A Slight Delay

This past week and a half Mother Nature has reminded me multiple times that she is a part of my daily life. She dominates my landscape, my work environment and dictates how I spend my time. June has been unusually wet. Everything is green and weeds are abundant in the garden. However the wet ground has delayed some of our plans. Hay is still waiting to be cut. It is somewhat like procrastinating writing an essay, I know it will happen inevitably, but I am glad to not do it right now. The main task we have been working on is transplanting. Transplanting is the process of moving plants that we started as seeds in the greenhouse and transplanting them to a field. Last week we transplanted 400 tomato plants. The past week and this week we have been transplanting 650 squash plants and 1000 cucumber plants. All of these plants are seed contracts for the company Seeds of Change. Transplanting is a repetitive task but also an enjoyable one. After you dig the holes you get to kneel on the ground and dig your hands in the soil while chatting with the other workers or simply getting lost in your thoughts and your thoughtlessness. There is a good sense of accomplishment after you have finished. It's fun turning a brown empty plot into a green, living bed.

Last week Colby and I had an eventful horseback ride. We were riding the horses, accompanied by the dogs, back in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property. I thought I saw a shadow moving ahead, but I couldn't tell if it was a tree stump or an animal. I stopped my horse and had a closer look. Colby and I looked hard and finally realized it was a large black bear. He was meandering about 50 yards ahead of us. I know for some who are reading this, it may be a common occurrence to see a bear that is crossing paths with a human. But for those of us who have spent most our lives in Texas or Oklahoma, you can appreciate how impressive this animal was to me. Astride a horse, spotting such a beautiful yet powerful and potentially dangerous animal took me out of time, feeling as though nature ruled and I was hardly significant.

To end last week we had one last hoorah from Mother Nature. One of the sows had an unexpectedly early birth to 9 adorable piglets. By happenstance Colby went down to fix something by the pig pen mid-afternoon on Thursday. He came running back up the hill to me, frantically yelling "We have babies!" We found her after she had had two piglets. So we found Tim and jumped to action. We got the boar out of the pen, fenced her off from the other two sows and dragged a farrowing house out to the pen. Within two hours the storm clouds gathered and it began to pour and we had a total of nine piglets on our hands. They all have lived through the weekend and have made it through the period with the highest mortality rate for piglets. It happens through crushing, where the sow stands up to turn around and readjust herself and unintentionally lays on, crushing, one of her piglets. However this hasn't happened yet. I think they are old enough now that we are safe.

After many requests and much delay, I have finally posted some pictures online.
http://picasaweb.google.com/wyatt.mp/YaleCreekRanch#

There are even pictures of the newborn piglets. Hope you all enjoy them. Now I am off to finish transplanting the cucumber.
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