Calf Taggin', Pork, Piglets, 12 Dates
Monday was the highlight of the week for Hallie and Hasten as we helped my dad and brother tag and work about 80 cow/calf pairs. It was Carter and Wren’s job to restock the ear tagger as they were being used. Hallie and Hasten worked together to push the calves down the shoot to the head gate, bringing back memories of my brother and myself wrestling calves down the shoot for our dad 30 years ago. Hallie and Hasten loved it as much as John and I used to.
Amy left to deliver meat to Knoxville with the two youngest on Monday afternoon. They came back Tuesday morning and picked up a load of ORVF pork from Anderson and Sons Processor in Abingdon on the way back.
Though our freezers are full of ORVF pastured pork, our pig numbers on the farm have been getting low as we have harvested 30-35 hogs in the past few months. To stock back up, we welcomed 15 weaned piglets to the farm that were born on a neighboring farm in Sugar Grove. Getting ready for the piglets required securing up gates (as piglets are escape artists), filling up the feeder and waterer, and spreading out a think layer of hay for bedding to keep them clean and warm in the cold days ahead.
While it rained on Wednesday, we spent hours in and out of freezers filling the rest of December beef and pork shares, as well as other orders that had been coming.
Amy and I delivered ORVF herd shares and pre-orders to Bristol and Kingsport yesterday afternoon, stopping for a dinner date in Abingdon on the way home, which has become a regular outing for us this year. Looking back on 2024, many of my personal goals were unmet. Going out on 12 dates with Amy was one of the few goals I actually did accomplish. Making up for lost time, as we probably didn’t go on 12 dates during our first five years of marriage. Ha. It was a good time to reflect on this past year and plan for the next.
While lots of my time farming is shared with Amy and the kids, many of my working hours are by myself. In those hours this week, I continued listening to the final book of the One Second After series by William R. Forstchen. This one entitled Five Years After, deals with the rebuild and reestablishment of a central government following the EMP attack five years earlier. By what means should order be regained? Who should have power? And what do they aim to do with it?
Threats of nuclear and biological warfare are threats emphasized in this novel. How far will those in pursuit of power go obtain control? Would they go as far as intentionally unleashing deadly viruses and diseases in order to control populations?
Here’s a few quotes from the book:
“and our country damn near went crazy with restrictions, wearing masks that actually weren’t much good, promoting inoculations we came to mistrust…”
“I always felt that if you walk into a man’s house and he has a library, in fifteen minutes you can tell a whole hell of a lot about him.”
“You are the leader everyone turns to with this; you know that… It’s because you never wanted it… A leader who wanted to have power should never be trusted, let alone followed by others. The only leader that truly matters is one of the rare few who doesn’t want it, who doesn’t seek it. That’s the one to turn to in a crisis.”
Have a good week.
Will