSA type of business in Albemarle this morning.  Dad told me to go ahead and get up so that I could be out and back and off the roads before the snow starts.  I have been busy on the farm recently with my pigs!  The babies that were born two weeks ago are getting really big!  Some of them are going to be ready to be weaned at the end of this week/beginning of this week.  I have already started them on feed so that they will be ready to go in the hot nursery.
Dad is out feeding hay and feeding the big pigs on the barn.  I have to head down and get the fire going and feed all my other pigs.  I have been busy after delivering loins, and then making phone calls and working on invoicing to help my dad out some. 
Even if we get the 4-6 inches of snow tonight, it won't slow us down much!  All the pigs and the cows are still going to need to be fed tomorrow.  Dad and I are heading down to Franklin, Virginia to the Virginia Pork Conference tomorrow night through Friday.  I like to go down and see people that I know from throughout the state, and it is always interesting to see what new speakers will be there, and get updates on the state pork industry and also on a more national level.  It helps us to predict what will be coming in the future for pig farmers and what we should prepare ourselves for.  We always get updates about the animal welfare groups, and what sorts of legislation is going to be passed or has been proposed that might affect us.
Stay safe and warm in the snow that is coming!

It's Cold, but at least it's sunny!

It's cold out there!  That wind just makes everything that much colder, but I was super happy to see the sun when I woke up this morning.  All the clouds and gray don't make the cold much fun when you have to be outside all the time.  Everyone has been staying busy on the farm.  Matt is getting ready to head back to Blacksburg this weekend, so starting next week it's just going to be me and Dad on the farm taking care of everything.  My brother is the one that always grinds all the feed, and I have been informed that I am going to take over that job starting next week.  Today I'm supposed to be getting some "training" on how to do everything.  It takes a long time to grind and mix all the batches of feed that we have for all of our pigs!  We have a breeding barn mix, a hot nursery mix, a cold nursery mix, and then a grower mix.  The pigs at all those stages need different levels of protein in their diets so that they can continue to grow big and strong, so they need different amounts of soybean meal in their diets.  The little pigs also get some special mixtures that taste like molasses so that they eat their feed better, because it can be a shock to go from drinking all milk to just feed!  That why we try to start feeding them some feed before they are weaned so that they are more used to it when they go in the hot nursery.
We have had a bunch of baby pigs born this week!  Mostly white ones, but we also have 11 red and black polka dotted ones!  They are super cute.  On weeks like this, I am very glad that we have barns to put our pigs in.  The baby pigs like it about 80 degrees on them so that they stay warm, and the sows need it about 65-70 degrees in the barn.  It would be very hard to get it that warm if they were outside pigs!  We have the wood stove going, the propane heat on, and heat lamps on the baby pigs so that they can stay the temperature they need to be.  It's pretty warm in there for me- I have to take my jacket off if I'm in there for very long and I still get hot!  But, the baby pigs love it.  They are growing and playing with each other and doing a lot of eating and sleeping under the heat lamp.  
Dad is on his way home from all of his deliveries in Northern Virginia and Fredericksburg, and then around Orange, and as soon as he gets home I am headed out to make more deliveries!  I have to go to Albemarle to make a delivery to Arganica, and then drop some sides off at Kite's Hams so that they can cure our bacon for us so that in about six weeks that bacon will be ready for everyone to buy and eat!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  Even through the busy holiday season, I haven't had much time to blog, but things on the farm haven't slowed down.  For the first time since April, we don't have anything that needs to go in the ground and we have one thing left to come out of the ground!  Dad finally finished shelling corn last week, and the combine is back in the barn until one day this week when he has to spend a couple of hours finishing up with the soybeans, which luckily shouldn't take long.  I am super glad that it has finally warmed up some, all that wind and cold air gets tiring after a while when you're outside in it all day!
Things on the farm change a little from January until April when things have to start being planted again.  Winter is our "catch up" time on the farm.  We do a lot of wood splitting, fixing tractors, making general repairs, and getting everything ready for April when it all starts up again.
We also work on bigger projects in the winter.  For example, we are going to work on building a lot for our cows that are in the field around our house to catch them.  When we do take cows to other farms or we take calves to market, it's much easier to have them in an open lot with fences and a chute to put them on a trailer than it is to ride out in the field and attempt to get them on the trailer on their own.  Doesn't work.  It is also nice to have the lot if any of the cows need some special attention, or they need their yearly vaccines.  We build "guard-rail lots."  Dad has some of the guardrail that goes on the side of the road, and we use it to go around our lots.  It works great.  We already have two other lots that are made out of guardrail.  The cows can't get out once they get in, and it holds up great in the weather conditions. 
The pigs are doing well in this weather.  Dad and I took one of our boars, Hokie Man, over to a neighbors house because he has two sows that need to be bred.  I want to go in the show pig business, selling show pigs to 4-Hers, so hopefully there will be some good gilts that I can use to start my show pig herd.
I was down at the barn this morning feeding and had quite the problem with the feed tank that we use to hold the feed for our breeding barn.  The metal around the opening at the bottom of the tank that we use to get in the tank to get clumps of feed out that get stuck, or to help clean the feed tank out, has broken.  Now the cover will not stay on!  It is very aggravating trying to keep it on long enough to get enough feed out so that I can finish feeding.  Dad doesn't know it yet, but that's going to be one of his jobs this afternoon to fix it!