Rufus and Stubbs, our sibling puppies, are burgeoning and diverging. Growing more up and growing more different, both in appearance and personality. It is hard to believe that we could ever have found it difficult to tell them apart. Continue reading
And while we’re on the subject of piggy myths, here’s another one …..
Unlike a dog, a pig is generally toilet trained. They prefer to do their business in one place and will return to that place each and every time. So if you have a preferred site simply take it there and your pig will do the rest.
It is certainly true that they…
…. do not mess in their sleeping quarters, which are always clean
But as for the notion that they will only poo in one place outside – Pah! Continue reading
Fast forward from July 2007 to November 2009. A surprisingly big lot has happened in these last couple of years, and we are now really living in that world we dreamt of, back in those work-torn days of yesteryear. I wonder if I will ever cease to feel amazed at how Life can change so completely within such a relatively short space of time.
So, we have miraculously sold our Derby house and our French holiday house, and have indeed found our bargain little dream house in the country, with lots of trees and no neighbours. We have dogs and cats galore, and chickens and llamas. And now we also have our little piggywigs. Continue reading
We first set eyes on Kune Kune pigs at the Royal Agricultural Show in July 2007, a little over two weeks after my last-ever day at work. Although we had, as yet, no way of achieving our dream of a home in the country, nothing could stop us living the dream in our heads. So we celebrated the fact that we had both taken that final irrevocable step away from the daily drudgery that comes as a free gift with the secure-income-job with a day trip to the second-muddiest show on earth. Continue reading
Before we took our life-changing leap from the fire of full-time employment into the frying pan of French country living, we used to nurture our dreams of a happier future during long walks in Markeaton Park, with our trusty hound, Max the Blunder Dog. And some of you readers familiar with this popular park in Derby may also be aware that there is a farm just at the back of it, spanning the surprisingly narrow border between the franticness of the City, and the peace of the rolling countryside beyond.
In our ever-growing desire to be in the Outside, away from the daily grind, the hustle and bustle, and the noise of the A38, our walks got longer and slower, and frequently took in an excursion to visit the various farmyard creatures butting up against the managed neatness of the family-friendly park. We watched the lambs frolicking in the little field behind the tennis courts; we mooed with the cows and curious calves that lumbered around brown-eyed and brown-bummed in the big fields adjacent to the golf course; and we made friends with the pigs that wallowed in the muddy enclosure next to the footpath that led to the woods. The small woods, where squirrels capered about knee-deep in conkers, and blackbirds drowned the traffic sounds with liquid calls to join them in a different world. The shady woods, deep with musty leaf-mould, where nothing grew but hopeful saplings and dreams. Continue reading
