“Is there anything in particular I should wear or bring?”
“You don’t need to bring anything special. The land is very dry these days from having no rain.”
The next morning, I'm at Arc Acres and walking towards the barn when I see Forge running at me. I love dogs, as long as they don’t lick me (I seem to be allergic to dog saliva?). But seeing dogs lately just makes me miss Gemmy all the more (I had put down Gemmy in November 2021). Seeing Forge has me happy but there are definitely undertones of melancholy.
He’s a good boy though. A lot of barking but he eventually warms up and I get to pet him.
We eventually start walking towards the pigpen at the back of the property. It’s fairly large, ringed with electric fencing, and divided into two sections: a rectangular section out in the open where there is a covered shelter with water spouts and a forest section. It is obvious that it has been a very hot and dry spring. The ground is cracked and the wind is sending dust up into the air, backlit by rays of golden morning light that stretches throughout the farm.
The pigs hear us approaching and they know it’s breakfast time. They all rush out of the shelter, filling the silent morning air with grunts and snorts. Amber fills her bucket, steps over the electric fence and races to each of the troughs, staying ahead of the trail of pigs running after her.
Normally, Amber would have given them as much food as they wanted using a gravity feeder but with the war in Ukraine, feed prices have skyrocketed so giving them infinite food just isn’t feasible these days . . .
I’m outside of the electric fence trying to take pictures but I can’t get any good pics that way. So I step over (after asking permission from Amber) and I’m in the pigpen. It has been a long time since I’ve been this close to farm animals and I realize I have no idea how I’m supposed to act around them.
And in the end, the pigs just don’t care. At least, they don’t care while they’re eating. I quickly realize that pigs are curious creatures and they start coming up to sniff and even nibble at my shoes or pants. At 3 months old (Amber got these pigs in February), they’re big enough to push me around especially if they come in groups. Soon enough, I’m covered in dirt from trying to get pictures of them at face level.
With it being so dry, there is no mud hole for the pigs to cool off and with pigs only having a tiny amount of sweat glands, they can’t really lower their body temperature. Amber coaxes them into the forest where there is natural shade and later, she’ll erect a tarp for them to cool off.
One of the things that I will never get used to is the high pitched yelp from the pigs as they test the electric fencing. I asked Amber and my wife about this and the pigs are purposefully testing the perimeter to see where they can get through. If you don’t trim around the fence, there’s a possibility that animals can break through as the weeds and grass decrease the effectiveness of the fence. Of course, there are times where pigs are just playing around and they’re pushed into the fence . . .
We’re off to see the cows in a nearby field. Due to the cost of acquiring land in Ontario, Amber rents a field from the nearby general store where the cows graze and have a watering hole. No extra feed needed.
Amber just got the cows in and there’s only ten of them. They’re super skittish and very much unlike the cows at my father-in-law’s farm. There is no reliable way to approach them head-on so we walk a circuit around the field, using our shoulders to direct them to where we want them to go.
Amber is hopeful that she can calm them but with them being so skittish, we head back to the farm where I take some more photos and eventually call it a day.
It’s only in hindsight as I’m writing this blog entry that I realize that these animals are going to turn into food. In fact, Amber tells me that she is already taking two cows per week to the butcher. At this point, I’m having too much fun petting pigs and trying to get away from their pointy teeth to think about the implications. They will eventually go to the abattoir, the butcher and then be sold at the Ottawa Farmer’s Market and in meat CSA boxes. I don’t know how I feel about that.
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