PIGLET IN HIS BED

As piglet neared the end of his third day he found himself totally alone. All his family had died one way or the other. A resilient wee fellow he decamped to the pile of my dirty farm clothes. They smelt right I guess.

Gathered over the course of the last few days these clothes had the scents of his mother, his brother, his birthplace, his milk, himself and me.

You can see my jacket, a couple of T shirts a few dry floor rags and my favorite work skirt. The green bag was made for me by my friend Kim and along with a wooly hat he was transported home in it, from the abattoir, so it carried many important scents.

So I used some of the clothing to make up his new bed. Lining a basket with thick warm fabrics. ( there are advantages to being behind on the laundry).

Something was missing so I added a small wooly mammoth from the toy box and Blue Bear. Can you see Piglet in there? Tucked right down between them.

Babies need to be kept extra warm especially a piglet who spent the first night of his life on cold concrete in an outside pen, surrounded in tall steel bars – so that skirt of mine ( that I have been wearing for about 15 years now yet retains its denim stiffness) comes up like a cover over the whole basket with just piglets head sticking out a tiny bit. So all the cuddly toys are toasty wArm.

The heater is right next to the whole comfy mess. The laundry room is small and has no exterior windows so us very warm.

He gets himself out to go to the toilet then goes back to bed and manages to climb back into the basket, crawl across my laundry and wriggle back down between blue bear and the woolly mammoth as though they have been saving him that very spot.

He loves the toys on either side of him. It’s how piglets all sleep together – lined up like sausages. Snug.

Though I have fed him a little hot goats milk at least every hour for his first 48 hours or whenever he calls out, ( with a little baby cereal added to the milk – thank you V) last night we went down to feeds every 2 hours. I set my alarm and slept hard between feeds. He very quickly learnt the sound of the phone alarm and was up and calling at the door as I started heating his milk. All good signs.

It is cool this morning and raining – cold hard rain. Cold hard tears.

The rain is great for our cover crops that are all up and growing. This ( below) was all sunflowers only a few months ago.

I am sure the ducks are thrilled to bits.

The ducks will be standing in the barn peering out through the slats in their gate, looking out at the dark rain, waiting for everyone to finish laying today’s eggs ” hurry up, hurry up, you are always such a slow layer! Where is miss c!! ” then as the dawn light rises, and I open up their gate, out they will stream into their favorite playground – a wet world.

Piglet is warm and dry though. He is not out of the woods yet but So far. So good.

I hope you have a good day.

Celi

You will see that in the screenshot of the weather ( below) – in the top left hand corner of the screen is the temperature of right now as I write. Another interesting piece of data we will gather.