Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
From Melting Heart to Skeptic to Squealsome
In the recent past, I wrote a series of missives that featured our dairy cows, and brought you a glimpse of their characters and dispositions. Many of the cows inherit their dams’ looks, personalities, and intelligence. It is not uncommon for us to mistakenly call a cow by their mother’s name or do a double take to be sure at whom we’re looking.
Our latest round of calves from Pippin, Ariel, and Emily are no exception to the observation, and minutes in their presence can take me back to when Pip and Ariel were calves (we did not know Emily as a calf.)
Time will tell whether they grow into more of their mother’s attributes, but for now, the basics are certainly showing through. An entry into their pen will most likely yield a quick response from Pippin’s calf, and a heart-melting face that demands a good scritching. Pippin had that same presence as a calf.
Out of curiosity, Ariel’s calf will approach me, but, like Ariel, she’ll not demand. She will quietly, patiently wait. I hope she will get Ariel’s quiet sweetness, and her keen mind. You don’t really need to show Ariel twice.
Emily’s calf? She needs other engagements in order to tolerate me. Pet her during breakfast, sure, but afterwards…why? Emily is fairly new to Quill’s End, and has taken her time warming to my care. She is still a skeptic. I figured it was a nurture, not nature phenomenon. Now I’m not so sure. Is skepticism a genetic trait? I am sure that I’d like to end the skepticism in her progeny.
It really is a blessing to work with the cows generation after generation. It is something I do not get to do with the hogs we raise. We do not keep sows, but buy in piglets.
Our last four batches of piglets have come from Emma and Trent Quinby of Spring Tide Farmstead. Avid porcine advocates, they wax eloquent about the sows from whence our piglets come. I get to hear about the particular personality traits that have been passed on to the piglets. I have yet to ask about one particular piglet in our winter-spring batch. In 20+ years of raising hogs, I’ve never had one that squeals from the moment I arrive to feed until the moment his mouth is too full to vocalize.
That little guy loves his vittles. His excitement at mealtime is truly enviable. He has been thinking about mealtime since mealtime, and one more second is one too many. I have to smile while feeding this guy, and at the quiet that my efforts produce.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.