Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

We got the brothers, if you got the brides. All seven of our newly hatched America Guinea Hog piglets are male. Born April 9th, 2010 - $150 each.

Lucky Number 7

Bo Diddley knocked up Scarlet a few months ago, and we've been anxiously awaiting the birth of our first litter of registered American Guinea Hogs ever since. Last night at about 11pm Scott heard some interesting noises coming from Scarlet's pen, but we were too tired to investigate and fell into bed wondering what might await us the next day. First thing this morning I headed out to the farrowing pen and was thrilled to find five adorable baby pigs burrowed in the hay. I hollered the news to Scott and hurried off to get Scarlet her breakfast.

I stopped by Bo's pen to let him know that he was a new daddy, but he was more interested in breakfast than piglets.

When I got back to Scarlet I was in for a surprise. Scott informed me that we had six piglets, not five. Apparently one of the babies had been knocked out of the farrowing pen and was wandering around by himself in the larger pen. Luckily the three teenage pigs that live in that area hadn't bothered the little guy, but he was very tired and didn't squeal when Scott picked him up - not a good sign. We took him to mama and tried to get him to nurse, but it didn't look good. He kept wandering off and no matter how many times we put him on a teet, he didn't seem to know what to do with it. After about 30 minutes we gave up and decided to let nature take its course. He would either figure it out or he wouldn't.


Later in the afternoon while moving our picnic table, we heard a strange noise in the woods. It sounded like a puppy....or maybe even a baby pig. We took off in search of the noise and...low and behold...a baby Guinea Hog came stumbling out of the pine forest. It appeared that #6 had broken loose again, so I scooped him up, chided him softly and took him back to mama. He was covered in pollen and looked a bit "green", but if this was #6, he was actually looking much spunkier than previously and squealed readily when scooped up.

Upon returning to the farrowing pen I realized that #6 had not gotten loose after all. This was number 7 - "Lucky #7" that is. This little guy had been out of the farrowing pen since early in the morning, if not before. What are the odds that he could survive on his own that long and be found by his owners? He seemed quite fine and immediately went to work fighting for a place at the milk bar. I looked around to see if I could find "Pitiful #6", but he was no longer discernible. He had apparently learned how to run the tap at the bar himself and was feeling mo' better.

So, if you are looking for an American Guinea Hog to add to your farm, shoot us an email -bluefieldacres@gmail.com - we've got quite a few. We haven't actually sexed the kids yet and 6/7 may in fact be girls. We'll post an update on that soon. We're just trying to keep them corralled in the pen and well-fed for the moment. They should be good to go by the 21st of May - one week before our wedding. Man, do we know how to plan or what!!!

Bees

We are planning to add bees to the farm in late April or early May to enhance pollination and produce honey. I signed up for a 5-night class on beekeeping to learn the basics, and yesterday evening (around 6pm) we cracked into the campus hive and got hands-on with the bees for the first time. This is what I learned.

First, you should wear these funny little suits, hats and gloves to avoid being stung.


Second, you need to smoke the hive before entering to calm the bees. Italian honey bees are relatively gentle, but any bee can become agitated for a variety of reasons. Bees don't like dark colors (note all the white), don't like perfumes and dislike cold or cloudy weather. We were careful to enter the hive on a warm day just before dark as bees are calmer later in the day.


The multicolored stuff in the left corner is pollen and the shiny open cells have honey in them. Pollen and honey are both used as bee food. The white stuff is actually larva that will transform into pupa by eating royal jelly, pollen and honey. After 5 days of being fed bee food, they are sealed in and become capped brood (growing worker bees).


The next picture shows drones and drone cells. Drones are males. The hive produces a lot of these guys in the spring, but by fall they will be kicked out or killed by female worker bees. Drones have one function - to mate with the queen - so their work is done early in the season. Drones can't feed themselves and are a liability during the winter. Worker bees (all female) live for approximately 42 days and literally work themselves to death.


Propolis is a glue that bees make from tree resins. They use it to seal up and strengthen their hive and it must be scraped off periodically by the beekeeper to maintain hive access. Here you can see where the bees have been gluing the inner cover to a hive super (supers go on top of a hive body and give the bees a place to store honey).

We looked and looked, but never found an active queen. Although we did see some queen cells. If new queens are allowed to hatch in the hive, they will split the colony and swarm to another area.

Queen cells look like peanut shells. See lower middle. These were destroyed to prevent a swarm. Queens do nothing but lay eggs and can lay eggs for 5 years off a single period of mating.

I was stung once on my glove, but wasn't hurt at all. By and large the bees were curious, but not aggressive. There were about 20,000 bees inside this hive which was composed of a brood box and two supers - about standard in size. If you took the honey from this hive you would get about 5 gallons a season.

Can't wait for next week. I just hope I'm done with this nasty cold by then. You can't imagine how unpleasant it is sneezing in a bee veil.

Lake Waccamaw Southern Farm Days Festival

We spent two days at the Lake Waccamaw Southern Farm Days Festival this weekend showcasing Scott's talent as a blacksmith and bladesmith. Grandma Peggy attended as well to demonstrate old time hearth cooking and the kids, Papa and I came along to help out. All the money raised by the event went to the Lake Waccamaw Home for Boys and Girls. Here are some of the highlights.

Scott and Jacob firing up our coal fired forge (circa 1800's) with a newly added chimney to keep the vendors and guests from drowning in smoke and soot.


Grandma Peggy and Bonnie kept us well-fed over the weekend. They cooked up some homegrown grits and sausage on Saturday morning, then chicken and dumplings and bread pudding Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, they kept the crowds happy with beef stew and apple dumplings.



Jackie, the master of the bullwhip and a member of a local horseman's association, kept the crowds entertained.


Brian, the festival's farrier, took a turn cranking our Buffalo Forge Blower on Sunday while enjoying a cone of homemade butter pecan ice cream. Jackie came over to watch too as Scott knocked out a tribal knife that Papa dubbed "The Waccamaw".


Check out Guinea Hog Forge to see how "The Waccamaw" was made out of an old tool file.


On Saturday, Scott wowed the crowds by hacking through a 2x4 with one of his latest custom knives, then shaving with it to show how well his blades hold an edge.


We had a blast and plan to come back next year! Hope to see you there.

Cat Head Biscuits

Scott decided to try his hand at making old time cat head biscuits - really big biscuits the size of a cat's head. He used his tried and true recipe (which is posted further down on this blog) and simply made them bigger. Twenty-two minutes in the oven and they were done. These were quite tasty, but difficult to finish in one sitting!

Home made Guinea Hog sausage and home grown eggs rounded out the meal, and the biscuit was made with our own GH lard. Yummmmm!

Weaving a Chair Bottom

A friend gave me a really nice old rocking chair last year that was lacking a seat. After contemplating the task for several months, I finally ordered some reed, a book, and set about weaving a new bottom - something I'd never attempted before.

The wood of the chair had a grey patina when I got it, but it had never seen stain or paint. I decided to go with a mahogany stain (because it's what I had laying around) then coated the wood with Tung Oil. After the finish set, I started the seat.

I choose to go with a Carolina Close Weave for several reasons. 1) I live in North Carolina so it just seemed right 2) The weave was appropriate to the style of chair 3) It was one of the easier weaves to tackle.

The process was fairly easy using the directions I got from http://www.chairseatweaving.com/. The only difficult parts involved tying the strands together (each strand is about 4-6 feet long) and being patient. Each strand must be soaked in water for 30 or so minutes before weaving, then each 2-3 lines of weaving must be allowed to try before continuing to the next section. All totalled I probably worked on the chair for 12 hours over several days.

Good fun, not hard, and a very inexpensive way to revive an old chair. I'll do it again!

Guinea Hog Forge

If you're looking for info on Scott's bladesmithing, please check out our new Guinea Hog Forge blog. I have transferred any posts about Scott's knife making to this site.

Merry Christmas!!!