You are feeling sleepy

The piglets have settled in quickly, a necessity here, but they have taken the move in their little trotter stride and made them self quite at home.

I checked them last night and at 11pm they were still outside snuffling around. One sounds like it has swallowed a toy squeaker the funny high pitched noises it makes. They seemed happy enough but had either not found their bed or it was not up to their liking. I left them too it and made my weary way to my own scratch where I had happy dreams of bacon rolls and home made chipolatas. This turned into a bit of a Freudian nightmare as the dream shifted to a sausage making competition and everyone else's sausages were so much bigger than mine.

First job of the day was to check the little pigs, a job aided by the Berners who love the pigs as much as I do. I think they know where the bacon comes from. In the pen there were a few displaced rocks, a few aborted tunnels but no pigs. Probably still in bed. Tip toe over to the nice pile of fresh straw. No sign. Tracey asks if they could have escaped. Not likely given the work put into the fencing, but there is one slight chink in the otherwise impressive armour of the new pig pen, the bit of fencing I did a while back and thought good enough to leave in place. Compared to the rest of it it might as well not be there. Just by looking at my bit of fence you can see holes big enough for Elephants to get through side by side yet alone small agile piglets. A job I had meant to do was to put a few more stakes in the gaps, just in case, but as usual "just in case" doesn't get you on the priority jobs list. A small patch of black amongst the golden strands of straw lifted my spirits momentarily. They hadn't escaped. They were dead. They must be they weren't moving and now here I was practically stood on them and they hadn't moved. What would I tell Stable Sprite, those nice new pigs you let me have, well I killed them, I don't know how but they are not moving. A sudden grunt derailed the freight train of panic, they weren't dead. One suddenly sensed my presence and leaped in the air squealing like a pig that had entered the lets squeal louder than any piglet has ever squealed before. This caused panic in the serried ranks of Bernese Mountain Dogs who were stood at the entrance of the barn. They bravely ran away while the piglet ran out through the emergency exit at the side and hid behind the tree.
When mine and Tracey's pulse returned to near normal we consoled ourselves that at least only one piglet was dead and Stable Sprite would only be half as cross with us as a few seconds ago. I prodded the lifeless black body, nothing happened. I knelt down next to it and stroked its still warm body, poor pig, I could hear in the background Tracey was making oh dear noises. Poor pig, I scratched its belly. It exploded giving off a sound like a demented air raid siren on helium and shot around the barn like a deflating balloon before crashing out through the emergency exit and joining her sister who was already digging another tunnel. Not dead then, just tired. Phew. Smallholding, not for the feint hearted.