The cardinals are noisy today and sound beautiful. The tree I wanted to save that the goats chewed up is showing signs of life and even has a couple of blooms! I have to get to work on the additional pen today. The turkeys are soooo big and the toms are beginning to spread their tails. We have a scrap pail that my wife fills with goodies that surprise me and the animals. I feed some tortillas to the boars and grapes to the turkeys. I got hog panels to work on the new pen today. I will show you how I transport 16 foot hog panels when I only have a 6 foot bed on my truck. I start putting up the fencing for the new pen. And I get to do it with a cheering section of animals.

Every day my family and I are learning what it means to run a hobby farm. We started with chickens then added myotonic, or fainting, goats, and eventually kunekune (kune kune) pigs. Throw in some Guinea fowl and turkeys and cats and dogs with a creek and tons of wildlife and you start to get an idea of what our hobby farm is like. Hobby farming is time consuming and hard, but rewarding and fulfilling. There are daily chores that never stop. The animals need to be fed and watered. Pastures and pens need to be fenced and built. Goats and pigs need to be rotated in their pastures to give them fresh food and to rejuvenate the land. Food is planted and grown for the animals. Medicines are given orally and injected to prevent and cure sickness and combat parasites. Hooves need to be trimmed. Babies need to be raised. At any given time we have gilts, sows, boars, piglets, bucks, does, kids, chicks, chickens, keets, guineas, etc. that need our attention, love and care. Follow along and we’ll learn and grow on this adventure together!