Tag Archives: Domestic Politics

How to Castrate Pigs

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Timing is everything, so we are told. And that’s what I told myself as I headed toward the livestock trailer Thursday afternoon. I had been bushhogging our four nearby sheep paddocks while waiting on a friend to show up to help castrate three piglets. Which, when I think on it, is the definition of “friend”: the people who will actually show up to help castrate.

Earlier, as I finished the third pasture and was on my way to the last, Cindy had appeared at the top of the hill. She waved, I waved, I pointed to where I was going next, then we both waved again — a rural semaphore, it’s one of the first helpful skills you learn when you make your move to the country.

This fourth field, on a steep north-facing slope, creates more than its share of, shall we say, clinching moments. So, with eyes and grip fully focused on keeping the tractor from somersaulting down the hill, I let my mind ramble. It was the notion of domestic politics that was much on my mind as I bushhogged. In the effort to bridge the divide and enhance civility, I had suggested that we once again get our good friend Tim to assist with the castration.

Castrating pigs is an unpleasant task that Tim has long helped with without complaint. Because, although Cindy and I get along most amicably overall … well, there are those times. One of those times, when the partisan divide is felt at its most keenly sharpened point, is when a man and a woman are separating young male pigs from that which they most desire to keep. It is during these periodic operations that our dear friend agrees to play the role of agile wrangler, mighty holder, and domestic buffer.

Musing thusly as I finished up the last pasture, I caught sight of Cindy waving again. This time the semaphore said, Get ye hence up the hill. Which I did. Cresting the hill and cruising across the outer corral on the tractor, I spied both Tim and his brother lounging at the gate with a bottle each of my best beer.

In my prolonged absence, the deed had been done. Tim wrangled and confined, his brother and also our good friend Russ held the snout — because anyone who’s ever heard a pig squeal quickly learns the importance of snout holding — while Cindy wielded the scalpel.

Which reminded me, yet again, that timing really is everything. And now, dear reader, you know all that you need to know regarding castrating young pigs.

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Reading this weekend: Last Hope Island (Olson), a narrative history of WW II. 

Sweat and Domestic Politics

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The tall grass stings my legs like dozens of small, angry, invisible bees. I am reclaiming a 200-yard stretch of two-line electric fence that temporarily subdivides our eight-acre bottom field into two-acre parcels. Overhead, the large transmission lines that cut across our farm release enough ambient electricity to create a mild, stinging current between the grass and my bare legs.

Each week our sheep graze the new grass of one of the smaller parcels before we rotate them to the next. Each previous parcel lies in distinct states of regrowth, like snapshots between haircuts taken over a period of time. On this hot, humid afternoon, the sheep have retired to the barn panting as I, their obliging servant, walk the line with a large reel, cranking the handle slowly as I rewind the braided wire.

This job is necessary but tedious. I turn the crank and turn the crank and turn the crank and then, stooping, unhook the wire from each of the 50 plastic posts aligned across the pasture. The first strand collected, I turn back and begin reeling in the second strand, eventually returning to the starting point. Where, the task completed, so is my day. Lathered in sweat, I trudge back up the hill to the barn and put the wire away.

Earlier in the day had found me spending a couple of hours in the hoop-house. Swigging water from a large jug every 15 minutes, the greenhouse temperature at 100-plus degrees, I prepared three new beds for the next rotation of vegetables.

We use a micro-irrigation system to water the hoop-house gardens. The drip lines are connected to a four-cistern setup that harvests rainwater from our hay-barn roof. A one-hour pumping into the vegetables depletes the water in the cisterns by a third. We water every five days, giving us a 15-day supply of water. That gives us pretty decent odds that a good rain will replenish the coffers. But, in the event of a drought, we also have an underground line fed by our well from which we can water the livestock and the plants.

Returning to the house after reeling in the wire, I settle in on the front porch with a well-deserved end-of-the-day beer to watch the late evening moving in. Out in the bee yard, Cindy has been adding a super to one of the hives. As I watch her walk back up the drive, her face red and her bee suit drenched, I imagine that in this heat, working in the bee yard is much like working in the hot hoop-house.

I sit in my Adirondack chair, beer in hand, and I eye her warily as she approaches. She lingers with purpose at the top of the steps, clearly preparing to alter the course of my idyll. Because, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a cold beer must be in want of a task.

Sure enough, on queue, she channels her inner Jane Austen and says, “if you have a minute…”

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Reading this weekend: The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees, by Robert Penn

A Convivial Life

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In what was a convivial happenstance, the weather turned cold last night for our annual Christmas/Solstice gathering, and we spent several very pleasant hours with good friends from town and country here on the farm. This morning damage was confined to a few bags of trash and a full slop bucket for the pigs. So different from the parties of our younger days, but maturity comes in time to us all.

Wandering through the house during the evening, I heard snippets of conversation: a fellow farmer on a sow’s first-time farrowing, a librarian on the decline of library patronage, a native of Chicago on where Emma Goldman is buried (Waldheim cemetery), Cindy with an explanation of our hoop-house to be built in the spring.

As the energy ebbed into the night, I walked with a few friends in the bright moonlight past the orchard to admire a new barn, a fresh stack of lumber, and a massive oak log — the standards of entertainment being quite high here in the rural hinterlands. Our guests extended appropriate gestures of appreciation, then we made our way back to the warmth of the farmhouse for more wassail.

With the last guests leaving by 11, we turned in after a little cleanup before midnight. We slumbered deeply until Teddy began barking savagely around 2 a.m. After a few ignored shouts from me to shut up and no move from Cindy to deal with the problem, I got up. Funny that, the domestic politics of pretending to be so deep in sleep that your partner is forced out into the cold house and even colder night.

The mercury hovering in the mid-20s, I stomped around in boxers and T-shirt on the frosty ground, as Teddy continued to respond as if slaughter awaited in the darkness. I played the flashlight among the trees, but saw nothing but a cold and beautiful star-filled night. Teddy’s coat still bristled when I finally put him on the back porch.

Imminent death by serial murderers be damned, I then headed back upstairs. Sliding back under the quilts, Cindy still feigning deep sleep, I drifted off again until the morning’s light.