What a Week!

This has been quite a busy week for me.  I apologise for the lack of posting.  With everything else that has been going on, I’ve found it difficult to just sit down and think clearly enough for a post.

On Saturday Miss 7 had a friend’s birthday party.  I weeded a little more of the tomato patch before the heat won again.  More sunburn on the back of my neck.

Miss 7's Small Salmon

On Sunday was Hubby’s work Christmas do, we went to Sharvin Lodge and fished for Salmon in the pond before a bbq lunch.  Miss 7 caught one, Hubby caught one and I caught two.  We only brought one home however, there were others who had been trying all day and caught nothing.  Miss 7 showed remarkable patience and perseverance for someone her age and is keen as mustard to go fishing again.  She even helped Hubby clean it.  My rule (as someone allergic to fish) is you clean it if you want to eat it. Fish head and guts buried in my tomato patch too.

Miss 7 Trying to Cut the Head Off

On Monday was Miss 7’s school breakup assembly.  It was a fun few hours watching the different classes present folk dancing and I must say I’m impressed at the way all of the leaving Year 8s had taken on roles as wet day monitors and new entrant buddies.  The night was topped off by Santa arriving in a fire engine.

On Tuesday, we’d arranged to pick up the two new boars and 15 hens.  A conversation on Sunday night with the lady who was giving them away had revealed that her rude and cheeky neighbour had helped himself and left me with only 4 hens.  What could I say?  They were free.  She was pretty angry at him though.

We got there, knowing in advance that no one else was going to be there - she’d shown me previously where to find them.  We couldn’t find the pigs anywhere.  There was no sign of them in their paddock.  We walked through, calling them, rattling a feed bucket, we checked in their house.  There were no pigs in that paddock.  These are rather large black Kune kune boars, it's not as though they'd be too difficult to see.  They were nowhere to be seen - or heard.  Now all of my pigs even grunt in their sleep. We heard nothing

Two New Hens With Howard Off to the Side

We were only able to catch 2 of the hens before the rest took off and hid in the neighbouring paddocks too.  It was raining, we’d been mucking around for about an hour in the rain and had 2 hens for our troubles.

Master 14 had been having a conversation with someone on the internet about some Kunes that they were giving away.  They had lots of all sorts of ages and needed to find homes for them.  He sent me a phone number by text.  On our drive home from our failed mission I decided to ring this number.  We arranged to go over the next night as they were all exhausted from a day hay-making and almost ready for bed.

On Wednesday, Miss 7 finished school at lunchtime.  We went into town to do a little Christmas shopping and by the time we made it back home we were both hot and cranky.  I got a text from the lady whose pigs we were supposed to have picked up the night before asking if we’d changed our mind since they were still there.  I told her they weren’t in the paddock when we looked and so yeah, we’d changed our minds.  She was adamant that they had been there.  Now I’m not saying that she was lying, she had nothing to gain from that but they must be the sneakiest ninja tree-climbing pigs you ever saw.  My mother suggested that they may have been out for an early evening flight.

We went to have a look at these pigs when Hubby came home.  The lady I’d been talking to wasn’t there, but her husband came out to help us.  First we saw the boars.  They’re not full Kune kunes as some have a longer nose than is normal for a kune, but they all seemed to have the tassels.  We chose the smallest one as he had the nicest nature too.  He’d also been getting picked on by the other two bigger boars in that paddock.  He was fairly easy to catch and lift onto the trailer.  Hubby moved the truck around to where the sows were, because I also wanted a young sow as company for Darla.

Mildred Being Shy

George is Not Shy

First we had to meet Honey.  Honey was in the paddock next to the sows, he’s a beautiful honey coloured older boar who had retired from being a show pig at Willowbank.  He was lovely, but needed to be kept separate from the others.  The chap we were dealing with picked out the sow he thought we were okay to take.  His wife has some favourites you see and although they’ve got too many, she’s a bit attached to most of them.  I offered to leave my phone number in case it was the wrong one but he wasn’t worried.

Catching her wasn’t quite so easy.  She led Hubby and this guy to quite the chase all around the farm before they finally caught her and lifted her onto the trailer.

Getting them back off the trailer at home was somewhat challenging too.  But we did it and Darla wandered around to meet the new arrivals.  We’d named them by this stage.  He was quite laid back and easy going while she was more highly strung and unfriendly so George and Mildred it was.

Darla’s greeting for Mildred was to run up behind her and bite her on the bum.  I yelled at Darla and she settled down.  Who knew?  She ran up to try the same thing (I’m guessing) with George, but as she got closer I think she realised he wasn’t another girl and settled down.  He spent the next half hour following her around with his nose pretty close to her bum.  Hubby commented that she didn’t seem that interested in him until I pointed out that she wasn’t walking away very fast.  If he was a problem she would have run, she was walking just fast enough to keep him interested.

On Thursday, Miss 7 and I went and did our weekly grocery shopping.  I also made a side trip to the Gluten Free shop to see if they had any GF sponge cake like they did last year.  I was in luck - if I’m making trifle for Christmas lunch, I want to be able to eat it too! 

I got home to find a couple of panicky texts from Miss 16’s boyfriend asking me to ring ASAP.  She’d collapsed and been taken into hospital – she was fine now, but eating and drinking water would be a good idea before she went out in the heat for future reference!  I told her off for not looking after herself.

I noticed two sheep in my front paddock.  We don’t have any – so I rang the neighbour and let him know that a couple of his had snuck through the fence.  I wasn’t really worried but thought he should know.  They snuck back through to his side about an hour later.

We went back into town Thursday night for some Christmas shopping with Hubby.  It was tense because money is very tight this year. We decided to get a plastic tree for the first time ever.  The thing is with four cats and a puppy, I can’t see any tree surviving for very long!

And today is Friday.  The 21st of December.  The Summer Solstice and if you believe all the hype (which I don’t) it’s also The End of The World As We Know It.  Well, its nearly 10am now and looks to be a lovely summer’s day so far!