Ellie and Winnie

Hi everyone! Thank you all for your patience with me. I know I have missed two weeks of writing. My life has been very busy but mostly with YMCA work and while I enjoy my job, I want the blog to focus on the farm and the family. That being said, I will chime up when I have something, fun, crazy, sad, exciting, innovative, farm, family or friend related to blog about. Hopefully, as we move into spring, that will be more often!

The one event that did happen over the past two weeks was my dad’s birthday. Happy birthday to a man who has taught me so much. He has had a huge hand in shaping the woman I am. He has taught me to be proud of my accomplishments and to learn from my mistakes. He has taught me plumbing and basic electrical. He has taught me what a good marriage and husband can look like, and how I should not settle for anything less. He has shown me love and encouragement. He has supported me in my darkest days and celebrated me in my shining moments. I am such a lucky daughter. Love you dad!!

Farm news: we are growing again. Two Girls Farm has welcomed our first two pigs. 

Meet Ellie and Winnie. 

They are 13 week old Berkshire / Magalitsa piglets!!

We are so excited to finally have pigs. We have wanted pigs since the day we moved in, but in typical Shannon fashion, it never happened because we were never "ready". There was no place to house them. So as always seems to happen, we get the animal and then panic to get housing built for them. It only took two days and Zoe, Navy and I had an area of the barn cleared out, workbench moved, wall built, shaving laid and pigs eating out of our hands. We do still have to set up an outdoor pen for them but that will happen as the ground thaws. Actually....I really jumped the gun because this year is my 50th birthday and all I asked for was a pig. But, of the two pigs we have, Ellie is a girl and we are hoping that she will be our momma. So for my birthday, I have my eye on a one year old Berkshire boyfriend for her. 

Other amazing, exciting farm news...we had our first incubator hatch today. So far we have three beautiful babies. A black, a brown and a white chick have managed to survive my lack of knowledge about incubators and hatch despite the screw ups! The incubator I got for Christmas did not come with any real instructions, so I was doing my best guesses based on you-tube videos. I do realize I made a number of mistakes, but I have learned from them and know the next eggs we set will be more successful. But even so...we have chickies!!