Getting this years bumper crop of plums off the trees and sorted as either pig treats, jam, pie filling or the flavouring for plum vodka posed a few minor problems but my bright idea of placing a piece of ground cover material seemed the ideal solution.
The plums would fall, good old gravity, you can always rely on it, then they would roll down the steep slope of "the garden" and collect at the bottom en masse thus allowing bipeds at Rock HQ to make the necessary quality control checks. Hetty saw the need to come over and check that preparations were good enough and the exercise began.
The sudden arrival of so much fruit prompted further arrivals, Piggle and the Mangalitzas (Not a failed 80's band, but the trainee providers of future pork based products)took it on themselves to "assist" in the quality assurance, while Hetty wandered round in the background like an out of work bouncer and cleared anything missed by the greedy pigs.
Provided they stayed clear of the main harvest I was unbelievably tolerant of this poor behaviour but Piggle soon discovered that there was no need to search the undergrowth for goodies.
Here was a great big stash which cut out the leg work. Sensing a SOHF, Piggles backing singers legged it back to the big pen where several buckets of grade 3 plums were distributed amongst the better behaved (read bigger so unable to exploit hole in fence) where they joined in the fruit fest. Piggle didn't take the hint so she and her minder tucked in and quit when totally gorged on juicy fruit. Piggle staggered off to the pen to sleep it off while Hetty made an issue of my trainers. Having salvaged what I could for human consumption I manfully repaired the fence once again, with some success. End of play saw all but Mangalitza piglets the right side of the wire, meaning my repair had simply reduced the size of the aperture available to curious pork. Last time I looked the three little pigs relaxing by the pool with Hetty making sure only ticket holders got in with them.
Getting this years bumper crop of plums off the trees and sorted as either pig treats, jam, pie filling or the flavouring for plum vodka posed a few minor problems but my bright idea of placing a piece of ground cover material seemed the ideal solution.
The plums would fall, good old gravity, you can always rely on it, then they would roll down the steep slope of "the garden" and collect at the bottom en masse thus allowing bipeds at Rock HQ to make the necessary quality control checks. Hetty saw the need to come over and check that preparations were good enough and the exercise began.
The sudden arrival of so much fruit prompted further arrivals, Piggle and the Mangalitzas (Not a failed 80's band, but the trainee providers of future pork based products)took it on themselves to "assist" in the quality assurance, while Hetty wandered round in the background like an out of work bouncer and cleared anything missed by the greedy pigs.
Provided they stayed clear of the main harvest I was unbelievably tolerant of this poor behaviour but Piggle soon discovered that there was no need to search the undergrowth for goodies.
Here was a great big stash which cut out the leg work. Sensing a SOHF, Piggles backing singers legged it back to the big pen where several buckets of grade 3 plums were distributed amongst the better behaved (read bigger so unable to exploit hole in fence) where they joined in the fruit fest. Piggle didn't take the hint so she and her minder tucked in and quit when totally gorged on juicy fruit. Piggle staggered off to the pen to sleep it off while Hetty made an issue of my trainers. Having salvaged what I could for human consumption I manfully repaired the fence once again, with some success. End of play saw all but Mangalitza piglets the right side of the wire, meaning my repair had simply reduced the size of the aperture available to curious pork. Last time I looked the three little pigs relaxing by the pool with Hetty making sure only ticket holders got in with them.
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