Our busy little corner of the world once again fell into that peaceful pool of ambient light, that adagio of gloaming. Yesterdays work floated along like a good wee farmy. I love it when we all search for a word. Words are such powerful scribbles. Such magnificent codes to decipher. You guys brought some perfect words into the comments conversation yesterday. 
The pigs began to eat from the kitchen, only left overs so far, but the bread and the eggs and the whey from the yoghurt making were home made. Evidently one has to hold one’s food down with ones elegant Hoofy FOOT so it cannot escape. Strawberries are tricky like that. In fact they like their fresh diet so much that they have not been eating the soy/corn mix that the hog farmer brought me quite so eagerly. Much to the delight of the barn chickens. Hmm. 
The little pigs were grunting with something akin to high exasperation when they realised that their other food was being stolen out from under their little piggie snouts. Those chickens better not get too brave.
You know that our goal is for the farm to feed the farm. To live simply eating good food we grow ourselves. Well the animals also get to eat the good food we grow. If you are newish maybe pop back to this post for some revelations of why this blog started in the first place. This summer we are aiming for Free days. Days when the farm feeds the farm. Truly sustainable days. These are called Free Days. The cows are already on those days, chomping away out in the meadows eating grass. Mama’s flock is very close. The pigs will get there, once I start milking Daisy. Then we can do without these nasty bags of smelly pig food ground so fine that I cannot work out what is in there at all. However it is important not to change an animals diet too drastically too fast.
On Monday Mia will come back into Mama’s flock. Do you see the little TonTon ears above the fence cross piece. He is back there watching. 
Daisy is till determined that there MUST be a way for a cow to open Pat’s gate. 
Oh dear .. more bottoms. 
Naturally we had winds again. There was a red flag warning in the area yesterday. High Fire risk.
TonTon would like to point out that even dogs get affected by the Bendy Tree winds. The wind is upsetting his DO.
Good morning. How are you all this morning? This Thursday is the Farmy Retirement Home day. TonTon and I will be taking a basket full of little chickens and Minty. I have made a slideshow of some of the blog pictures and TonTon is going to take his BALL. High excitement. The elderly residents are going to come and visit us in their meeting room in the Home so I thought that if I cordon off one area, they might like to take turns at rolling the ball to Ton or even throwing it to him (gently) and he will catch it and eagerly return it to them for more. I sense that there may be a teensy bit of unruliness, but that would be fun for the residents too! I will take you, in the camera.
So, we have two days to prepare for that and then this Friday night, now that everything is settled down, we are leaving John in charge of the farmy, and you and I are going to fly out to The Central Valley in California to meet a new member of my family. We will make a fabulous celebratory New Zealand dinner on Saturday night out there and I will even make pavlova! Then in the wee hours of Monday morning I will jump back on another plane and be whisked back to Illinois by lunchtime. (Where is my chauffered time machine when I want it!)
So we have a busy few days ahead of us you and I.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
58 responses to “Putting your Best Foot forward.”
The wind ruffles more than the dog’s ‘do around here…once it reaches this pitch, Sweet Cleo gets as nervous as the rest of us. (Still blowing today 😦 )
Can’t wait to see the photos from the nursing home. That sounds like a great plan!
There is so much to congratulate you on my friend – your excellent running of your wonderful farm and beautiful animals, and now your fabulous new addition to your family 🙂
Celebrate well my friend!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
P.S. The idea of chickens being brave enough to steal pig food is too adorable 😉
Good morning, Celi. Good morning, farmy fellas. Great fun to be had with wind. Does TonTon know about kites on a short string, tied so he can try to jump and reach it? Molly thinks that’s more fun than almost anything.
WOW! Misky I have never heard of that.. tell us more! c
Whenwe take Molly to Little Hampton’s beach we bring along a homemade kite (two sticks crossed at the middle and tied into an old pillowcase). We keep the lead short which prompts Molly to jump for it as comes flying near her. Balloons aren’t good though because if it pops, she might swallow the plastic bits.
Enjoy the trip and congratulations on the addition to your human family.
My chickens are food thieves here as well, The llamas now share their grain bowls as they eat the morning grain…oh so bold. I linked to you blog in my post yesterday; I wrote about therapy animals and visiting the aged and ill….have a great day C.
I read it and loved that post, the Old Codger calls it Dog magic!! wonderful! c
Your opening shot was really beautiful and the next looks like the piglet stuck its foot out to prevent your camera from stealing its food. Glad to see Tonton’s back to his old self, camouflaging himself in the background. It was a great game last night but pretty darn cold by the time the last run was scored in the bottom of the 9th. Looks like you’ll be getting out of town just in time for another cold snap. Let’s hope this is the last one until next Fall.
Love the piggy foot. And the bottoms. And the wind-ruffled doggy do. (Excuse me.) And LOVE LOVE LOVE Pavlova, so puh-lease give us your recipe, would you???
I most certainly will! vut what else shall i make for dinner! c
Free days – awesome stuff!
I think a bit of unruliness will do the old folk the world of good! Can’t wait to see the pics, thanks for taking us along everywhere C.
Have an awesome day!
🙂 Mandy
What a great day you’ve had – and have most days, it seems to me. The diet of the piglets looks good enough to eat!
Celi, you inspire me so with your Free Days! Love also that I donated a word! Today I am delivering 25 dozen farm fresh eggs from our chickens to a lovely local market in the next town. This market is going to carry our produce this summer! Then, it is off with about 20 flats of baby plants that I lovingly tended in my windowseats, to a friends greenhouse who’s taking care of them for me until they are big enough to plant. Tommorrow, we will be making up thousands more mini soil blocks and planting the rest of the seed. When all is finished, we will have hundreds of flats planted. We have already planted our new greenhouse full, and are getting ready to move both houses to new plots for tomatoes and baby ginger, which is in full sprout in my guest bedroom! My home is chock full of plants! Lots of oxygen inside my house!!!
I empathise with you on a house full of plants!! I must pop over to your site, have you got pictures up, John is very interested in the soil brick pots! c
I will post pics of the soil blocking operation soon for John.
Lovely piglet, chicken and lamb shots. Bon voyage!
I am away on friday, so plenty to do and see before that day!
Oh, California, I am soooo jealous! Please take me in your camera there too. It does like high jinx at the retirement home, it’ll be good for all of them including any sour matron types. Have fun! Travel safe. 🙂
So happy you had another peaceful day! I love the goal of having the farm feed the farm. I wish you lived closer so you could teach me to can and raise bees!
Have a wonderful time in California ~ April 🙂
Exciting times ahead:) Celi are the Plonkers tame ….. are you able to scratch their bristly ears? So pleased to see my word included too. Laura
The Plonkers do come up for a hullo but always try to eat my boots or nibble at my fingers .. they are still working out what is food and what is not I think! c
You never cease to amaze me with how, day after day, you continue to find creative ways to photograph the animals. And then that idea of ball tossing at the retirement home. Splendid.