Happy talk, keep talking happy talk, Talk about things you’d like to do, You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream, How you gonna have a dream come true?
Do you remember South Pacific? When we were very young my Mum and Dad took us to see the musical. I never forgot it. I was in love… with Bloody Mary. My mother was not entirely approving of my choice. Though I never understood why for quite some time. Still, I have also been known to ‘wash that man right out of my hair!’ A sentiment she did approve of.
Like a real life soundtrack the lyrics have cycled through my head all my life. Except I always remembered the first line of Bloody Mary’s song as Happy, Happy , Happy, Happy talk. So I have rewritten it. Sometimes it is the right time to talk happy, it works you know.
And you’ve got to have a dream, if you don’t have a dream, how will you know when that dream comes true?
I always dreamt of having a little farm and living all day with the animals in the gardens.
Dreams can be hard work.
But worth the work. We all need a dream. One we can achieve. Developing a sustainable, self sufficient, simple life is one of my dreams.
We grow more than piglets though you know.
We also grow shade!
We have finished cutting a very heavy field of the good hay. It was thick and so tall after all this rain, that the cutting took a long time and is rough in patches. Day One of drying commences today. Hopefully three good hot days will do it. And we will bale it on the fourth or fifth. Fingers crossed the weather holds for us…
John cutting the last strip last night.
Good morning. I hope you are going to have a lovely day. Thank you all for your wonderful support and generous comments, I gain so much information from your writing in the Comments Lounge and do appreciate it. So you may all rest assured that you are also actively involved in my dream. And essential to its success. You are part of The Kitchen’s Garden Farm.
Ok, it is 5.30 am. Dawn is here. Time to get to work.
your friend, celi.
The Kitchen's Garden 
79 responses to “Happy Talk Farmy Days”
Oh my gosh
I’m first. Your garden looks stunning, and I just want to reach through the screen and touch those silky piglets, when Charlotte is not looking of course. Good night Celi
NI NI my sister.. c
Good morning Celi the pics of the piglets are great the hay being cut is a good thing . i will keep you and john in our prayers. is that kale? how ever it is spelled? our gardens are large but the plants are doing poorly for the first planting after breaking ground you would thing that it would be better? oh well Gods in charge . have a blessed day mike
in New Zealand we call is silverbeet!.. Tell Honey to get her fertiliser machine busy that will sort the garden out. My Dad used to say you should plant each tomato in a cow pat. Though I never have! c
Your Silverbeet looks like Swiss Chard. I’ll have to look it up later as those look yummy and we love greens here! I just set out 18 Chard plants last night. The piggies look great. Isn’t it amazing how fast they become very mobile and into everything? Okay. Now Michael is saying he’s going to go around and scoop up all the cow patties! A lovely mental pic for your day! 😀 Hope you have a great one, Celi!
oops sorry!! c
Wonderful post 🙂
Contentment is such a lovely feeling.
there are lots of reasons i could never do what you do but one reason is because i would spend my entire day playing with piglets. i think i would have to dress them up too!
I do find it hard not to scoop one up when they come so close. But their Mama is watching me!! and I promised you all I would be good! c
I could run a farm just to have baby piglets 😉
So you could.. they are fattening up too which is good. Charlotte is eating like a Mother Pig now! c
Excellent!
They are so adorable! My cucumbers have just started to flower. Hope I get some.
My cucumbers were terrible last year so I am hoping they perform a bit better this year.. i want pickles!! c
Hi Celi, still on my travels and only catching up sporadically so just reading about the new piglets now. Sad to hear about number nine but thrilled and amazed at how much the wee piglets have already grown by day three, their little bellies are filling out and they look so silky, a testament to Charlottes great mothering. It has been fascinating to hear about her mothering skills, particularly her defence of her newborns. My pig Baby will farrow sometime in August so I am tucking away all this knowledge gained from you and Charlotte so please keep it coming. I wanted to know how much space Char and her piglets have in their pen? I love how Char sends her wee ones away then calls them back when she is down and would like to make sure I give Baby enough room to do the same thing if she is so inclined. It is hard to see how the rail escape thing will work with lots of straw in the pen as my pigs seem to push all the straw up against the fence when they are lying down and I can see the rail escape area would get full of straw rather than escaping piglets. By the by did Char build her nest before the piglets came? Loving the picture of Big Dog in the shade, everything is so fecund at your place at the moment.
There you are .. hope all is well on your travels. to quickly answer before you disappear again. No she did not build a nest, the pen she chose was two rooms with the big outdoor door along one side that I opened again today. So altogether it is about 10 foot by 12 I suppose (though what that is in metres I cannot remember.) Two grown men could lie end to end across the length of it and one a half men along the other side with a half wall running along the middle, The room that was set up with railings has been ignored.. If there is too much straw the piglets burrow in and she can stand on them by mistake. I think this is what happened to Number Nine, I saw it happen to another one, though he just squealed and ran off.. so initially I would cut down on the amount of straw. But so far we have got away with my somewhat rudimentary quarters and i am sure real pig farmers would be appalled at seeing four day old (almost) piglets running about the outside yard now! She just called them all in though and they are back behind the half wall having breakfast. Have fun. Great to hear from you.. c
You are the real pig farmer, letting your wee animals run around Is as good as it gets. I have been in the UK and have seen huge fields full of pigs that can sleep eat and roll around in the sun, it is such a refreshing change from Australia where at best pigs are raised in huge barns with no real room to behave in a naturally piggy way. Sigh.
Greetings from back home my lovely neighbour, Can’t wait for your piglets to come Joy
Love the photos! Those piggies are too cute.
Oh my gosh, what I wouldn’t give to be your intern for a few weeks. Of course, I may be worthless help unless you have a training tactic to keep me away from all the animals. I can get attached to a critter in 1.5 seconds. Like the old woman who lived in a shoe, I’d have so many critters I wouldn’t know what to do.
Anytime just let me know, though I am more likely to learn that teach.. c
What a lovely garden Celi, such lush vegetation. I’ve often had dreams to grow a variety of vegetables, but alas I just don’t have the space.
I know what you mean about happy talk; I heard once that if you force a smile, you will get happy. Today I’m going to smile at a total stranger and I shall be thinking of you
You are on! I will share a great big smile too and think – that ones for Eva! c
I’m Crossing my fingers for you. Funny how dreams change over time… I’m formulating one (or two or three) stronger and stronger every day.
That is true, dreams do change and grow as we do..beautiful.. c
For three mornings running now, Angel has run to my office, climbed into my lap, and demanded to see the piggies…any typo’s this morning are because she’s ‘helping’ me write 😉 They’re putting on weight so quickly!
Great post. I love Bloody Mary, too. Think I picked out characters that I wanted to play from a very young age. Even at 10, I knew Ado Annie would be more fun than Laurie! (Oklahoma).
Have a great day, C…
OKlahoma.. that is amazing. That was another record we played all the time as kids, (plus Porgy and Bess and South Pacific) at one point I could sing the complete scores of all of them!! (in a car singing voice of course!) I always wanted a surrey with a fringe on top and here i am out in the corn!! what a wonderful coincidence! c
The first time I went to a hairdresser in in the US I asked for my fringe to be cut and the woman just stared at me! I was then told it is called ‘bangs’ over here (why???) and they had no idea what a fringe was, so I ended up singing ‘surrey with a fringe on top’ to try to explain! LOL
fantastic.. i can just see it! .. I always think of bangers (and mash) when I hear the word bangs! we are hopeless!
The lighting in the third and last photos…oh, my rural heart. Love those images.
I cannot believe how far advanced your crops/flowers are compared to here in Minnesota. My zinnias are only just beginning to emerge from the soil. Tomatoes are not even blossoming yet. Such a difference just by being this much further north.
Your photos today make me particularly happy and hopeful.
Lovely pictures, lovely happy post. I aim to stay positive, even though I am droopy like a rag doll at the moment. Here’s to happy talk!