Pigs and Water

As most of you know, pigs don’t sweat so in warm weather they need water. Plenty of it. Water to drink. Water to dig mud wallows (covering their skin with mud acts as a sun screen and cools them off).
Yesterday, at 3am, I woke up in a panic. I realized that the water lines for the pigs, in their current new pastures, are laying out on the ground and the pipe is black. That means when the sun hits the line it heats up so hot they can't drink it. I got up, got dressed and headed out with a headlamp and started burying line. It took most of the morning and then I had help from one of the guys that knows all the stuff on the parts and gravity and fittings etc. It was a hard day up and down hills in the heat, standing and watching the pro do the work and me doing the learning, holding tools, digging 4" troughs to bury line, managing tools. By 3 pm I was hot, sweaty (unlike the pigs I do sweat and probably smelled worse than a pig) and at first pissed off that I didn't plan the original move well.
That's when I noticed the breathing. The unmistakable labor breathing all moms that give birth have. Right there next to me one of the mama pigs had 9 of the dearest, cutest, sweetest, litters yet (one of them stumbled over to me. She was red on top, white on bottom with a tan backside and 5 black spots on her butt!). She sniffed at my hand, grabbed a finger looking for milk. I carefully put her next to her mama to drink and she latched on with gusto!
All the work laying the line didn't matt
For a moment, all was right with the world (probably is always that way but somehow I need a push a lot of the time to see it). Come visit.

Your humbled Farmer,
Tara Smith