MINUS NINE

Yes 15F is -9C. In other words – a wee bit chilly. Luckily my animals are a tough bunch. I look forward to carrying many buckets of warm water today! Being an adult immigrant means that I am always doing mental equations. Our brains have a foot in either country. Fahrenheit to Celsius. Pounds to Kilograms. Ounces to Grams. Miles to Kilometers. And so on.

When I feed Jude his vegetables Boo and I stand guard so the roosters and cats don’t steal the baby’s food. Those roosters are a menace. They might be great mousers those roosters – I often see one running past with a mouse in his beak ( usually being chased by the others as mice are a delicacy) – but they are terrible thieves.

Boo is watching that food dish very carefully. It is looking perilously close to the edge of the bale. And anything that falls out of the dish Boo is allowed to clean up. Fighting for food makes pigs eat more, this is one of the many problems with raising little pigs alone, so I also pretend to be after his food by shoving him about a bit at feed time – he works hard to keep my hand behind him – twisting this way and that, and eating faster.

Jude has quite the appetite and is very quickly putting on serious winter fat. He loves sweet potatoes and bananas and bread and pasta and peas the most. Typical baby! I feed him small bowls of solids four times a day and his bottle of rice and goats milk three times a day.

My new weather format gives you the temperature outside as I write in the morning as well as the forecast. It is Ridiculously cold this morning.

I am going to work on Jude’s new bedroom today. His new game is pushing all his bedding out of his baby crate – not a clever pig- time for him to move into his big piglet quarters. This area is a tiny creep room Fede and I built years ago in anticipation of Tima’s piglets that never came. He can push his bedding all around that space but still be in a warm area. And his heat lamp will be more secure.

So I am going to adjust that opening for a bigger piglet today and let him play in there for the day while I watch for the problems. Then I will let in the pet pigs and wait for the next set of challenges.

If it does not work I will take him back to his baby bed without too much trouble and rethink it.

I hope you have a good day!

Celi

Hmm