Pure Water Hollow Pigs of 2012

The beginning of 2012 saw us getting back into raising our own pork here at Pure Water Hollow.  And yesterday, we took the next step in the path to getting back into the pig production business.  But before I introduce you to the boar that will hopefully be daddy to hundreds of piglets during the next few years, I want to back up and show you the Pike County pigs we got back in January.

I decided to secure our garden fence with some electric and keep them in our garden spot for a few months to end out the winter season.  I was hoping it would help the pigs as well as help our garden by stirring up the dirt with their rooting as well as adding some fresh fertilizer to the soil.  They had already grown some by the time I took any pictures of them.  Here they are in February at 3 months of age:

The milk crate gives an idea of their size just a few months ago.

By the beginning of June they had grown considerably:

Simon has done a great job raising this group of pigs.  He has been the main one responsible for making sure they have food and water and are safe and healthy.  

But he has had some helpers from time to time:

Christina ended up staying at the barn to take care of Gracie, which left a crew of boys to take care of the hogs on this day.  Since Simon is often on solo duty, I think he was pleased to have the whole gang pitch in:

Timothy checked them out.  They are looking good:

Nearly every day Simon fills up buckets of water down at the house and carries them with a 4-wheeler up the holler for the pigs.  Here he is delivering some much appreciated water for the hogs:

                                     

                                       

      

       

        

Timothy helps feed them sometimes:

                                        

     

                                        

With hog chores being completed, the boys took some time that day for a little fun, as well.  Matthew likes hanging around the hog lot:

 

Here is Simon relaxing in that same tree:

And of course, Timothy wanted to try, also:

Yesterday I took some more pictures of them.  I think they have gotten noticebly bigger in just the past 3 weeks!

When we bought them we were told that theses three pigs were born on November 11th, 2011. (I wonder if they came at 11:00?) That makes them 7 1/2 months old now.  According to the formula using their heart girth and length measurements, each of the barrows are over 300 pounds now.  They are definitely ready to be processed into prime cuts of pork!  The female was a runt and is still smaller, but she has gained with no problem and really looks great now!  I think she could be a very good mama sow some day.  If we keep her, I think I will name her "Kimper" after the place she came from in Pike County.  (We don't generally name our pigs unless they will be part of our family for more than 6 months.)

Which brings me to the original reason of this post:  To introduce you to our new boar, Blackie.  He is from K and T Showpigs and was born around May 7 which makes him about 6 weeks old now.  Here he is meeting the two girls we got April 22 from the same operation in Mason County:

The girls were farrowed March 18th at K and T Showpigs.  Their mama won the Reserve York Jr. Show and Champ York Open Show at the 2011 Kentucky State Fair, so they come from a good pedigree!  The girls are 3 months old already, but you can tell that they are not too much bigger than Blackie:

The girls really seemed to like him!  I was worried that there may be some squabbles at first, but there were no problems at all.  I am tentatively naming one of the girl pigs "K" and the other one "T", but we'll have to wait and see if those names stick!

Here is a picture of the daddy boar of all three of these piglets from K and T.  His name is Maker's Mark:

I find it interesting that K and T sells doses of Maker's Mark semen for $150/dose because of his genetics!  Hopfully this means that making two trips to Mason County for pigs will pay off for us in the long run with good quality piglets in the future! 

The piglets themselves were priced fairly.  We gave $45 a piece for three girl piglets back on April 22nd and made arrangements with Kevin to come back later to get a boar from a litter in the near future.  It turned out that the 3 little pigs got sick and one of them eventually died on May 9th.  When Kevin heard about the one fatality he said that we could have the boar I wanted for free!  When I picked up Blackie yesterday I tried to offer money for him, but Kevin wouldn't take it!  They really seem to be a good operation at K and T Showpigs and great people!  So, we still only have $135 (plus gas) invested in the three pigs from K and T.

The plan is for Blackie to get about 6 months old and be ready and willing.  By that time, he would have a very large one year old sow named Kimper that had never been bred, as well as two 8 month old sows that would also be wanting to be bred.  We may try to space out the farrowing times for the three litters instead of having them all three at once, but we'll see. 

Anyway, if the plan comes together, we should have piglets once again running around Pure Water Hollow by the end of February or beginning of March!  And then it will be time for a new post about the Pure Water Hollow Pigs of 2013!

Cobra Martial Arts

(This post was written in February of 2012.)

I don't think I have written anything here about Matthew, Simon and Christina taking Karate classes. On the surface, it may seem that such activity doesn't relate fully with the "homestead" theme, but on another hand it does. Our homestead is all about becoming more self sufficient and self reliant. By studying martial arts, the children are learning skills that will enable them to be more independent with an ability to defend themselves in a bad situation.

I pray such a case would never come up, but in a fallen world which seems to be spiraling toward evil at an ever increasing pace, it makes sense to be prepared. I desire my family to be proficient with firearms for hunting, but also for self defense. It also seems wise to be prepared for any personal attack that may take place unexpectedly when a weapon such as gun is not expedient or feasible.

In the Cobra Martial Arts classes, they have been learning some mixed techniques of Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, and Mua Thai, along with basic self-defense. It has been very rewarding, and the children have really been doing well with it.

It was Matthews idea to start the lessons and Simon wanted to go with him. About 6 months later, Christina decided she wanted to give it a try as well. With their help, Christina has been catching up. Last Tuesday was a testing day to move up to the next belt level. Cobra Martial Arts use a white, yellow, blue, green, brown, and black progression. Matthew and Simon each passed the test to move onto a green belt. Christina was able to "double belt" and moved from white to blue!

I am very proud of them and took a couple of pictures. Here they are:





On February 29th there is a school program scheduled for the group at a local elementary school. The founder of Cobra puts on "Kick Against Drugs" presentations in which he gives a motivational speech and the Cobra students demonstrate some martial arts, including breaking boards and maybe even bricks. I think Matt, Simon, and Christina are all pretty excited about participating in the show. I'll try to take pictures and come back here to write about it after it takes place. (Hopefully it won't be snowing and school canceled!)

Until then, keep kicking! ===================================================================================

I'm coming back to this post since I noticed it was a loose end and I did not share anything about the school program. It went very well, but I did not get very many good pictures. Here is one of Bob, with some of the students behind him. You can see Matthew and Christina back there:

And here is a shot of Matthew's part of the show. He broke 3 boards, one right after the other, with kicks and hits:

Christina also broke 3 boards on her turn, but I can't find a picture of it. Simon was the next one up when the school system went under a tornado warning! So unfortunately, he did not get to perform in front of the student body, but he did a great job breaking his boards for all the parents and visitors that were with Cobra, (since we did not have to go sit in school halls and cover our heads.)

By the way, that was the tornado that first smashed West Liberty, about 20 miles away from us. Our area was not hit on that Wednesday, but our county was hit with 2 tornados just 2 days later on Friday evening, March 2nd! Matthew worked non-stop all that night and into the morning with the fire department clearing trees and keeping people safe. (Maybe I will create a bigger post about that in the near future, even though we were blessed here at Pure Water Hollow to not have any damage at all.) One more note about Cobra Martial Arts: On May 8th Matthew and Simon passed their tests to move onto the classification of Brown Belt, and Christina passed her test to become a Green Belt! They are continuing to study with Cobra throughout the summer. Here they are in their new belts with the founder of Cobra, Bob Hyden.

  

And here they are with their main "sensei", Thomas Reffitt, along with their biggest fan, Timothy:

Our River : The Old Swimmin' Hole

We are blessed with a beautiful place to fish, play, wade and swim just in front of our house at Pure Water Hollow.  It's across the road and down the steep bank, but once you climb down there you are imediately transported into another world!  Being the warmest day we've had thus far this year, the children decided  to visit that other realm to enjoy a cool respite from the 92 degree sun.  Today wasn't the first day they took advantage of our old swimmin' hole this year, but it was the first day that the camera made the journey.

Along with the pictures, I would like to share parts of a famous old poem from James Whitcomb Riley:

The Old Swimmin' Hole

Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep

Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep,

And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below

Sounded like the laugh of something we onc't ust to know

Before we could remember anything but the eyes

Of the angels lookin' out as we left Paradise;

But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle,

And it's hard to part ferever with the old swimmin'-hole.

Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the happy days of yore,

When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore,

Oh! it showed me a face in its warm sunny tide

That gazed back at me so gay and glorified,

It made me love myself, as I leaped to caress

My shadder smilin' up at me with sich tenderness. ...

Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the long, lazy days

When the heat of summer made so many run-a-ways,

How plesant was the jurney down the old dusty lane,

Whare the tracks of our bare feet was all printed so plane

You could tell by the dent of the heel and the sole

They was lots o' fun on hands at the old swimmin'-hole. ...

 

Thare the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tall,

And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all;

And it mottled the worter with amber and gold

Tel the glad lilies rocked in the ripples that rolled;

And the snake-feeder's four gauzy wings fluttered by

Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky,

Or a wownded apple-blossom in the breeze's controle

As it cut acrost some orchard to'rds the old swimmin'-hole.

I'm not going to finish the Whitcomb poem, because the happy poetry of the Pure Water Hollow Homestead "swimming hole" will continue to be written for many, many more years.  (As you may know, Whitcomb's poem ends in sorrow with time catching up to the old swimmin' hole that he remembered.)

I do have a few more pictures of the adventures from this afternoon.  Simon and Timothy enjoy finding treasures of the river.  You saw Timothy's find of the milk jug in the picture above.  It actually floated past us and he ran along the rocks of the river bank chasing it for a couple hundred feet until he caught up to where it paused in a back-current eddy, and then waded out to save it! 

Simon's treasure was half buried in the river bank.  Here he is excavating his find:

It turned out to be a really neat jet fighter toy that Simon was very happy with!

 

Timothy thought it was pretty cool, too!

 

Before we left, some cows from across the river agreed with us that cooling off in the river was a good idea.

And I can't leave without sharing some photos that Timothy took of himself.  With the screen on the camera flipped over, he could see his face like a mirror.  I thought they were cute:

That smile sums up the time we spent down on our river pretty well, I think.