• It finally rained some,
• Turkeys enjoying life on the lawn / pasture,
• A successful pig move
• Building a holding paddock / corral in pasture,
• using the livestock trailer correctly,
• ready with food to distract and lure, 
• singing the praises of homemade sorting boards!

In the CoopCast Community:

• Dive_wombat - emailed a very interesting article along from down under about chicken prices as a result of the US drought
• Email and package from Steve in VA with a nifty system to monitor water bucket levels buckets
• The Stewart Homestead had a bit of their homesteading inspired by our talk of Cornish X chickens and pigs.

The Farmers Choice - We had a pig with a problem.  What do we do?

• Fertilizing the lawn with pastured turkeys,
• We have the barn back and are busy drying garlic,
• 9 weeks and less than .25" of rain, TOTAL,
• Nugget, Snowflake and nameless are growing up,
• Hermione is in heat again and piglets are ready for a move,
• We eat good: Bruschetta recipe
• 1 loaf fresh baguette or Italian bread
• 2-3 different fresh picked tomatoes
• 2-3 T good olive oil
• 2-3 cloves garlic (mashed)
• 3-4 springs each of fresh oregano, basil and parsley all chopped fine
• Fresh cracked black pepper and salt to taste
• (optional) fresh grated hard Italian cheese (your choice)

In a bowl combine all ingredients and stir together. Cut bread into slices. Spray with olive oil and place on a medium hot grill until grill marks appear. Spray exposed side of bread with more olive oil and flip.  Immediately place heaping spoonfuls of tomato mixture on the bread and close the grill cover for about 2-3 minutes.  Remove and consume with beer, wine or cold ice tea!

In the CoopCast community:

• Lisa asks about managing problems with raccoons in corn,
• Austin is interested in our methods of marketing and growing our small farm,
• Melanie has a BUNCH of farm business questions which we touch on but will cover more of in the future,
• Another question about starting a CSA.

On this episodes Farm U:

• Building your very own root cellar is a lot easier than you think
• Building
• Location, location, location
• Humidity
• Temperature
• Storage Options

This weeks Farm Updates:

• Endless heat and no rain at all,
• What's the impact of this weather on our gardens, our animals and the nations food supply.
• Pigs and turkeys,
• Kelli loves the greenhouse (and all the garden spiders)
• We had one of our big chicken processing days

Questions, Conversations and Ruminations

• Although it's one of the days of hardest work on the farm we find chicken processing days very rewarding.  In this segment we share some of our thoughts as we reflect back on the first chicken processing day of 2012

• Hermione's standing heat and hormones,
• Piglets are bigger than piglets now,
• Predator attack on the Cornish X birds in the pasture,
• Lost 3 birds and now the defense plan
• Preparing for 1st chicken processing event next weekend

Coopcast Community / Farm U:

• Susan I. asked: why wean piglets and not just let mama do it?
• Holly wanted to know what we feed our pigs?
• Scout wants to know about the low tunnels we use in the garden: Which type of Agribon do you use? Are you primarily using it for pest control or do you have the type that provides frost protection as well? Do you use the manufactured hoops to support it above your plants or are you using some other method? 

A very Happy 4th of July to all our listeners (or Canada Day), folks listening in the UK...  sorry :)

Around the farm:

• Not normal weather for sure.
• Very hot but the gardens are surviving
• Rabbits under hoop the hoop
• Chickens on pasture get processed in 2 weeks
• Chicks and turkeys in the brooders are doing well

Pigs - a very special weaning story

• What we did that was wrong in terms of setup, planning and moving large animals
• What we did that was right and that we would do again when weaning piglets
• What we did that was desperate and stupid
• What we would never do again because being smarter would let us avoid that

CoopCast Community:

• An iTunes review where a listener is going to make some simple changes for healthier chicks and pigs
• Stewart Homestead likes Andy's humor (and thinks this should be a comedy podcast, ok, not really, Andy added that) but they ARE going to try Cornish chickens and their own pigs
• Plants between the rocks said this podcast is a "Skillful blending of planning implementing and evaluating", and we decided they are listening to another podcast and accidentally commented on us!
• MikeE on Facebook posed a question about a rooster when his neighbors are not fans.
• A plea to remind us of topics we said we would talk about but have forgotten about!