After their walk in the grass yesterday morning Sheila refused to go back into the pen, she passed the pig pen gate, and walked right to the barn then stood there and refused to come back. Apparently she and Charlotte are having a trial separation. Practicing for when the babies come.
After a while I shut the gate on her and left her to lie in the dirty straw in the yards. She and Queenie engineered some kind of break out and later in the day Sheila was seen loafing about in the field with cows.
Charlotte ignored all the fuss and lay in her puddle. She has been quite snappy with Sheila of late so was happy not to have to fight for her water bath. Yesterday evening Sheila waited at her winter gate to be let into the barn for the night so I just let her in there and left her burrowed into the straw, sleeping in solitary splendour. Already there were two cats waiting on the gates for me to leave so they could all cuddle up.
Speaking of misbehavior Little Miss Butter would not Melt in her Mouth, Tilly, has been sighted rampaging through the asparagus. Nibbling on the heads of the stalks. She had taken a Murphy out with her. They go down on their knees and shoot out under the fence.
We shooed her back but she just waited until I was out of sight again before popping back out like a cuckoo for another munch. I wondered why the asparagus was growing without tips. I thought maybe I had mistakenly cut a whole lot too high. She is going to grow up to be a very healthy ewe.
See this opening, this is for the last Red Door. This is from the POV of the kitchen bench. You can see why I wanted big open doors right there. (On the left of that field – to the right of our lane – is the GM free sweetcorn by the way, planted very handily.)
OK now we are crossing the line and standing in the field, in the sweetcorn rows, looking back to the front of the house.
If you look very hard you will see the red doors on the far right. Getting their finishing touches from the Kiwi Builder.
Good morning. Isn’t it great that this tree survived the excavation. The tree is a very important part of this space. Landscaping this area will be interesting, I am thinking of building a HaHa – a kind of raised lawn with a little supporting wall. That could be interesting.
Anyway, I am thinking out loud now, we are still a ways from a new garden. I have enough to do weeding the existing ones. It is 6 am and time for me to get busy.
I hope you all have a lovely day today.
your friend celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
32 responses to “Charlotte and Sheila have some time out”
hi c! will charlotte have to be kept separate from sheila after she has the babies? the coupe is looking great. we had a wonderful rain last night and now all of my gardens are watered thoroughly. i had never heard of a haha before. a very interesting concept! have a great day! joyce
Good morning Celi very nice post loved all the pics . the pigs are troublesome at times ;if they are allowed to test your patience. The updates on the coupe is great nice to see the progress.tired this morning the weather man changed his mind so i had to put up hay early.
have a blessed day mike
Hi Celi.. how you make my day with your cheerful stories of the farmy… and the coupe is really looking good.. get that kiwi fellow moving I can’t wait to see the finished product…
When you don’t know any better, it’s so easy to look at farm animals and think there’s not a lot going on. Your wonderful pictures and accompanying stories prove otherwise.
Oh, those animal antics! I can just imagine what’s going on in Sheila’s little piggy mind. And I would not be happy to find headless asparagus! I love the idea of a raised lawn in front of the Coupe and laughed to learn what this is called. At first, my granddaughter Shelby called my husband Ha-Ha, when she couldn’t pronounce the “P” in “Papa.” Now, she that she can say Papa, she alternates. It’s pretty funny! Have a wonderful day! We are installing two bee packages today. I know, we are a month late! But we couldn’t get a package until now, and we have drawn comb in the hives, so we are hoping for the best…
Such a lovely photo of buds in the header, Celi.
Seems our farmy animals are like naughty children – always getting up to mischief – like we were any different!
I feel super guilty now that I lay in bed until 7am this morning! It is getting really chilly so that’s my excuse.
Have a beautiful day C.
🙂 Mandy xo
Animal instincts coming to the fore: perhaps Sheila already feels she is the maiden aunt about whom nobody will make a fuss? And Tilly either has pretensions of becoming a gourmet or is a health nut like some I know 🙂 ! And I love the idea of a ha-ha except for the fact that I have managed to stumble into more than one surrounding ditch in England [haven’t seen one in Oz!] : probably one too many G&Ts on a Sunday afternoon . . . oh that coupe looks beautiful . . .
What delightful naugtynesses 🙂 Love the ha-ha idea, wish we could have invisible walls! Is Charlotte Ok, she has seemed listless of late, or just weighed down by pregnancy? I have just discovered a blooming volunteer tomato plant in my garden (first ever) and Jack Frost is due to visit any day now 😦 Laura
What a delightful post, replete with the pictures!
Reading the post, I can envision so many possibilities which Sheila and Charlotte could choose. How could you support them in that?
Shakti
Love the lines of the coupe :-).
All sisters need time apart…hormones make it worse. Trust me on this…;)
Just love how the coupe is coming along! Do you know when Charlotte is due? Are her nipples getting bigger? That was a sure sign with our Roxie!
who could ever have a bad day after reading your post. It always makes me smile at the antics of your farm inhabitants…lovely – jubley!
Were you affected by the big storm, a tornado I think it was……
What bad animals! Pigs not talking and sheep eating the cash crops. I bet those peahens have been giving Tilly ideas 😉