Dinner with Belle, our steer, the pigs

When I got home yesterday evening Mama and Victoria had made White Lightening Chicken Chili. I fed the animals while Victoria made a cheesy cornbread to go with it. I was pretty hungry after eating only a sandwich for lunch, so I was ready for dinner when I got back in. By that time, Victoria had started a movie. Last week she bought a DVD/VCR player because the one I had brought home from a discard bin at my old job had finally quit working – and we have a lot of movies in VCR format. Most of those, we do not have in DVD format, so they have been unwatched for quite a time. So, last night she put on Beauty and the Beast. Mama was relaxed on the sofa, so I suggested we eat dinner while we watched the movie. Both Mama and Victoria quickly agreed.

It did not take long for Victoria and I get things in place to start our special dinner and a show. Those of you who know Mama know that when there is a movie playing, she is totally engrossed in the movie. She may lose focus while doing a host of other things but not during a movie she wants to watch. Last night was no exception. In fairness to Mama, Beauty and the Beast (the older version) is a delightful movie and it has been a very long time since we have seen it. I am certain we will not make a habit of doing watching a movie through dinner, but it made for a fun dinner last night. It was the first dinner we have had together since Grandpa went into the hospital last Friday.

On Wednesday night I put our steer in the corral at our barn. Mama had scheduled him to be taken to the meat processor Thursday morning. We sold our stock trailer last summer to fund our trip to Honduras, so we needed help to get the steer to the market. Fortunately, Norman was available to make the drop off. He has a smaller stock trailer which maneuvers easily lining up to the loading chute at the barn. It is a trailer the size Mama and I would like to eventually buy. Since I had separated the steer, Norman had no trouble getting him into the trailer and was off and gone by 8 am. We have two families waiting on the meat from this steer. We will keep half and sell half. In doing so we should make out well financially. Better than we would have selling him at the stock market. The meat market gave Norman the steer’s weight when it was run into the plant, 817 pounds. That is just about perfect for what we needed. If the cut weight matches our expectations, we should make as much money selling halves as we would have selling the steer outright and we will have two hundred pounds of fresh beef to boot. A good move for me and Mama – and the farm.

When I went out to feed yesterday evening, I had to spend a few extra minutes with the pigs. They have been rooting around a lot in their pen but last night took the prize. I had spilled some food the night before as I fed them scraps – which they love. Where I spilled the food, they dug a pit eighteen inches deep, four feet long and two feed wide. I dropped a large cinder block in the hole and covered it with some of the rooted-out dirt. I will need to get a shovel and hoe to move the rest of the dirt back into place. Hopefully the cinder block will keep them from enlarging that hole. It is too close to the edge of their enclosure. The other pits in their pen will fill with water today. We are forecast to get up to an inch of rain. That will make a mess. But they seem to love it and I have a tractor to straighten in out with when we take them to be processed next summer. The reward of having a farm.

I blocked the pig from entering their building for the last five or six days. Mama and I wanted them to select a place outside of the building to make their bathroom. Neither of us are particularly happy with their selection; it is right in the spot where we keep their water trough. That ought to be wonderful when the weather warms up. But it is not in the building. Wednesday evening, I took the time to open the building back up to them. They reclaimed it immediately; making happy pig noises as they did so. The forecast of rain necessitated the building being reoccupied. Mama likes her charges to have proper shelter. As of last night, they had not used the building for a bathroom.

Whether or not Mama and I won that battle remains to be seem, but we tried.