I have a new phone – this in itself is not particularly interesting unless we need to go into the kicking and fighting I did trying not to have to succumb to another phone. I liked my old phone. However now I have a proper fancy phone and it has this very interesting button that you press and it tells you how many miles you have walked that day with your phone in your pocket. 
Yesterday I walked 7.01 miles (11.28k) before dinner. Not bad really. Most of this walking was aimless wandering trying to remember why I was walking where I was walking in the first place.
It also has a very nice camera which I am trying to learn how to use. 
Look at the sweetcorn, we might be eating it by next week! I hope our new Volunteer (who arrives later today) likes sweetcorn.
But first a piglet shot.
This is the most achingly beautiful shot. I wish the wee girl had been in focus but still it portrays the fragility of life and the guileless confidence that we use to navigate it. It is still very dim in the nursery but this dimness (though not good for the images we crave) is working to the babies advantage. Poppy (so far) is very calm, she sleeps and feeds a lot gently grunting and the babies are quickly learning to hug the walls when she is up. If I see that she has risen and is eating I quickly give her the prepared eggs and milk and fill her feed bowl and water bowl back to the top, I have never let these run out so she is never hungry. And I never fill them at the usual feed times or if she is lying down. She barks loudly at the babies when she is about to get up. And like Charlotte she lies down away from them then calls them over to feed. With her pen totally boxed in, meaning she cannot see out at all, there is none of that jumping up and down. Flailing those hooves like knives like Charlotte did. The floor is covered in shavings bot straw. All the big doors are shut. All is quiet.
I am going to keep her locked down like this for a number of days yet. Not only does she need to learn to move with babies underfoot but they need to learn to get out of the way. And if it is working there is no need to change it, they have a huge pen. So far so good.
Did I tell you that one of the chicks that hatched on the 4th is pure white. Another Godot.
Dear raggedy Godot. Almost time to change the guard. I will get Amanda our new girl to help me release Godot and bring Mr Flowers into the Peacock Palace for a break.
Sheila my favourite pig in mud!
The new boar is still in his small pen, but is waiting quietly, he seems a very content lad. When I am sure he will come when I call he can come out into the field to graze a bit each day.
The peachicks are under their Table Mother. Yesterday Lady Astor was bred by the Lady Vet we will know in three weeks if this took. In August she will come back and breed Aunty Del. Things just keep moving along. And I actually got to sleep last night.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm,
celi
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
58 responses to “Miles in a Day”
Oh, oh – the sunflowers bloom! Already! Mine on my balcony are so small and so behind in their development, because our June was all so bloody cold (between 50 and 60F). Now that we have several days in a row between 90 and 100°F my poor little ones maybe get a heat shock. I have 80°F right now in my living room and it’s 10 p.m.! Thanks god it will be a little bit cooler towards the end of the week (they say between 60 and 65). What a terrible wheather we have all over the world.
Your telephone idea is great! 11,28k – like a long distance runner. So you’ve earned your dinner indeed very well yesterday!
And that: “trying to remember whyI was walking where I was walking in the first place” is a very well known phenomenon to me, too. 🙂
Oh, and that tiny little piglets! They seem so small in relation to their mom… a handful of a piggy only. – And a beautiful white pea-chick. Love it.
So many things are going on at your farm……. Thank you for your lovely post.
Have a nice afternoon and evening, too, Celi.
By the look of Godot’s tail he is ready for a rest! 😆 I join in the chorus of how cute the piglets are, Glad to hear that poppy is calm and eating well to provide nourishment for her babies. Welcome to the Smart Phone club. Mine is almost two years old now and I would not be without it. I like the colouring of the barn swallow. Hope you sleep well again tonight, Celi.
Smartphones take great photos (except the one I currently have), that and the Kindle app is their redeeming features in my opinion. All these pics are excellent but the detail of the textures in Sheila’s pic is amazing. Good times at the Farmy = happy 🙂
So good to hear that things are going well with Poppy and her piglets, cute little critters. I don’t have a smartphone, can’t say I really want one either. I’ve got enough maps in my head I don’t get lost. Have a wonderful day.
Sweet tiny babies. I had no idea piglets were so small. I kicked and screamed into the smartphone world and now I don’t know what I’d do without my iPhone.
Yup 7 miles sounds about right. I need that app! I’ve been going since 7 am. Finally dinner at 9:30 pm! Not particularly proud of that, but there’s so much to do, not enough hands and so little time. These late night summer evenings working in the garden until darkthirty are not conducive to a balanced life, but whoever said that clearly hasn’t met a farmer in July…
And loving those little piggies. Looks like Poppy is taking to motherhood.
My smartphone is a tool that helps me do business. I look up planting spacing, and other arcane farming facts. I use it to communicate with customers. I wouldn’t want to be without it. Technology can be frustrating but brings us such benefits too!
I was forced into a new, smarter phone a few months ago; now I love it, have gotten used to taken photographs, navigation, and especially enjoying checking my steps. I’ve been known to run up and down the stairs to roll over into the next 1,000, and find I walk much more since I’ve had the app.
LOVE the sunflowers, especially that first shot -and looking forward to the first of the sweet corn from our little local farm stand.
New life is so precarious and precious, no matter the form it arrives in.
Reblogged this on Sarah's Attic Of Treasures ( Will Include Posts From Our Neck Of The Woods) and commented:
A farm and animal post.
Gorgeous post .. Oh those tiny piglets, how fragile they look!
It’s about time you got some sleep! LOL Piglets are adorable.