Time moves on

Anticipating the imminent arrival of Precious and Lily's first litters the new ark was ordered. And duly arrived last Friday. Very nice and clean it looked too in its sylvan setting. No doubt Lily and Precious will soon change that. Whoever looks to be first to farrow will probably get rite of residence.


And thereby hangs a question mark. According to our calculations, piglets were due at the end of this month. In other words, just a week or so away...... But neither look anywhere near delivering by then. In fact, at present it would be difficult to say they are definitely in pig at all. So we're back to where we were with Ginger's first litter. In the dark!

Which was how it was when our third hog left here to meet his maker on Sunday morning. We'd moved Butch to the Old Stalls on Friday - an idea to which he was most amenable. He seemed relieved to get away from Lily and Precious and have a bit of peace and quiet! Certainly he slept a great deal throughout both Friday and Saturday and enjoyed the extra attention and grooming. It was an early start for everyone on Sunday but it heralded a glorious golden sunrise and Butch was calm and relaxed.

An atmosphere which, thankfully, carried through into the afternoon when Rocco (AKA Madonna's Child - as is his moniker for doing what he generally considers poncy stuff - ie. dressage) was performing once more. We'd disgraced ourselves on the last occasion so were not much looking forward to another opportunity to do the same. For whatever reason though things were 360` different and we won the illusive Red Rosette! And, since he's such a handsome chap when he's performing well, we also won the 'Best Turned Out' rosette too!

Which all goes to prove that it can be done.... so there'll be no slacking from now on. And to think, the other day I was going to chuck it all in and just go hunting again. But don't tell him........