The great outdoors

Tempting isn't it! Not long now until Kobe and Hetty are turned out. Kobe is growing fast and is a friendly chap, just as well considering he is going to be a monster sized dexter.

Guinevere is building a nest in the newly vacated farrowing pen, Morgana is enjoying herself in the new accommodation built this weekend. Piggle is face down in the straw trying not to give birth. I have a feeling its not going to be too long before we have two new litters. Sales are going well, two of Iggles piglets are off to a new home in a few weeks, half of Morgana's litter are signed up for pig club, and today I was talking to a soon to be top chef who is keen on extending the menu with a little help from the rest.

Miracle Grow

Its been a long Good Friday here at HQ, a good mix of fun and hard work spread out from dawn til dusk. Major job completed was the bas of the aviary, obviously we are expecting any finches or chicks to be massively heavy hence the six inch concrete base. This was the fault of the local builders merchant who dropped off six inch shuttering rather than the four inch requested but it was either delay the project further or cut two inches off the ones sent or just get on with it. The latter was chosen and despite having to wheel every barrow load from the runway, up the steep slope of "the lawn" (some of which can be seen in all its lush verdant goodness above) and having run the gauntlet of the assortment of animals who all thought wheelbarrow loads of concrete were worthy of inspection the majority of the mix ended up in more or less the right place and more or less level. Piglets aplenty here, Guinevere is acting funny, or perhaps it was last nights full moon, but she was staring into space and refusing to go to bed, perhaps she is an alien and wanting to phone home, anyway she got a new bed today on the just in case she drops a litter of piglets overnight principle. Iggle is nesting, she is in the berth inbetween Piggle and Morgana so is surrounded by trainee sausage.

Meanwhile Morgana's litter, the pig club recruits, are expanding rapidly. Here's one extremely good looking Berkalitza day one

and here's the same Berkalitza piglet day 12. A right chubster, talking of which Misty the explosive shitland looks a bit on the wide side thanks to Trevor ravishing her some 10 months ago, she should be due around the 28th of this month give or take a week.

The poor girl is feeling the weight

and needs a wide load sign from this angle.

Pig of a day...or Rocky saves the bacon

As predicted, and lets face it it was an easy prediction, today did not pan out as planned. Aside from the fact that Hetty steadfastly refuses to jettison her cargo, lots of huffing and puffing but no beef. As we were due to head up north to visit my folks an executive decision was made that I would go with little t, have a nice lunch and head back by tea time, my beautiful and oh so patient wife meanwhile would have manned the fort and if needed played midwife to the lazy bovine. Tracey also drew the short straw and did the night shift checking on the cow as I had a long drive, it was tough but I managed to sleep soundly ready for mine and the apprentice smallholders road trip.

Dawn broke, an hour sooner than yesterday thanks to the clocks re setting to summer time and the morning routine got muddled through. Now I have to be honest at this point as I shut the cottage door behind me and took the first breath of the morning air. I did think, everso briefly that Tracey might like to do the morning routine while I drove off for a free lunch. Being the gentleman and knowing the pain that would be inflicted if I suggested the same I fetched and carried rations to beasts.

While I was feeding the sheep, pigs and sheep-pigs Rocky stood pointer style looking into the pig pen. Eventually even yours truly took the hint that something had got the super canines attention. I stood behind him and followed his gaze. My first thought was several swearwords and look at the size of that rat! Followed by (once the how do I kill it with a bucket of feed whimsy evaporated) its not a rat its a bird its a mangy rabbit its a piglet. Oh my God its a piglet! Then, how on earth is there a piglet here, now. Yes the Bershires Guinevere and Morgana are supposed to be pregnant but not due til May time. The Mangalitzas had only just got acquainted with Thor. I looked across at the Berkshires chomping through breakfast, Morgana had blood on her and a stretched moneybox (moneybox is the pig equivalent of a sheeps tuppence) she was a mum. Trouble was she had obviously forgotten.

So to cut several hours of drama, building, disappointing my parents, chasing pigs up and down the lane into a few lines, eventually a makeshift pig pen was made out of pallets, string, some four inch screws and hope. By 4pm all piglets were feeding and mum was lying down. Unfortunately the last pic shows a piglet behind mum and she squished it just after, so we are down to seven Berkalitza piglets, all fantastically marked cute non pets.

So current scores are Quail 2 (one died) Pigs 7 and Cow 0. We are expecting more effort from cow but the pigs are going to win as at least two others are pregnant.

All this meant that I had to apologise to Thor, who's sexuality I questioned given his fixation on boy ponies. He is it seems the SAS of the pig world, able to get in and out without anyone noticing.

Day 25 30 30 lvl 12 outdoor training 13.2 km (American Idiot, Green Day)

Like clockwork

Every now and then, when the planets are in alignment, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are otherwise engaged and the small gods of smallholding are looking the other way, you get a really good day. A day that lifts your heart, makes you think that actually all this effort is worthwhile and that for once being coated in the doings of several species is justified. Yes I am talking about day planned and day actual being one and the same. A day that was planned with military precision, the success of which relied on timing, a day that went like clockwork.

The bar was perhaps set too high, but we had no choice. We could borrow a small stock trailer, Wednesday only, morning only, a small stock trailer needed for two jobs, job one, collect a goat that I had for some insane reason felt compelled to buy(never say never) and a goat which I was assured would provide us with milk and curry. Milk to the sum of 7 pints a day, and curry in six months as the male kid given to sweeten the deal would be the main ingredient of several, and he would with a bit of effort make a fetching rug.

However moving goats on the the smallholding would mean that Guinevere and Morgana Berkshire sows would not be able to go to see the boar for a long time as we would be on shutdown, no stock movement off site. As small trailer would also transport pigs it was a simple matter of collecting trailer from different countrymove job one collect goat to job two so new job one became persuade the right two sows to leave the pig pen (which contains 9 pigs of different sizes and breed, all untrained) and get in a trailer for the first time ever in their lives (they got here on the back seat of Hazel the almost 4x4, don't ever buy a car off us) take them to the land of the Stable Sprite, unload, drive across the county to collect goat and kid, return, unload new critters and get to work on time. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?

For once absolutely nothing. Morgana led the way, Guinevere followed albeit through a different gate but both took to the trailer like fish to bicycles. Locked and loaded we went to the magic kingdom of Stable Sprite which to some looks like a barren wasteland but is actually work in progress, he was eventually coaxed out of hiding and took charge of the sows. His boar then tried to take charge of the sows but they took to charging off, but they will all get together in the end. Pig club needs the recruits! (Pig club news sheet will be sent this weekend honest!)

We made it to the car park of The Little Chef some miles away in time to collect our new Anglo Nubian, Kayleigh (yes another Marillion fan in goat form) and her son Kurry (uncanny!)

Safely aboard we got back to HQ and unloaded our precious charges into the stable, I got changed from smallholder to social worker and made it to the Red Kite office at the allotted time. Just in time for tea and biscuits. Hurrah!

Later, much later, after milking Kayliegh and fattening up Kurry with a bottle of her milk I made a statement that I knew the small gods of smallholding could not ignore.

I simply said, "You know (this was a comment to the world in general as my beautiful and oh so patient wife was beyond listening to me having a highly entertaining goatling to play with, yes I know she shouldn't play with her food)

You know (I repeated it in case she had forgotten what I was about to say on account of brackets)

You Know (for emphasis) either we are getting better at this smallholding lark or we were incredibly lucky today"

The world held it breath and waited for the definitive answer.

There was a loud whinney and crash.

Trevor kicked in Hazels door.

We were lucky.

My new hobby

Speed fencing. Not the skipping up and down waving one arm in the air trying to poke an opponent with a "foil" (give me a broadsword any day) no, this is trying to repair damaged fences while keeping animals the right side of broken fence.
The fun started yesterday afternoon, the pigs were exploring the garden, again. Pam and Bridget made a real bid for freedom and ran off down the track to see the Technohermit. They would have made it into the wilderness save for the lure of the magic feed bucket, that and Technohermit dancing on his bone pile shouting "pork for tea". Suitable chastised the Mangalitzas were put back in the pen, along with their three little piglets who had also joined the escape club. Doing the Sherlock Holmes bit I wondered how they had managed to get out of the garden garden having jumped the fence, they had got out of the garden because I had let them out. But the garden garden, the patch devoid of life thanks to plague of goat, that showed no sign of disturbance, and the gate was shut. By half seven in the evening, when thoughts turn to cheap red and excess calorific intake, a strange grunting from the helipad confirmed that the pigs had a different way of escaping. Guinevere and Morgana were still in the pen, being well behaved Berkshires so they got a free go at the tasty treats put in the pen to coax everypig back. The hole in the fence was easy to find, it being massive, and thanks to some very deft hammer work by yours truly the three strands of barbed wire kept the beasts in their place. I also managed to complete task without striking self with hammer and without being bitten by inquisitive pig.

This evening the jobs list showed that I needed to inspect the fence at the top of Willow Rise. William has somehow managed to be in the yard two mornings in a row, if it was the Pgoor then all the ponies would be there. William had found an exit. I had to do the same and make it an ex exit. I soon found it, in fact the whole fence at the top of Willow Rise was on the floor, barely able to keep lagomorphs (live and learn! thanks) at bay let alone curious ponies. Despite the assistance from one of my little helpers who having black and white vision failed to see large yellow bucket in path so hit at some speed thus distributing the 1000 fencing staples contained therein a considerable distance. He of course sat and watched while I retrieved them, next week hes going to throw a ball to see if I can do other tricks.

Pretty soon the fence was upright once again, the exit had ceased to be, it was an ex exit. For now.

Its not a competition

No, its not a competition, and that's not a reference to who can take the best picture of the pigs (although my efforts with a Box Brownie below I think are are pretty good) no this is a reference to the apparent competition between the critters as to who can be the most annoying. Some how the two Mangalitzas managed to escape the big pen and were found loitering with intent in the garden.
The cunning plan to get them to follow the feed bucket was an epic fail as they found the rabbits quarters and spent an interesting fifteen minutes or so terrorising the long eared rodents.
Meanwhile in the big pen the well behaved piggies were rewarded with a couple of buckets of windfall plums and damsons as today's gale brought them down a plenty. The two naughty piggies eventually saw the error of their ways and made it back to the big pen in time for the nut fest, I had been collecting the fallen nuts as well while waiting for them to sort their lives out.
Morgana took the opportunity to hog the bath
and Iggle showed how clever she was by drinking straight from the hosepipe.

Moving house

Guenevere and Morgana got very excited today, not only because a half ton or so of feed was unloaded right under their snouts, bucket by bucket checked by the Berners.

Their excitement was not over the fact that 50 bales of quality straw arrived, mainly to provide them with a nice clean bed.

No they could not contain themselves because after all the activity of the day they were finally moved from their small pen and luxury stable to a huge almost barn and pig pen at the start of the smallholding. There they met Hetty and the Ryelands, who might sound like a 50's skiffle ensemble but who are in fact our house cow and Ryeland sheep. The transfer went almost without hitch, a slight detour round the almost 4x4 and they trotted dutifully into the pen where they totally ignored the five star accommodation and newly made beds, preferring instead to get their their snouts in the trough and engage in whats know as pigging out.