Mighty Oaks from....

 I spoke to my Ma the other day and she said she'd spent the afternoon looking at photos of her children when they were young: "You all looked so innocent and pretty" she told me!
It must have stuck at the back of my mind because I looked out this early photo of one of our 'children'. It was taken on 9th May 2007 shortly after she arrived at RectoryReserve; she was such a pretty little thing - innocent little face, deep dark eyes and the most amazingly long eyelashes. Such a sweetie too; she had no worries about us fussing over her. Little did she know then that she had been specially chosen to become Mangal's No. 1 Wife.

Some things, of course, don't change. She's still a sweet girl with big dark eyes and will put up with any amount of fussing and scratching from us. "My" hasn't she grown though? (I think she is probably bigger than any of my Ma's offspring!) and she now knows in detail what it means to be Mangal's Chief Wife. They grunt and grumble, sleep and argue together just like any long married couple. She'd been having a bit of a grump with him early last week and spending an increasing amount of time away from him. He didn't seem too bothered. He's seen it all 9 times before! Then, one afternoon towards the end of the week there was an almighty great slollopping slapping noise from their neck of the woods. "I wondered what on earth it was!" Linda told us later. "So I looked over to where the sound was coming from and saw Ginger having the most almighty wallow in her big pool! When she got up she was filthy..."
"Hmm" I thought "She hasn't done that for a while."
"Then" continued Linda "Later on she tried to join Mangal in his ark but he was having none of it. He just stood in the doorway as if to say - 'Let you in here? You must be joking!!!' In the end Ginger just flopped down on the ground in front of the ark and went to sleep there.!"
She was giving everyone the clearest indication she could that their next little family are not far off. The next day at feed time she got her wish. The gates between her and Mangal are now firmly shut --- and will remain so until litter no.10 are weaned. This is The Special Time for our sows. It's when we take every opportunity to give them lots of fuss and attention and treats and, hopefully, let them know how important they are. Certainly without Ginger (with Mangal of course) RectoryReserve would not have grown from the little germ of an idea that it was those five few years back..... not yet an oak but some day..... maybe.....who knows .........