8 days later

 Aster's first 8 days of motherhood have largely been spent as you see above. She's the first of our sows to farrow indoors and it has been a learning curve for us as much as Aster. She's got quite used to us popping in to watch or have a few words and rather likes to have her back or ears scratched.  Most of the time the family spend asleep, either with the piglets lying nose to tail between Mum's snout and the wall or tucked up in or under a nest of straw. They suckle frequently, briefly and - with no need to argue about, or fight over, which teat to use - very quietly. They are altogether very quiet ,  perhaps because there are so few of them or maybe it is the result of being away from the rest of the herd. Will this continue or will they grow to be as rumbustious as all our other piglets I wonder?

In the last few days they have begun investigating their world and venture further and longer away from Mum. The quietest grunt from her though and they scamper quickly back. They've already discovered a place where they can crawl under the hurdles and get away from mum so I imagine in a couple of  weeks they'll be exploring the rest of the barn. That'll be fun. In the meantime they have been named.
"I'd like to call the little girl Joan after my friend who passed away today" said Linda reflectively last Thursday. "She'd be amused to have a pig named after her!"
"We'll have to name one of the boys Darby then!" said The Boss "And the other one can be Lawrence after the school" I added.
Trouble is we're not sure if it's 2 girls and 1 boy or the other way round so Darby could well turn out to be Darbie ...... time will tell.....