I'm not dead.

I'm not dead and I haven't stopped getting stuff done. This last month though has been a combination of stressful, frustrating, and frenetic so I haven't had much time to think about the blog.

I'll try to rectify that this weekend with some photos of what I've been doing.

Until then here's a couple that I did take.
Yes, that's a pig. About a three hundred pound boar in my estimation and he's in my henyard. In fact before the situation finally resolved itself I ran him out of there THREE times in two days. The last time with a behind full of birdshot after he wrecked my feeder shelter (you can see the feeder laying on the ground). We've had the place for going on six years now and the first four years or so I'd see a single feral pig two or three times a year and once I'd run it off wouldn't see it again.

Until this year. They started showing up in groups. Then they started showing up in herds. Caught one in my garden which motivated me to fence it in as some of you may recall. I'd run them off and they'd come back. At their peak I counted twelve pigs one morning standing outside the newly installed garden fence. I could tell they weren't feral pigs but looked more like someone's recently escaped domestics. With the lake and all out there I could not determine where they were coming from for me to be able to contact their owner (if they had one). This boar hog was the final straw. A three hundred pound (or thereabouts) boar pig is no joke, especially when my children play outside so this had to be brought to an end. That last time as I was seeing him off the property I finally discovered who they all belonged to as the neighboring property owner happened to be driving by (he doesn't live on that parcel). He and I had quite the shouting match about his free-roaming pigs. Never did see any signs of his hog pens so I have no idea of where he was keeping the things. I suspect he was simply letting them roam and keeping them in the area by feeding them regularly. That ended after our discussion and he rounded them all up.

This is the first time I ran him off:

On foot he wasn't taking me too seriously but in the truck he realized I was much bigger than him so we had us a little race around the property then around the pond. Every time he'd slow down I'd bump him in the butt to encourage him to keep running. Finally lost him in some heavy brush and figured I wouldn't see him again.

Until he came back again that afternoon.

And again the next afternoon when I'd finally had enough of him and sent him off with his behind stinging.

I'd rather have the Mongol Horde ride across the property than a free roaming herd of pigs!

The vegetable garden has been planted. I got it in late thanks to our odd Spring weather this year, but it's in. Haven't had a chance to mulch it yet, but it's growing. Most of it anyway. Lost the entire first planting of sweet potatos and the row of sunflowers. I was blaming the squirrels for that seeing as how they've wiped out my corn and peanut plantings in the past. They may have had something to do with the potatos too but last night I discovered the real culprits.

The garden is fenced in 2"x4" no-climb so they can't go through the fence and they can't go under the fence, but this pair did a Peter Rabbit on me going under the gate which I had not yet put a sill under. They were in the act of eating the second planting of sweet potatos that I'd just planted last weekend when they were themselves harvested. I'd been spraying the plants with a hot pepper garlic spray to discourage the squirrels (which generally works) but apparently it only makes them the more toothsome to the lagamorphic palate!

If Old Mr. McGregor had had a shotgun instead of a rake he'd have been able to put Peter in a pie (Beatrix Potter was NOT a gardener!)

The Kinder Major needed something to cook for her 'prairie meal' to finish her Laura Ingalls Wilder badge for the Scouts and now she has it. In the words of Master Samwise "…there's only one way to eat a brace of conies…" so it'll be stew this Sunday!

Between squirrels, marauding pigs, and clever rabbits it can be hard to get a garden in sometimes.

Stay out of my garden! I'm getting testy...

.....Alan.