How do you know your pig is pregnant?

When she has trouble lifting her foot over the step that she usually trots over. If she had a hand she would be reaching for the door frame.

Queen Charlotte is large with child.. I mean pig.

Her belly is dropping and her teats are down and she waddles. But we must not forget Sheila who is desperate for Charlotte to be locked up in the maternity ward so that she can get to the food for once!

Lock her up, miss c. I’m half starved.  She lies.

The sheep equivalent of a high five!

And here is a feast in the making. Apples, cherries and peaches. The trees are loaded.

And the grapes are full of promise. This is the Vidal Blanc my wine grape.

And now a new tree. They say that people who love trees believe in the future. Well we do. Don’t we. This is Fellowship Forest tree.  For the Orchard.

This new tree has been planted for Zia. Chg Johns wonderful aunt and his partner in crime. They work together on his recipes and are a formidable team. I love Zia and am thrilled to have a tree in my orchard with her name on it. Good morning Zia, here are some flowers for you!

And the garden is most beautiful this year because of the cool damp weather I suppose.

Even puppies love flowers.

Good morning. In the night we had a torrential downpour and 4 inches of rain hit the ground in torrents in a matter of a few hours. Terrific thunder and lightening. A flash flood warning came through, on John’s phone, in the middle of the night. It came as a txt. This must be something new as we have never had one of these before. I imagine these will come if there is a tornado warning too so that is one piece of technology that makes perfect sense.

Today I shall bring all the large animals up onto the concrete yards so their big heavy feet don’t trample the grass right into the ground.  The Shush Sisters had already put themselves to bed (in separate bedrooms I might add) in the barn so they were fine in the night.  This rain was not in any forecast.

We have yet to check the gardens, but there was no wind, just heavy rain, so fingers crossed.  Of course the fields are a lake. The ditches have risen up and flooded across the road and until the ditches go down there will be little drainage from the fields. And all the corn is only an inch or so high. Underwater. The little strip of non GM sweetcorn is on slightly higher ground so it has a good chance. That was a stroke of luck. It is almost 6am, still raining and the flood warning is in place until 9am so we will have a wet start to Memorial Day. And more rain in the forecast for this evening.

Well, time to start the day. Definitely a gumboot day.

We have a slew of fantastic new pictures from Back Door Steps so I shall load all of those for you today and launch them out into your world tomorrow morning.  Unless I am busy building an ark.

Have a lovely day.

your friend in the rain, celi