Tom dabbles in beekeeping
Trip Start
Feb 06, 2008
1
9
Trip End
Ongoing
Caaguazu,
Paraguay
Friday, May 22, 2009
Recent doings include castrating my piglet and practicing injections on them, harvesting honey, butchering a bull, making a horn trumpet, and sowing my thumb back together.
A couple weeks ago I went out with a group of dudes to bring back 4 pigs to use as breeders. One boar about 450 lbs a gilt 250lbs and two piglets which in total sold for $500 which seems pretty cheap to me. A guy working in Spain just came back with a little cash in his pocket and wanted to start a pig farm, so we drove about 2 hours on backcountry roads to the pig raising section of our department
my new piglet(the one in the middle)
. The farm was the property of a religion "city of God", supposedly originating in Italy. It's a combination fish farm pig farm with the pig poo supplying the fertilizer for the 7 fish ponds. There were only tilapia and carp in the ponds. I caught 2 tilapia and then the german went out and netted the rest of the fish we wanted to take home. The carp was pretty good, a different type than the trash fish I used to pull out of the snake river in twin falls. We had a fish cookout when we got back.Vicky will be going to her boyfriend this week to get pregnant. We're going to use the big boar that came from the farm as her boyfriend. At the pig farm the caretaker told me that the Vicky has to mate after the first two months of having her first heat or she will lose the ability. I had never heard this before and began to be worried that Vicky might not be able to get pregnant if I didn't take her soon, because a month and a half had already passed since she had her first heat. So we decided to haul Vicky at the same time as the other pigs to save on fleet. So at 1030 at night we drove the truck up to my house and parked right in front of the neighbors. Everybody was asleep in the house. So we picked up Vicky kicking and squealing and threw her in the back of the truck and drove off. The next morning my neighbors said that they heard the pig squealing and thought somebody was stealing it, and they were scared and didn't want to come out of the house
my neigbors piglets
. Good security I've got down here.I decided to get my veterinary kit the other day and then to go out and castrate my pigs. I bought some sirenges, some medicines- antibiotic, iron supplement, and anti-parasite, and I had the vet explain the process of castration. Its basically cutting a slit through the skin where the testical shows, then cutting another slit through the membrane covering the testical. Then the testical will pop out, then you cut the white cord close to the inside of the pig, and then you cut the blood vessel, and then you rub in some iodine and that's it. The piggies were a bit squeamish, but it seemed like they forgot about it after a minute or two and started eating their food again.
The owner of the truck that we used to haul the pigs is a horticulturist that mainly grows tomatoes. I spend a lot of time with his family, and this last Monday we harvested honey from his bee boxes. It got to put on the suit, blow some smoke at the bees, and he took out the honey panels. My bee suit wasn't very effective. A hole opened up near the waist and the bees got in. I got stung 9 times all around my face, my ears and head. I went running trying to tear off the bee suit to keep the rest from stinging me
Vicky
. Back at the house we feasted on honey fresh from the comb. Tuesday we went out again and brought back 8 boxes. We centrifuged the honey in a hand crank and filtered it. We worked until about 11. I guess you have to do it all at night because the bees will be coming back at 5am to their cases and they will be angry, and then you will have problems. As we were dipping our fingers in to test the honey the horticulturist turned to me and said "its sweet like the mouth of your sister" and then I punched him. I helped butcher a bull about 2 weeks ago. I didn't do too much, just watching and then I cut a little of the rawhide off. They butcher differently here. I guess it's a minimal butchering. They don't cut out any of the bones. All the meat has bones in it except for the quarter, and there you can get a few cuts without bone, but the rest all has bone. The whole process takes about an hour and a half. None of the beef is grained finished. Its all grass and a little manioc depending on the season, from birth to death. Its about 2-3 years to reach slaughter weight which is about 700 pounds. From one of these bulls I made a little trumpet by finding an old horn and cutting off the tip. In the old days they used to blow these horns to advertise that there was meat for sale. One of the sons of the horticulturist is the one who butchers the meat. His name is Juancito, and he also is the Paraguayan boyfriend of my sister Katie
my garden
. They hit it off pretty well when she came down to visit.Last Saturday we had a barbecue at a professor's whose name is Blas who happens to be the son of the horticulturist. We made duck with an orange juice marinade. Anyway while cutting an orange I gashed my thumb with the knife. The cut was deep and long in the form of an L all the way from one side of the thumb to the other and it looked like it needed stitches. There is a nurse in the community, but I don't have much faith in her and no buses run on Sunday so I wouldn't be getting into the city and I was going to have to wait till Monday which would be too late. Now my granddad told me a story about how he got a cut one time and stitched himself up. I thought that if he could do it then I could do it too. So I boiled my thread and needle and I tell you it hurt, and now we'll just cross our fingers hoping it doesn't get an infection, but I'll keep an eye on it and take it into the city if it looks like it needs it.
As far as work goes we started up and agricultural committee about a month ago. It was pretty rough going at the start. The people here are used to working separately, but now days with the industrialized farming small producers have to work together in order to market their products and get the technical assistance they need
pepper plants
. Right now we are working for recognition from the municipality and the department of Agriculture. After recognition the first project will be recuperation of our soil. I'm also working with a women's group teaching recipes like banana bread and a little about nutrition and making sanitation stuff like detergent and fabric softener from kits. School has started up again and this year I will be working in 3 communities with a total of 2 high schools and 3 grade schools. I'll have 4 school gardens going. I'm in the process of writing up dental health lectures. I'll be working one school per week, but having one lecture everyday of the week on a given subject such as dental health. Each lecture will be about 15min so the students don't lose focus. I'll rotate through the communities, one week in one community and the next week in the next. The plan is to teach dental health, parasite prevention, nutrition, and HIV- AIDS with STDS over the next 4 or so months. Also I hope to be teaching some environmental education with the son of the horticulturist who is a professor at one of the high schools.
The pics you're seeing are from my garden, featuring 5 types of tomatoes peppers, swiss chard, and sorgum. Recently I planted my spinach, rucula, carrots, eggplant, more tomatoes, strawberries, and cilantro. The pig that you see belongs to my neighbor and I'm going to buy one of the piglets. Then there's a few pictures of friends at my house eating barbecue.
Comments
Hi Toe!
Toe - It's great to hear from you. I'm glad you decided to give us all an update. (It's about time!) Averyl and I are in Belfast right now. We were camping at an old castle in Ballycastle last night and we talking about you. You would have loved it. I'll try to send you a few pictures after I get home. Glad to hear you are doing well. Take care of your thumb and those piggies! - Dane