Peas
The snow is gone from the woods now. Yesterday I walked to the height of our land in the early light, as is my habit silently noting which maples should be culled for firewood. We have plenty split for the winter to come, much of it even stacked, and still more on the ground for the winter to follow, but if I’ve learned one thing in my life thus far, it’s that there’s no such thing as too much dry firewood. Plus, we bought an old sugaring rig, and there’s talk of situating it high up in the hardwoods, so I better be thinking about sugaring wood, and soon. I guess a couple cords will do. We’re only going to put out a hundred taps or so. Well, maybe a hundred and fifty.
The long days feel good. You can get properly fatigued on days like these, fall into bed at 8:45 with that bone deep tiredness, tell yourself you’re going to read until 9:00 (definitely, at least, for sure), and make it maybe five minutes. Maybe. I’ve been working a bit down at our friend Tom’s farm, doing some little jobs with the digger, mostly in sight of John’s team of Devon oxen. They watch me with a subtle wariness and I watch them back. Beautiful animals, long horns that curve twice before pointing skyward. Someday I want horns like that.
The pigs got out – they’re huge, eight months old and less than a week from the freezer, and in the herding process one charged between my legs and I ended up splayed on its back facedown, nose to tail, the damnable pig too fat and tall for me to reach the ground to push myself off, so it carried me at least a couple dozen feet while my family fell about itself with laughter. Eventually I squirmed off and we got the pigs situated, and then I laughed about it, too.
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Also, I want to mention the upcoming woodscraft summer camp for teens that our friend Luke Boushee is running here. This year, the camp will be a full week of overnights, and as usual, Luke has a ton of amazing stuff up his sleeve. You can learn more here, and even more than that by contacting us at lazymilllivingarts@gmail.com. Thank you.
Ben Hewitt 
Good thing you were splayed atop your hefty porker and not one of Tom’s charged-up Devon oxen with double-curved horns spiking you through the crotch!
Reassuring to know that even experienced farmers have moments like that. Thanks for sharing the laugh.
Talk about a “piggy back ride”! Made me laugh out loud too.
Remember when that ram we traded you carried me around in a similar fashion? You almost peed yourself laughing.
Looks like a great camp, Ben, hope it will include pig back riding entertainment and all.
Squeeeeeeeeee!
Falling about themselves is a wonderful image, second only to that of you nose to tail for thank goodness there were no horns!
The visual that I form of you wrangling a hog kinda reminds me of kids “mutton busting”, riding sheep, at rodeos.
I had a good laugh at your pig adventure – mine do that too – running between the legs trying to get to the bucket first. One of my helpers told me that yesterday that TWO tried to get between his legs at the same time – he almost ended up like you! great story.. c
It is amazing how quickly the snow has melted in your geographic area! I’ve been checking the live webcams at Cannon, Gunstock, and Wildcat ski areas and nearly every day it is obvious how much the snow has retreated toward shade from the Sun.
I was in Colorado this past week, no snow in Trinidad, but still lots at higher elevations, so it will a few weeks yet before this year’s cow/calf herd will get rounded up and trucked to summer pasture in Park County. Until then, we’ll just have to make a visit to the storage units in Fairplay to do check the summer camp gear and repair/replace as is necessary.