B...B......Bank holiday weekend

The pork provisioner's had a lovely weekend... starting out in the market place at Brigg on Saturday and moving on to Burghley for Sunday and Monday.

Mind you - we had our ups and downs. Imagine: we were all set up on Saturday morning, nice and early so's to be ready for all our eager customers.

.... Then the shopkeepers turned up.

"You can't stay there" said one to us "Told the organisers - no stalls in front of our shop". After much huffing & puffing we agreed a spot to move to..

"You can't be serious!" said the butcher. "I'm not having you next to me". We agreed.

Much consultation and steam later we moved again.

And that was fine. Outside some closed down shops at the end of the street. We were happy enough. Later: "I'm not a complaining sort normally" said the guy who'd first complained about us being in front of his shop "but the customers are complaining about the noise from your generator. Could you please move it further away from my shop?" We did and then turned it off. What the hell. It wasn't exactly a hot day. We had lots of happy customers so we were not complaining.
It stayed dry during the market. On the way home we drove through a tropical storm. Typically, it had 'hit' at piggie tea time. Stopped after an hour. Piggies fed!  But the journey home was like being in a power boat - water underneath & heavy spray to right and left!
Sunday and Monday we were in the more sedate surrounds of Burghley House. No complaints. No rain during the day; lots of happy customers - torrential rain on the way home again though. We could see not a thing on the journey - just spray and rain. Arriving back here - hardly a drop had fallen. Monday was peace & quiet tho The Big Boss amended the "Offering" in view of the fact we nearly sold out of everything by end of Sunday. "I know!" he said - "We'll do cooked sausages to give people an alternative to those burgers".(The queue had been a mile long for three hours on Saturday). We did, and they did and the net result was I spent most of Sunday happily cooking sausages to sell. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them....  We'll be doing that again one day I fear....... Maybe as early as Burghley this coming weekend.

But it didn't rain on the way home

End of the
B....b.....b....Holiday

p.s.
In case you didn't catch us at Burghley last weekend,  we'll be there at the Horse Trians from Thurs thru Sunday this week so you can come and fill up n all those goodies you love from us....

Update on the previous

So much for spending the night alone in the empty pen. By the time I went out to check in the early hours of the morning, Truffle had moved back in with the young boys and was causing a stir amongst all the boys - including Mangal. But we were off to a Food Fair so there was nothing to be done about it. By the time Linda arrived in the middle of the day Truffle had moved on. Feed bins and flower planters were strewn everywhere in her search for, we now know, her young Flowers! She eventually found them in the stalls and lay down on the other side of the hurdle from them. Which is where Linda found her when she arrived. Truffle was hungry and tired from her exertions (and, no doubt, sleepless night) and happily followed Linda into the temporary holding pen where she collapsed and went to sleep for a couple of hours. We  thought she might stay there - but no - when she'd recovered her energies she was off again - over the fence and back to find her piglets in the stalls. So, since it was bucketing down with rain when we got home later in the afternoon we decided to leave her there. We opened the hurdle and reunited Mum with her not-yet-weaners. And what a happy family they were. Truffle did a quick reccy round and then settled down to suckle her much-missed little ones. A day later, they are still together and more than happy in their cosy little home.

How we'll get them weaned now is another question - for Tuesday..... not for tonight.....                                                                                 

Truffle not to be trifled with

 Friday - so pig moving day again.
  Truffle's Little Flowers were due for weaning; it seemed a bit mean to shut the hurdle on them whilst they were eating but they didn't mind. They're in The Stalls now for a few weeks.They'll rest their tired legs,be well fed and grow strong again before going out into their outdoor pens again. Meanwhile, we moved Delila away from Samson. She was relieved. Her Time is drawing nearer and she needs to be alone to contemplate and grow healthy piglets.
Truffle therefore was moved up to Samson.
She went happily. He was contented. They hardly noticed each other. Well, she's not in season yet.
When I went out late this evening to shut up

the poultry and check the pigs and ponies there was the most awful cacophony going on.
Investigating, I found Truffle in with the boys next door to Samson. Clearly she likes young lads not old Timers.
By the time I'd reported that to the Big Boss and gone out again she'd left the youngsters and moved in with the next lot of young lads - her own offspring - who, along with Mangal next door were making a terrific racket. What to do - in the dark with nobody else around?
So, thanks to food, I moved her into the empty boy's pen where -hopefully - she'll spend the night on her own and then we'll have to think about moving back to where she needs to be by the time she's in season --- which will be about Tuesday ----- which, coincidentally, is when we'll be home again from the Bank Holiday weekend food fairs!!
We always said Truffle had a mind of her own.
Not to be trifled with.
Hrmph. We'll see.
Meanwhile her little Flowers are fast asleep in The Stalls - probably glad to have a good rest...... and extra feed.....

Piglets everywhere

 The Flowers are everywhere. They were a bit slow leaving Truffle when they first started to wander but they have certainly made up for it since.
They soon got used to eating in the yard away from their mum. But actually, they don't mind where they have to go for food. The yard, other pig's pens, empty buckets or not so empty bins.The other morning Pilot woke me up barking; nothing unusual there but when I looked to see what was worrying him I saw - piglets outside the kitchen window eating the birdseed that had fallen to the ground from  the bird table.
We have a plague of moles at the moment; different methods have been tried to get rid of them. They don't work.

I've put bottles on sticks around the place to deter them. That doesn't work either. It especially doesn't work if the piglets remove the sticks and bottles. Which they do. Because they are all over the garden.The particularly like begonias.
The Flowers know that buckets hold food. If buckets are left lying around, they often end up with piglet snouts in them. The little ones also know that food lives in dustbins and they know that the combined weight of 7 of them will knock over a dustbin - which is a great game.
It particularly annoys the other pigs because they
see the little ones eating food just outside their pen and that leads to a great deal of noise. Nothing gets to a pig more than seeing another pig eating ...               

They are up the woods and down the fields; they are in the vegetable garden and outside the back door. When you least expect to see them, there they are - suddenly staring up at you. They stop what they are doing, look, assess..... then scoot off in the opposite direction with a lot of grunting and snorting. It's very entertaining - not funny when they are jumping out of the flower beds, but entertaining. They wander down the field to see the horses - who are very patient with them. The piglets snuffle their nostrils and their legs, chew their tails and wander between their hooves. The horses just ignore them - in a studied way. All this running around builds healthy minds and strong skeletons. When they are weaned, which will be soon, they amazingly adapt happily to being in the stalls for a few weeks. When they go out to their pens again they are content to stay there without, seemingly, wanting to wander off any more. Exploring everywhere when they are little and meeting all the other pigs in the herd seems to provide them with a context within which they are then content to just 'be' and grow up gracefully. Wierd really.

                                           

Hot August nights

Another hot August night; the air filled with the thrumming sounds of the nearby graindryer, sundry owls Tu-whitting and Tu-wooing in the orchard trees - and the Bestest Gundog, beside me as I write, still panting from his evening run!
We shouldn't be surprised to have heat at this time of year, except this year has been far from normal. It's not just the weather that's been different. We've had the Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee and the Double Dip recession to cope with as well. The pigs don't know that of course. For them, it's just about the weather.
They're known for their curly coats so perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise to see these photos.

But they should not be sporting such luscious locks on a hot August Night. Over the past 5 years we've grown accustomed to their habitual moult. Come June the coats start to loosen and slowly fall away. It takes a few weeks - long enough for us to have time to groom them in order (a) to help them along and (b) to 'harvest' their wool.
It hasn't happened this year though. The boy in the foreground in the first photo is sporting a mature woolly coat. As is Victoria in the foreground of the second photo. There's some excuse for the boy because he's only a youngster and maybe not old enough to moult. Victoria, however, was born last October so has had plenty of time to grow and

shed her curls.  As for the Bananas in the third photo; they have even more glorious curls than Victoria and are showing no sign at all of throwing them off. When not eating they all vie for the coolest part of the wallow: the blonde Banana in the background usually wins even though Black Banana is boss. Maybe blondes feel the heat more than swallowbellies? Whatever; it must feel very hot for them on the rare occasions, like now, when we are actually 'enjoying' some summer days. The young pigs of course have nothing to compare this year with so they won't know it's unusual for them still to be wearing their winter coats.

This, on the other hand, is Delila who is sporting the sort of coat every Mangalitza should be wearing on a Hot August Night.  She's about the only one of the herd who looks the way a Curly Coated pig should look at this time of year. It would make sense if all the older pigs were similarly sleek but they are not: Ginger has half a coat, Samson has at least half of his, Truffle looks almost at woolly as the Black Banana and Mangal doesn't count because he's been going a bit 'thin on top' for the past couple of years and never really has curls anywhere except round his face!

No wonder, when I did the night rounds after dusk, they were all sleeping out under the stars; even if it were not such a Hot August night they'd be far too warm inside their arks with those woolly coats.....

I'm sure it's in there somewhere

The latest bunch of free-ranging piglets - Truffles Little Flowers - are as adventurous as every other bunch of piglets before them; evidence of where they have been is often more amusing than seeing where they actually are - pots strewn higgledy piggledy beside the greenhouse, a thoroughly dismembered Gro-bag in the middle of the vegetable patch, 'No' begonias where only yesterday there had been plenty of begonias. Gunner gets so tired of trying to keep them in order that he's taken to having breakfast with them just to keep his energy levels up! I think he's in danger of becoming an Honourary Piglet with all the pigfood he's been pinching..... There was a tremendous racket one day last week when the Flowers upended a feedbin and proceeded to snaffle the contents right in front of the girls whose feedbin it was. They were not amused; the noise was horrendous! We try now not to leave the bins light enough for them to overturn! However, little snouts are everywhere and it's not just big bins that have food at the bottom.....

On the move again

"Mangal's put his feedbowl at the back of the Ark" said Linda a week or two back. Well... that's always a

 signal. He and Ginger are the original 'old married couple' and she's been looking just a tad fed up with life for about that length of time. "Time I got my own peace and quiet" she's probably been thinking and she doesn't get a lot of that with Mangal - not during waking hours anyway; he's always hogging her food and being a boar about who gets which vegetables. And we all know that a lady needs plenty of 'me' time. So the plan was devised and Friday was designated 'moving' day. First thing was to move Parcelforce and Aintree from the pen next to Ginger to their new pen in the Church Field. Then at tea time Mangal was tempted back through the gate to his old pen and the gate between him & Ginger was shut. Then the gate from Ginger's pen to what had been the little boys' pen was opened. She gave her new domain a bit of a once-over before settling down to tea. She's been looking much happier since then and although she spends most of her time in her original pen, she wanders through to the 'new bit' for tea and a chat!

A second thread of the 'plan' was to move the 6 Courier girls out of the barn -where they have been living since weaning -and out to their 'new' pen in the Church Field.
They went ape! Probably couldn't believe their luck; suddenly fresh air and space and mud and other pigs and "Oh what fun" everywhere.... they just ran round and round and round examining everything and exploring everywhere and just being totally silly. They were still running round when I shut the chickens up at dark! They were still running round next morning when I let the chickens out! I think they've been running around ever since. They probably do go to sleep some time but whenever anyone's out and about they are running around noisily - not called Little Couriers for nothing then! Always on the move.

A heck of a time

Another year gone by! Last weekend was Heckington Show-time once more. Every year a few of the little curly coats are a big attraction in the Rare Breeds tent. This one was no exception and the antics of The Racecourses wowed an admiring audience throughout the two days. They also generated a good deal of interest in our Curly Coat Custodian scheme which should lead to several new 'bed & breakfast' lodgings over the coming months. At one stage in the proceedings The Big Boss rang me to report that it was "Absolute Bedlam down this end." Meanwhile at the 'other end' of the Showground our Pork provisions were available in the Food Tent for the first time.  It was a very nerve-wracking experience. Made more so by a visit from the local Environmental Health Officers ! We had no idea what the crowds would buy - if anything. Around late morning on each day I had a little panic because it looked like nothing would sell and we'd be taking the lot home with us! Occasionally people would drop by with a 10% discount Postcard given them at 'the other end' by The Big Boss: "We've seen the little piggies; ar'n't they lovely" was what most would say before purchasing a new taste experience.
Slowly but surely though we sold a bit of this and a bit of that and by 4pm on Sunday we were virtually out of everything - with 2 hours still to go! In view of the heat we were holding purchases for people in our chiller and when I still had one bag in there at five to six I was a little concerned that someone had forgotten their goodies. But that's just an indicator of the nature of the show. Record crowds turned out again this year - some people 'bagging' their seats by the main arena as early as 8.30:  The sun shone for most of the two days and a couple of fierce downpours on Sunday afternoon hardly bothered people at all. It was a very successful show but a very tiring one for all 'performers'. Except perhaps the little piggies who, when we came home, were turned out in their new pen in the Church Field and went absolutely crazy with the excitement of being outside again!
Comparing notes across the kitchen table when it was all over The Boss & I agreed that it had been a heck of a time ...... and then crawled upstairs to bed - exhausted!