LJR Enterprises

• Barrow is a castrate. We have two of these — sadly, they no longer do.
• Gilt is a female under 18 months of age. We have two of these.
• Shoat is a recently weaned pig.
• A sow is a female who has had a litter of pigs.
• A boar is an intact male.
• A stag is an older male to be sold for slaughter (we have one of these — me).

I thought pigs were smart. Maybe not.

If they were really smart, they’d never trust anything I have built. My fear is two pigs will be sleeping under the shelter while the other two  play king of the mountain, then the roof collapses, crushing my pigs.

Another weekend, more animal additions (four spring pigs), more DIY projects. I have built a pig house. It’s low to the ground, holds four pigs and cheap.

My carpentry skills waffle between criminally negligent and child-like. Laura had insisted I buy extra lumber and that almost wasn’t enough, which means the chickens get more perches.
I’m sure there is a gene that allows you to eye-ball and imagine things, and then you build it or plan it. I’m missing that gene (I’m also missing the math gene that allows me to do fractions).

We have not witnessed the pigs go into the structure. They have climbed up its sides — with me, on the other side of the fence, cringing with each cloven hoof-fall, and yelling: “I don’t make sturdy things.”

Click here for proper out-building construction.

Mrs. Wu didn’t make it. She was very sleepy all day Friday and she felt cold once when I checked on her but she was eating so I adjusted her heat lamp and I thought she would be alright. I fed her one last time and then went out to eat with a friend and when I returned she was gone. We wrapped her in straw and buried her under a tree by the barn this morning.

Since I’m hoping to sell some eggs from our farm I jumped at the chance to get some free birds that are already laying. This is what my little Cr-v looked like last night (we dropped them off at home before we picked up the pizza):

And, oh happy day, we got our first eggs today.