Sunday, May 30, 2010
Pear orchard - with peas and barley
Here is the pear orchard, planted in peas and barley. This forage will be first on the menu, supplemented by grain from our new silo.
When the pears ripen the pigs put their little hooves on the trunks of the trees and rattle the branches with their snouts to drop the fruit.
Later in the season the oaks that border the orchard drop acorns that the pigs will choose over anything else. Friends and neighbors collect these for us on their own properties, knowing that the pigs are nuts for them.
Meal time
Here's one of the feeding areas. The blue barrels are water tanks with little on-demand spigots on the other side of the wall. The pigs trigger the water when they bump their snouts against the spigot.
Bits & pieces
Here is the new-to-us silo, which will help us be more efficient feeding the growing number of pigs.
It had a previous life in the sheep operation run by Sam's parents in Goldendale, WA. It's been unused over the last 15 years, but will soon be tipped up onto the concrete piers in the background and loaded with grain.
Sam's garlic
It will be ready in August.
For now we are eating garlic scapes on everything, including my mother-in-law's hearth oven pizza. Delicious and beautiful.
Modern farmhouse
Looking north from the orchard.
Sam built this house on the site of the old packing house that burned to the ground around 1980. My brother Joe designed the house to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Historic farmhouse
Looking west from the orchard sits the historic farmhouse, built in about 1910, this was a rental house for over 60 years and many people around the gorge called it home at one time or another.
Sally and Mike are the tenants now. They are passionately engaged in making music, documenting local history, appreciating and creating art, and generally building community.
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