Class, roosters, the pig, Mama’s business

Class yesterday was a very good one. Lots of participation and interest from the eight participants. That always makes the day and the class go by much more easily. I was chilled all day because the room I was in has very little access to the heat in the rest of the building. I guess the temperature in the room was in the mid sixties for the entire day. My hands and my nose never warmed up. The outside temperature was in the high thirties, so I should not complain, but I was on the edge of uncomfortable through the entire eight-hour class. One of the participants was an employee of a large company and the security settings on his computer would not allow him to access the video camera on his computer, so he participated through the entire day without us being able to see him, which is not a huge issue for me, but it disturbs my company. They are concerned about the security of the class contents. As I expected, his company security protocols would not allow him to open the exam when it was posted to the class. So, as I sent him a test via email, and he completed it while we chatted on Facetime. My management was very unhappy with that route of getting the test to him. I will see what the outcomes of that will be, but I do not expect anything major to happen. At least we will address what the instructor is to do when a participant does not have access to their camera or the ability to open the exam at the end of the class.

Tuesday night, Mama and I plucked three roosters off the roost and put them in the banty house. Yesterday evening, we took them to church with us and delivered them to Brittany Wycoff, who will process them for her family. Mama was anxious to be rid of them because of how they rough up the hens. That is what roosters do, but Mama does not like it. Plus, one of the roosters tried to flog me as I came into the coop area from the barn lot last weekend. We had a little talk and when he recovered, he was wise enough to avoid me from that point on. Brittany Wycoff told us that he had tried to attack her as well, so he definitely needed to go. We still have one small rooster in the coop, and he will remain for the time being. He has caused us no issues and he does not seem to be too hard on the hens because most of them are larger than he is.

With the last three day of spotty rain, the pig has made an unbelievable mess of her pen. I will go this week to buy the panels I need to enclose the normal pig lot I have been getting the posts in place for so she can be moved into that lot. Doing so will enable Mama and I to have access to the pig building without having to walk through the sloppy mess she has made of her current area. For the pig, the larger pen will give her something larger to destroy. That will be a good thing as she starts to grow. Right now, she weighs about fifty pounds. We expect to get her to around three hundred pounds before we have her processed. That should be around the Fall of next year. Mama and I are a little surprised that this pig has not calmed down at all. She is still as wild as can be. That has been the case with the last couple pigs we have had on the farm and it is a little disappointing. It is never fun to watch an animal you are caring for to thrash about as though it was constantly in mortal fear of you. When she gets up in weight, it will be a bit frightening for us to have to deal with her as she is now acting toward us. We may have to get her to the market earlier than we would have a calmer animal, but it should eventually work out – for us.

Mama has gone through a dry sell in her business, but things are looking up. She has been taking some training online and it is helping her look more closely at what she is doing and how she is doing it. With a few minor tweaks, I think she should be able to turn this little business into something very profitable. This is obvious from the strides she has made over the past few days in implementing the suggested changes and from the more interested responses she has been getting from the persons contacted. She is getting excited about advancing in the ranks of this company and I am excited by extension.

Though we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes, it is always more fun to succeed than to fail.