Chickens, wild hogs, “chance” encounters

Saturday morning we all went to the farm in Bowie to empty the mobile home and make certain everything was turned off and stowed properly. We got the last of the things Grandma and Grandpa had in the trailer and put them in storage. The rest we loaded up and took to the house in Chico; among some of the items we took to the house we Victoria’s table and chairs which we set up in the dining room.

While we were at the farm we caught the chickens and put them in cages for transport to the Chico house. It was a little bit of a chore to get hold of them but we finally managed. We did lose one chicken and the guinea. They will stay with Danny. Some of the chickens were put in a separate cage to be reassigned for the menu service in the near future.

Mama agonized over those poor chickens and even tried to extend their time on this earth by telling the young lady that was butchering them for us that there were a couple that are still laying eggs. It did not matter. Their time we up. They had already been prepared for plucking and bagging by the time Mama and Brittany Wycoff talked later that evening. Daniel Wycoff is supposed to drop off the prepared birds this morning.

Someone was pressing Grandpa to look at a truck in east Dallas on Saturday afternoon but he was in no hurry. They eventually agreed to meet Sunday afternoon after the seller was home from church. It was another bust. It was a four hour round trip to look at a badly abused truck. Somehow the pictures did it far more justice than it was due. That may have been Grandpa’s last trip to Dallas to look at used trucks.

Saturday evening Paul came over to try to take a hog but he was not successful. He did manage to shoot a coyote before it got dark. It is a matter of timing for the hogs because the man who has leased the property to our east and north stopped by Sunday afternoon and introduced himself to us. His primary goal was to tell us to never hesitate to shoot any hog we see. He had seen over thirty on our property Sunday morning as he drove past on his way to tend cattle on the leased ground.

We did get to talk to him about sub-leasing the forty acres across the road from us. He seemed very interested so I will pursue the contact as best I can. Grandpa and I have been making plans to clean up the acreage and cut the hay off the cleaned property in the spring. Then we can run six or more head of cattle on it for the remainder of the year. Time will tell.

In the meantime he really wants our help in controlling the hog population and is going to get us keys to the gate so we can get onto the larger property and spend some time lowering the herd density. He made and interesting observation that I have talked with Mama about very recently. A little female pig born in January can have two litters of piglets by Christmas that same year. With that reproductive rate, this could get out of control very quickly.

The man also told us he builds fence for a living and really wants to replace the fence between us on the east side of our property. That would be a real blessing since that is the only bad fence we have on our ten acres. I offered Grandpa’s talents to help him make improvements on the larger property. That may actually give me and Victoria a chance to learn from Grandpa how to farm as best he knows.

Again, time will tell.