On the loose.
Hugo and I made a dash for the feed store and the the grocery store (which was not as successful as I remember – it has been so long since I was in the supermarket that they have changed everything around.) So I lost more than I found anything and of course Hugo is a label reader. Which is good of course.
I dropped him off at the farm with the bags then went back out to return the big car to town and on my arrival home I found the gate to the kunekune field OPEN (with huge harvesters in the field only feet away) and both pigs gone. Hugo found Tane in the field cleaning up after the harvest and I found Tima in the shed ripping bags of feed open as fast as she could! 
We got them both back under lock and key and after unpacking all the groceries, and tidying the kitchen I set about making Megan’s last dinner – Mama’s Lasagna with aubergine and tomatoes from the garden ( I snuck in a layer of pan fried kale and grated beetroot which was a divine, if surprising, addition), and a bechamel sauce made with my own cream and then of course the ricotta.
So I was happily constructing the Dinner singing to myself when Poppy burst through the screen doors. POPPY! Yes a Sow. A big pig. Wild eyed and Covered in cow shit (I could be nice and say cow manure but it does not have the same ring as cow shit and pigs LOVE to roll in it.) 
A pig coming INTO the Kitchen. I called (with some urgency) for Hugo again and we shepherded a very tired and confused pig in high and hysterical Heat back to the barn where Sheila slept oblivious. Much later I found where Poppy had gone through the field to the other side of the barn, picked the lock of one of the big barn doors, gone through the milking shed like a dose of salts, knocking over every bucket, heaved bales of hay aside and eventually escaped into the yard. I am so glad she has a fondness for the kitchen verandah because that is where she ended up. Of course now she and Sheila are locked down even tighter where they cannot possibly get out.
Poor Manu must have been hiding on the other side of his hill hoping he would not be discovered.
Poppy will go to the boar in January, we do not want piglets born into the freezing cold, it will kill them,and i do not have a warm room, so Poppy has to wait a few more months – though preferably not in my kitchen!
I hope you have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
52 responses to “The Day of Pigs”
Poor Poppy, trying to solve an urgent problem. I knew a dog that loved rolling in shit, any kind of poop. It was horrible!!
What a crazy day you had.
Cow shit is the only way to describe it. I have a peg on my nose… Oh wait now! It is the smell from the farmers round about at their muck spreading. Hormones> Who would have them?
oh my goodness……too funny and the images provoked are just hilarious!
This is one for the books. In the Trib this morning is an article about China’s genetically altered pigs who top out at 39 pounds. Maybe I should cut it out and send it to Poppy to read…..her the riot act! And those rascals T&T too.
You had quite a day!
I laughed, too, but mostly sympathized because of all the time it takes from an already busy and tiring day! Still, I think the very funniest line is the ‘now she and Sheila are locked down even tighter where they cannot possibly get out.’ If Poppy gets a chance to read that, she’ll take it as a challenge and stop at nothing to do it again and let all the others out with her!
HAHAHA! Do you ever wish your life was less of an adventure? Nah, me neither!
This made me laugh out loud! Tima ripping open the seed bags, hahahaha!! Oh and dear Poppy!Poopy Poppy.
Hilarious. Good thing you were wise enough to not keep the goats.
romper room days!
Herding cats, hah… amateurs! Never a dull moment with those pigs.
I hate it when they change the supermarket and I can just put my hand to the items I want, plus I too am a label reader and they tend to be like a train wreck I can’t ignore… look at what’s in this! even if I’d never buy it.
Oh, what a busy time you’ve had with the pigs – similar like little kids, isn’t it? Here, there, everywhere you have to check all around you… Phew! It’s kinda carousel!
A pig in the kitchen! It’ll be normal when you cook something porky… And with cow shit. No. What does Poppy think? She has no education at all, has she? – I wonder if cow shit has some healing stuff in, so that’s why pigs love it so much… Oh, poor Celi, what a mess. She could have run out to the street also, what a thought…. – But all is well now, because all is locked up tight. Have a nice evening! Mmmmmh, that Lasagna……
Oh that is too funny – of course they’re not MY pigs on the lam! i can imagine the fun you had trying to get Tima AWAY from the feed bags.
I haven’t checked in on you in a while and I can see things are just as exciting and fun as ever! Next time you need to take a camera shot before you kick her out of the kitchen. That would have been QUITE a calendar shot! ha
There’s an exciting day for y’all!