New Pig on the Block

A big Jointers welcome to Betty Berkshire who took up residence with Maud and Martha Middlewhite this afternoon. After an uneventful journey from Salisbury she is getting her breath back in the orchard. After having had a drink of water and a meal of pig nuts and acorns she is quickly settling in.

She put the little pigs firmly in their place (and yes pigs can fly!) and then hoovered up every trace of food they had left from their breakfasts.

She seems a lovely pig, well used to being handled and nice and friendly, quite a contrast to the Middlewhites who don't seem to have had much human contact since they were born and have taken all week to get used to us and still hate to be touched.

We're looking forward to a fun and profitable time ahead, hopefully her first babies will be born early February (little Valentine piggies perhaps).

Have lovely weekend.

Sue xx

The Best Dressed Man Award

The winner of the Best Dressed Man Award (or what to wear when you're putting chickens to bed) is.........

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Lovely Hubby.

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Gotcha ( I love you lots.)

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Sue xx

Piggies on the Farm

A big welcome to Maud and Martha Middlewhite, our latest little additions to the family.

We picked them up earlier this morning and they are now firmly ensconced in their great big pig ark with some bales of straw placed all around to make them feel a little more safe and secure.

If they have not leapt over the bales we will remove them in a couple of days when the girls are more at home and let them explore the rest of their enclosure.

It was a windy journey along the motorway for them from Offley Hoo, but they cuddled in together all cosy in their little straw filled section of the trailer. And on arrival one let herself be carried to the pig ark with the minimum of fuss but lots of squealing, and the other made a bid for freedom, after a bit of persuading she joined her sister in their new home.

At the moment they are quite stressed after their adventure so I will take some more pictures tomorrow when they have had a chance to get their breath back.

Have a lovely weekend. Sue xx

October

It's official it's Autumn. It feels like autumn and it looks like autumn, it crept up on us unawares and settled itself in quietly, pushing the long days of Summer away. We have the warmth of the summer days briefly but then the chill creeps in and the evenings are suddenly short with a bite in the air.

The mornings are misty and eerily quiet, the leaves are fluttering down and carpeting the ground with a quietly rustling soft surface to walk on. The cats (and dogs on occasion) chase the errant leaf that skims along the path, and the best part....the glorious sunsets we have been having. Although earlier and earlier they light the sky with reds, oranges and on occasion a wonderful heavy blue light that is there one minute and gone the next.

The camera can never do them justice, so I don't dash in to grab it, I sit or stand perfectly still and drink in the sight storing it in my mind as protection from the dark dismal evenings of winter ahead.

We grab our jackets or cardigans and walk the dogs in the fading light, admiring the changing landscape all around us, drawing closer together for a warmth that is needed in the rapidly chilling evening. Then it's home to tuck the chickens up for the night, they nestle on their perches and huddle together in their familiar formation, a pecking order has been re-established since the demise of Mother and now all is organised and harmonious again.

I am slowly making the house cosy and ready for the colder nights of the winter to come. More and more we find ourselves cocooned in the living room, Lovely Hubby working at the computer, me scouring recipe books and magazines for inspirational warming foods for winter, and ideas for makes for my upcoming craft fairs.

All four pets gravitate to the living room over the course of the evening, so we work to the gentle hum of 2 cats and 2 dogs snoring and twitching in their sleep reliving their lively day here on the farm.

Every now and then one of us will look up and make the offer of "another coffee or something stronger", but sometimes the thought of leaving your warm cosy seat is too much to bear so it's a "no I'm fine" and we continue on our peaceful evening, engrossed in our separate tasks but happy in the knowledge we are together and sometimes the world is a good peaceful place.

Sue xx

Aga love............

I've decided.........it's official....I love my Aga!

How could you not love something that welcomes you home with a warm blast of heat as you open the back door, tries her best to waft her heat over the whole house (and this is a big house), cooks all your food to perfection (once you get past the cremation of the pies that is), gives the cats and dogs (and on occasion , chickens) something warm and cosy to snuggle up against, dries the washing, cuts down on the ironing, warms the water that gives you that oh so needed bath after a hard days work............ and most importantly of all........heats the kettle that gives the water for that first cup of coffee of the day.

Yesterday was 'the day'! Aggy the Aga's annual service day. The lovely man came moved all the cupboards from around her (cleverly designed this kitchen, I never realised before) and pulled out some of her innards!! I couldn't watch.....I retreated to the computer and got on with some work. He tinkered around, shone his torch into her deep dark recesses and then took bits of her outside to his big Landrover, whereupon he started cleaning out and filing her previously secret bits!!

Then after about an hour he started to put her back together, checked her over again and gave me the final verdict........for an old girl she is in brilliant shape (better than me then!).

Phew....we live to cook together for another year.

She's running on oil with a Glowmax additive, so as we are very satisfied with this he's asked me if he can use her as a test case because seemingly some customers using this additive are not as happy as we have been.

She's a reconditioned Aga, one that was moved from another old farmhouse that our landlady owns, and seemingly in the words of the Aga man, 'the only sort you should buy now'. It would seem that new Agas (although still good) do not have all cast iron parts like these old ones.

So if I were ever to buy another one 'always go for reconditioned secondhand ones' he told me. As if I could ever cook on anything else again. I have serious Aga love. Hubby will rue the day he ever started me on this! Haha....................

Aggie the Aga.

Sue xx (The One woman Aga Appreciation Society)

Ready and waiting........

Lovely Hubby has worked SO hard over the weekend, and we are now officially ready and waiting for our new arrivals next week.

We have registered with the Rural Payments Agency, got our County Parish Holding Number and our Herd Number and notified the Animal Health people, so we are all legal and above board. We have had a good piggy vet recommended to us and I am going to contact them this week, so if we have any piggy emergencies they will know where we are.

Through these trees is the chicken pen and our house.

The first two pig pens are all finished. With the straw bales lying just inside the doors of the pig arks ready to be spread on the floor the morning we go to pick up Maud and Martha Middle White, and then next week when we go to pick up Betty Berkshire.

Once through the trees you are in the orchard and the first of the 3 new pig pens. Step through the trees inside the pen and you can see the field beyond. The fencing is as secure as possible with stock wire all around and barbed wire at the top and bottom, to discourage escape attempts. We are hoping not to have to use electric fencing but that may come in the future if needed.

Each pen is 12 metres square, with a large pig ark suitable for a mum and her babies, plenty of room to roam about, space for a mud wallow and a shady woody area for rooting about in and resting from the glare of the sun (or the wild winds of winter).

I am using today to check out pig food prices, but we have an offer of shared pig feed deliveries from our new piggy keeping friends (they have THE MOST GORGEOUS farm you can imagine, real Oxfordshire picture book stuff with animals mingling and running around happily together and 50 pigs!!). We bought 20 bales of straw off them yesterday and just clicked straight away.

So it's been a good weekend getting ready for our new aquisitions. Oooh......so exciting!!

Sue xx

All is calm............

Milly watching in amazement as Rosy shares her tea.

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Somedays, between the madness that is usually life here on the farm, all is calm. The animals get on with each other, the jobs go well (and get done) and life is all good. Other days it all goes to pot, but yesterday was one of the good days.

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The cats sunbathed and slept the day away, the dogs rounded up the chickens and played with them and with each other. The chickens laid their eggs in the nesting boxes and mooched about the manure heaps and the orchard. Lovely Hubby got on well with his fencing and finding us a supplier of straw for the pigs and I got half the polytunnel weeded, all the chicken houses spring cleaned, the washing done and even the shopping done.

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And after all this we still had time to go out for a meal and have a relaxing evening together. Fingers crossed for something similar today!!

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Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

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Sue xx