Five Blondes » pigs

Life on the Farm

Leah — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:37:27 +0000

Did you know that us blondes grew up on a farm? A pig farm to be exact. I (who currently resides in Calgary) am home in Ontario for a week and promised my parents, who are on a cruise celebrating this girl getting married, that I would help Scottie in the barn. (Scottie McHottie is our farmhand, who rocked the traditional story of farmhand-marrying-farmer’s-daughter when he asked our Kate to marry him years ago).

My best friend is in broadcast journalism school and asked if she could make a video of me doing chores in the morning for a project and of course I agreed. Hello, what great blog fodder and who doesn’t love a vlog? HUGE thanks to my bff Leah – yes, we have the same name – for doing this!

So enjoy taking a peek into my current life, and also what life was like when we were kids and had to go to the barn when we misbehaved.

H1N1

Kate — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:14:56 +0000

If you’ve been following some of the Fiveblondes on twitter, you will know how sick of the H1N1 virus we are. If you aren’t familiar with the name H1N1, perhaps you will know the swine flu. A horrible choice of name for this virus, which you CANNOT receive from eating pork products. This unfortunate naming choice has been affecting pork farmers everywhere (including us!)

So do us a favour and get some pork on your fork!

Go here to see a YouTube video about H1N1

What’s your favourite pork dish?

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A Royal Weekend

Lauren — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:32:11 +0000

All five of us girls have been in a youth program called 4-H. This is a program for kids in rural areas, and are interested in things from livestock to crafts. Being from a pig farm, we blondes were involved in swine 4-H! Our parents are the leaders of the club, and we’ve all been in it at one time or another. We learn about different areas of pig farming, as well as go to fairs and “show our pigs”. I know, I know. You’re looking at the computer screen going “What? How would you “show” your pig?”. Don’t worry, we’ve all gotten it before.

In about March a baby pig is born, and believe me. It’s SUPER cute! My favourites are the spotted ones and the brown ones. In November-just this past weekend actually, we take these pigs to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto. There are people from all different counties around us, and there are different 4-H clubs in these counties. When showing a pig there is a judge, and about 10 other people in a big pen with you. This big rectangle shaped pen has little pens surrounding three out of the four sides of it. These little pens have gates going into the big pen, and are usually only big enough to fit you and your pig, with just enough room for the pig to turn around. At the Royal, there are three different age groups- senior, junior and novice. Senior is ages 16-21, junior is ages 12-16, and novice is ages 10-11, and also, this group is for people who have never shown at the Royal. To actually “show” the pig, you and the people in your class have canes, which you hold with the curved part down. This helps direct your pig, and keep it under control. Your job while in the ring is to give the judge a good view of the pig you are presenting, to always keep the pig between you and the judge, and to always be looking at the judge, and know where he/she is. Also, to always SMILE!

This past weekend I showed my pig at the Royal in Toronto. All the other five blondes are too old now, so the only ones from our 4H club there were me and two others. I actually met my pig the day before the show, but sometimes people meet their pigs and work with their pigs for a couple of weeks before the show, just so their pig gets used to walking with them, and being in an open space with other people and pigs. I was incredibly lucky though, since I had a GREAT pig! She was very affectionate towards me, and was great at walking and being directed. I was in the senior group, and placed second!

There is also a “conformation class”, where the judge is only judging your pig, and not your showmanship. My pig did not do very well in this class. There is then an auction for the pigs, and the top 30 pigs in the show get auctioned off, and the price is per pound that the pig weights-mine weighed 262lbs. My pig was 23rd in the auction, which means I was the 23rd person to auction my pig off.

All in all it was a VERY successful day, and since my mom didn’t even think I would make the auction, I’d say luck was on my side! Here are some pictures from the day taken by our mom:

CN Tower after leaving the Royal on Thursday night!

Me and my pig Pancake

Group photo

In the pen with Pancake

Showing

Ribbons

Pancake resting after her big show

Sleeping while trying to study

Some Birthday Lovin.

Micaela — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:36:15 +0000

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my one and only boy, Kento!

Here are a few things that I love about him!

He’s always a good time:

He fits right in with the family:

He’s crazy talented at sports (first day snowboarding right here):

He is a wonderful chef and he truly loves what he does and is always trying to improve at it.

He loves to travel and always wants to see new things:

He enjoys (puts up with?) the craziness that is my family and friends:

…actually, he’s usually as crazy as the rest of us:

He’s a fine fisherman:

He is insanely talented at guitar:

His dream is to one day have a family that looks like this (pictures by Laura Novak:

BUT most importantly to my life, he loooooves me:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENT!!!!!!!

The World is Amazing

Kate — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:40:52 +0000

I was forwarded this email while at work. It is especially fitting because we are pig farmers!

We have since found out that the story associated with these pictures (read it below) isn’t true. Nonetheless, the photos are real! The tiger and piglets are indeed in the same cage and are cuddling up to each other. No photoshopping here

Enjoy the pictures!

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother’s cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans’ that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops? Take a look…you won’t believe your eyes!!

—–

So cute, right?! Oh if only I had a tiger..

I went to the barn last night to visit the baby pigs. But they were all sleeping and then I woke up the mommy pigs and they started being all possessive like I was going to steal their piglets. Imagine it was a tiger instead? I’d be attacked in an instant!

Please note that comments on this post are heavily moderated/may be disabled due to abusive comments we have received on this post in the past.

The case of the smelly PIG-NAPPING!

Erica — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:29:15 +0000

I was reading some news articles on cbc.ca and this one jumped out at me:

Thieves carried off 22 pigs in compact car, say police

WOW. To sum up the story for you, a pair of guys (aged 19 and 20) stuffed 550 kgs (thats about 1200 lbs) of loud, dirty, smelly pigs into a compact car. They ate one (I hope they cooked it well) and sold the rest to “unsuspecting customers”.

We grew up on a pig farm (three of us still live at home), and I for one find this story completely absurd. Our parents would never have purchased pigs from two young guys in a compact car. I don’t know any farmers around here who would get involved with such a weird scam.

It kind of reminds me of a running joke around our home when we were younger. A friend or relative would knock on the door and then open it right away (we’re classic Canadians who leave our doors unlocked 24/7) and yell “Helloooo!” Typically, someone would yell back “go away! We don’t want any encyclopedias!”
And finally, it seems a though this is not the first time this has happened to this farmer! Thieves once butchered two pigs right in his barn and made off with the meat. I wonder if they were trained as butchers? More about the story here:

Pig-napping case angers N.B. farmer