Today's burning question...

So we put up a white board in the barn, mostly so I can leave notes for Gordon on what needs doing for the evening chores. He has taken to calling it the "Gord Board". This is a sampling of what you might find there...

Ahem.

Meanwhile, there are just too many things going on around here!

Mama Emma and nine chicks in the garage. The babies are going off to be part of my friend Pierre's backyard laying flock.

I picked the eggs for this batch. Quite the genetic assortment here! THey are growing like weeds.

Meanwhile, we've had the front  of our bank barn trenched, and gravel and drainage pipes put in. 

Whenever it's wet, we get water pouring through the stone wall in the lower level, That side of the barn was incorrectly buried when that section of the yard was filled in and the ground level raised. We're trying to correct those drainage problems now!

And bees...

This is one of my marked California queens on my friend Pierre's hand yesterday. Yep, she's really from California! And her hive is doing great...

In fact, all ten of my hives are doing great right now. Fingers crossed that it continues!

And in other news, we've been having a pasture fenced for the pigs...

Here's Bert and Findlay putting in the 8-foot gate.

This will be a nice spot for the piggies to hang out.

A view of the hay fields! Not quite finished cutting.

We are building a new pig palace in the carriage shed at the back of the granary above. The pigs will have access to the pasture though a little door we're going to put in the side of the carriage shed.

We will also build them a little shelter for shade outside.

That hill is steeper than it looks. They had a bit of a hairy time getting the tractor and the backhoe up and down there!

That big tree is one of our beautiful black walnuts, around 90 years old now.

And that little tree at the back of the carriage shed, about 1/3 of the way into the photo, is a young black walnut tree that grew by itself while we weren't looking! It was surrounded by sumacs that were cleared out yesterday. The other little tree on the left seems to be some kind of willow.

The piggies will have a nice view from their little pasture.

We used goat fencing!

And this was delivered yesterday for the new barn drainage.

We're going to put some of it in the muddy end of the "aviary" which will mean I'll get some practice using the bucket on our tractor!

Just so long as my fat little pigs are happy!

And of course the turkeys, too. Aren't they looking fine these days? We still need to get them a couple of lady friends!

Hope you are all having a good weekend!