The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life, sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that binds us all together.

- Erma Bombeck

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Pig Shelter

We built a great straw bale pig shelter. We made it two bales high and then two bales wide and one bale deep. We cut rebar so that it would just be flush with the bales when we pounded them through the two bales in the walls. We put two bars in each set of bales. Then I tied baling twine through the bale strings on the top and "wove" it through all of the top bales. Not sure if that helps at all, but we're hoping it does.

We then put some sheet metal on top (with a couple of 2x4s bolted to the bottom of it for strength). On top of the sheet metal, we put four tires (to keep the wind from blowing it off). We filled the inner space with half a straw bale for bedding. The pigs seem to really like it. The sheet metal hangs over the outer walls by about two feet all the way around, so they have some dry space on the outside too. We put their food trough under the over hang and one of the water tubs...that way they don't HAVE to go out in the snow. So far, they haven't destroyed it.

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