no more hiding

I’ve been dreading this post. But it’s time to give an update.

We’ve lost all the piglets. (It makes me teary to even write that sentence.)

If you remember from the Saturday post, Willow piled up a great amount of hay for her house. But instead of burrowing deep into the hay for her delivery like last year, she delivered on top. 24 hours after delivering, we had a dreadful storm; cold relentless rain and a stiff breeze from the west that lasted for several days. We tried a couple of times to move the piglets to a safer location but Willow became very anxious: barking, pacing, charging the fence. She stepped on a couple of the piglets. So we left them.

We put up wind blocks, wind barriers, I even explored putting up a canopy to protect the piglets from the weather.

All to no avail. They all perished.

Last year was so easy. Willow had 11 babies. They all survived and each lived to their own destinies.

This year was not last year. I feel terrible.

I’m not sure what the next step will be. We need 3-4 piglets for the boy’s 4H project this year. We have lots of space but not much infrastructure. In other words~ we don’t have room for a sow and piglets that are strange to the sow. So I need to find a place for Willow to live through the summer until the purchased 4H piglets have grown and gone to the fair. Or maybe find a new home for Willow. I have to remember that we live on a farm not a petting zoo.

Many things to consider.

In the meantime, Maisy is expecting a calf toward the middle of May.

And the chickens are in high egg laying mode.

The snow is melting in earnest and soon it will be time for the garden.

Life on the farm goes on.

PS~ I know it’s probably not very honest of me to take down the pictures and video of the piglets. But it was so sad to open “Mountain Prairie Farm” and see those pictures staring back at me. So I took the coward’s way and pulled the piglet pictures. Maybe when more time has passed and my feelings are not so raw, I’ll put them back up. They were pretty cute.

That’s enough for today.

More tomorrow.

 

Today’s count: 32 eggs

What’s for supper: Cheeseburgers with sauted onions, mushrooms and oven baked potatoes, applesauce.

Weather:  A chance of rain and snow showers after noon. Cloudy, with a high near 44. Light and variable wind becoming south 5 to 8 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. Tonight showers likely, mainly before midnight. Cloudy, with a low around 30. South southwest wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.