Danny Cammaert's Rural Roots - Winter Views
This is a photograph of our hog barn. My father's original hog barn burned down in 1988. Hog farm operations are measured by the number of sows that a farmer has. We have a 120 sow operation. When my dad graduated from the University of Alberta in 1976, he began hog farming, and our family has been at it ever since.
This cabin was completely built by hand by my grandfather, John Cammaert. The logs in the log cabin are actually old telephone poles. This cabin is a great place for visitors and guests—they enjoy staying here. All of the furniture in the cabin was made by hand by my grandpa, using branches, antlers, twigs and concrete resin. There is even a old woodburning stove in the cabin, for keeping our guests warm on chilly fall and winter nights.
Winter landscapes still show straw bales in the fields. This is the only piece of irrigated land that we have. The straw bales would have been harvested in the fall. We trade this straw for money to a neighbouring farmer who has cattle to feed. You can see our irrigation pivot on the horizon.
I took this photograph as I looked north east at an unmapped highway that borders our property. Some of our crop land is visible in the distance.
This is one of our largest grain bins, with the hog barn off to the right. We grow wheat and barley in addition to hog farming. This particular bin is connected to the barn with an underground auguring system, so there is no need to truck in the grain.
This is our family house, and I have lived here all of my life. My grandfather built this house, and he raised his family (and my Dad) here. Now my grandpa lives across the road in a new house.
This marshy area borders our wheat field. In the distance, looking south east, are rolling hills common to our area. Beautiful blue evening skies are a common sight on the prairies.
 This fence runs north west to south east. The houses belong to our neighbours to the north.
This is the front view of our house.
This is one of our sows with eight piglets. These piglets are about one week old. This litter is considered a small litter, a typical litter is about eleven or twelve piglets, and a large litter could be as high as eighteen. Luckily for the sows, the piglets sleep about 20 hours a day. Hogs are actually a lot cleaner than people think.