Farming Friends

Winter Jasmine is blooming in my garden at the moment.

In fact it is the only colour my garden seems to have at the moment.

What is blooming in your garden at the moment and what colours are lighting up your garden?

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Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As The Garden Grows for more information.

A while ago I was tagged for seven random facts so I have decided to look back over 2007 and write about the highlights of 2007 for farmingfriends. So thank you Dressage Mom for tagging me.

1. One of the highlights of 2007 for me was the Interblog Guinea Fowl Breeding Project - when I sent The Cottage Smallholder 6 guinea fowl eggs for their broody hen Mrs Boss to sit on and 5 of the eggs hatched out. The thrill and joy of knowing that the guinea fowl successfully hatched and have grown well and bring pleasure to Mrs Boss as well as Fiona and Danny @ The Cottage Smallholder is just amazing.
2. Another highlight was the support given to me and my family when the farm was flooded. Although the flood was a horrible occurrence, the way that people offered their support and thoughts was wonderful. Lots of friends, family and blogging pals sent their support and this meant alot - so thank you all. Topveg even sent me some leek slips to plant in my garden after the flood subsided, which was very thoughtful indeed. Infact I have enjoyed reading all the comments from my visitors and making friends with fellow bloggers. A real community spirit is alive amongst internet users and fellow bloggers. It is great to know that others share the same interests as you or that upon reading one of my posts have a similar story or memory to share.
3. Watching the piglets being born was a wonderful experience. I was amazed at the speed of the delivery and the speed with which the piglets were able to move about and hunt for their mother’s milk. Within minutes the piglets were scurrying around, suckling and within a few hours the piglets were able to climb about.
4. Setting up my penpal scheme for pigs, cattle, hens and guinea fowl has been interesting and the feeling when I sold my first penpal was brilliant so thank you to all my customers. The animals have enjoyed writing their letters!
5. Reading all the farming stories that fellow bloggers have shared with me and allowed me to publish on my Guest Appearance Farming Story spot has definately been a highlight for me.
6. The Photograph of the Month Competitions and the Photograph Caption Competitions that I run every month are a monthly highlight as the captions often make me laugh and the photographs that are kindly sent in are often humorous, cute, beautiful or just inspirational.
7. Watching as the guinea fowl and quail eggs hatch has certainly been a highlight for me. The thrill of seeing an egg pipped and then watching as the cracks appear on the shell and then a beak appears and then the chick emerges is indescribable.

If you would like to write about the highlights of 2007 for you then consider yourself tagged. Let me know what the highlight was for you.

It is messy in lots of places on the farm.

The fold yard has cattle manure and the pig stye has pig muck which I can tell you is very messy, but I thought I would spare you that sort of mess!

As I looked through my growing catalogue of photos I came across a photo of the mound of earth that was dug out of the ground where our new grain store now stands. The photo, although messy isn’t very interesting as it doesn’t even show the whole mound of earth.

So why am I showing you half a mound of messy earth?

Well look closer to discover something else lurking in the photo to surprise and delight you.

Did you see it?

If you would like to join Photo Hunters then click on the image below for more information.

Our piglets had got quite big. Steve and I had to decide who was going to hold the pig and who was going to tag. I have to say that I didn’t fancy either job! I tried picking up one of the piglets but they were quite heavy and I struggled to hold it securely enough for Steve to tag the ear. So I got the tagging job!

This was quite difficult as the tag kept falling of the tagger before it got near the piglets ear. I also had to miss the cartilage in the ear and the vein so deciding where to place the tagwhile the piglets kept moving their heads in an attempt to get free, was not easy.

When I finally got the tag in the right place I had to really squeeze the tagging pliers in order for the tag to go through the ear. Fifteen piglets later, I had muscular aches from squeezing the pliers!

Before the pigs go the abbattoir, they will need another tag in their ear. I am not looking forward to tagging the piglets when they are bigger than they are now. So why not tag them now? The only problem with tagging them now is that the tag needed for the abbattoir is a metal tag and these types of tags can easily get caught if they have room for the er to grow or else they can squash the ear abit as the ear grow. At the moment we haven’t solved this tagging problem - but either way, I’m not looking forward to the outcome!

We have had a boar on hire to try to get the sows in pig again.

When sows are weaned from their piglets they often come into cycle within a week of being separated from their piglets.

Cagney and Lacy were moved into the pen next to the piglets and a boar called Dennis was brought in to serve them.

Here they all are. Dennis is sniffing around Lacy and he is nudging her tummy with his nose to see if she is ready to be served.

Sows come into cycle every 3 weeks but if they are pregnant then the gestation period for a sow is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. I’ll let you know how we get on!

Farming Friends would just like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Sunk Island sent me a photograph on behalf of one of their friends, Helen, so thanks SI and Helen for this beautiful photograph.

This photograph was taken by Helen from Sunk Island and it shows Stone Creek in December.  The sun shimmering on the tide with the silhouettes of the boats creates a beautiful image.

If you like taking photographs then why not enter our Farming Friends ‘Foto’ Of The Month Competition.The photographs need to have a farming theme and can include the farming landscape, farm animals, farm machinery, farming life or nature and wildlife on and around a farm. Send your photographs by email keeping the photograph attachment to a size of about 600 x 400 pixels. Please supply some details about the photograph - the name of the person who took the photograph, when and where it was taken and what is happening in the photograph. The winning ‘Foto’ will be posted at the beginning of the following month, so you have up to the end of the month to enter. Go check out the other entries now and also don’t forget the photograph caption competition which can be found on the Photograph Competitions page.