Outdoors: 46°F/23°F 2″ Snow, Partly Sunny
Farm House: 61°F/50°F two logs
Tiny Cottage: 35°F/45°F Desk curve form prep, butter dish form
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Walter Jeffries Tinker, Tailor… A bit eclectic & a tad eccentric, polymath, quantum mechanic & Farmer. Also lucky at cards.
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Missing Dog – Romula disappeared on in August. Unfortunately her collar came off so she has no ID with her. ~5years old, Female, ~45 lbs
White, grey/black & brown, Upright ears, Looks similar to a coyote. See photos.
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Articles and Images: As is the default once anything is created all articles, photos and drawings are copyrighted. If you would like to use any of them, please ask me by email. I will generally say sure! However do not use my photos without my explicit written permission as that is a copyright violation. For true non-commercial use I generally just ask for a link. If you want to use them commercially (e.g., brochure, web site, ad campaign, book, etc.) I will require appropriate payment. I ask that you don't steal and you do give fair credit to the creator. If you do use my works without my permission then I may sue you for usage, damages and attorney's fees and you will have nightmares of being chased down a steep mountain by wolves and 1,000 lb boars gnashing their huge razor sharp tusks in anticipation of catching you. Avoid bad dreams - Don't steal, just ask and be respectful.
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Okay. Let's be real. There is no privacy on the Internet. Cookies are collected and transmitted. Logs are accumulated. The reality is every time you visit a web site or use email you're broadcasting your IP address and other data about your web browser and computer as well possibly yourself. To make it more interesting the NSA is probably watching as may well be other agencies of various governments and corporations.
Yes, if you're diligent and industrious you can use anonymouse and other tools to try and protect your privacy. However, unless you actively do that, and even then, don't expect privacy on the web. Remember that email is a postcard open to all who want to read it as it passes through their servers. That said, I am not making any conscious effort to use all that data for evil so take a deep breath and don't worry about it since there isn't a lot you can do about it.
If you're under 13 realize that animal sex does get discussed on this site - we're a farm. If your parents haven't had that discussion about the facts of life with you yet I suggest you explain it to them. Wiki might help. Other than that this site is completely child and adult safe as far as I know.
For small orders we recommend purchasing through the many fine stores that carry our products. We also offer direct sales of whole pigs, half pigs, quarter pigs, roasters, boxes of meat and CSAs for seasons & the whole year as well as live piglets for you to raise yourself. Direct sales are secured with a non-refundable deposit.
Online Ordering is now available via the Quick Order Form.
Hi, Walter,
I’d wondered whether you were away, or my computer was doing weird things…still wondering since I got your ham/eggs posting dated 4/8 this afternoon (not there this morning!)…anyway, cute. Why is one pig “wearing” brown pants?
I’m very excited as it gets closer and closer to my coming up to get Babe and Bob(castrated!)…Still lambing til about the 18th, I would guess…
More April showers at the moment, but only about 5 inches I think, so far…
Hi Betty, I’ve been having some problems with blogger not putting up posts so I ended up writing some offline and saving them. Then Sharon sent me that photo and I used that rather than the one I had written for Sunday. Blogger seems to be working right now so I’m working on uploading the old posts. I still need to switch over to WordPress for this blog but haven’t had time. Now we’re moving into spring, according to the calendar. :)
It’s snowing down a storm here too. They say it will be 8″. Might be more than that already. Ben and I went into the cottage at 11:30 am to do some concrete block and mortar work and by the time we came out an hour later our tracks were gone.
The pig in the brown pants is just stylish. Fashion follows where she leads. I wonder though if perhaps she gets her style from Tamworth ancestors. I watch the piglets produced and try and guess at the ancestry of our herd.
Cheers,
-Walter
Wanted to share an interesting note about the goofiness of Certifications. Animal Welfare Approved forbids their farmers to feed eggs to pigs. How weird is that? We left the program, because of that. Eggs are a fantastic (and free) source of protein for our pigs. Glad to see that your pigs are able to enjoy eggs too! I sure wish more folks would invest the little bit of time it takes to meet their farmers rather than relying on labels. I love you “No Weird Stuff.org” label. Please let me know if it gets to the point where other farmers can be “No Weird Stuff” certified. I’m so fed up with all of the programs out there.
There are a lot of problems with the Animal Welfare Approved program. They have pursued me repeatedly to join them. I read through all of their requirements and there are serious flaws with their program design. They used to forbid the use of hay with pigs (I think they changed this after I pointed out the problems with it) and required that the animals be locked up in inclement weather which is more than six months of the year by their standards. Their rules appear to have been written by city people who lack any real experience with pigs on pasture. They are designed for pens and grain feeding. So I have repeatedly told them, “No thank you.” It is unfortunate that these sorts of programs get so much press. They look good at first glance but lack good sense in the standards.
If I may just touch on the egg issue as much as one may feel they are a great source of protein there are folks who don’t want meat animals fed animal byproducts and that’s reflected in the standards. Because AWA does not permit something is not a commentary on the practice but the reality of the standards we help the farmer market a particular production practice.
Andrew
Program Director.
Animal Welfare Approved
This confused me. How do eggs qualify as by-products?
By-products are secondary or incidental. Wouldn’t eggs be direct products of chickens? Now, if you process chickens into meat, and then grind up the leftovers and mix it into a feed or something, than yes, that’s a by-product. I can understand there being some concerns about the safety of such practices, as it could easily carry disease or contaminants from the processing facility. But eggs? Baffling.
Pastured pigs will clearly eat whatever happens to seem tasty. If you pasture a pig, it’s going to eat microfauna and the eggs of microfauna. Smaller vertebrates are also fair game. I doubt a pig will pass up an opportunity to eat a toad, frog, chick, duckling, mouse pinkies, or pretty much anything recently dead that they happen across that is slower than them.
Trying to closely restrict pigs to an only-vegetarian diet would require them to be taken off pasture and raised in boxes. Even then, you probably won’t keep them from eating some insects in their feed.
What is the AWA ‘s goals for pigs? Encourage factory farms because you are trying to restrict a pig’s diet unnaturally, or naturally & sustainably raised animals?