Moving day

Okay David, just take five piglets up the ramp, along the track, around the corner and through the gate. It couldn’t be simpler, could it?

Except that now David and I have 10 piglets in front of us, one is tucked under my arm and one has managed to get behind us. Delilah, the sow, had already happily followed the Other Half and the feed bucket straight out to the new pen.

Now we have all of them, can we just swing them around the corner before they decide to join Graham and Doris…

Phew! Delilah and litter are reunited but we still need to get them up the hill and through the gate. Graham has a good look at the piglets as they pass by.

Yes! Delilah and piglets explore their new home. Actually, it was nowhere near as easy as this but we got there after a bit of fun and several escape attempts.

Oooh! This looks interesting.

Spreading the old bedding straw over the areas of the pen that tend to poach when the ground is wetter.

Many thanks to Shirley and David who came over to lend a hand again. With their help we were able to build the temporary races needed to move the piglets, move the piglets and remove the top of the ark to clean out the old bedding.

They also helped us dismantle the races and pack everything away, lift the horseradish (not an easy task), earth up the garlic bulbs which have been sprouting early, dig one of the garden beds and do some tidying around the vegetable patch.

Their help today on top of the work done by our previous helpers meant that we had about 95% of our holiday tasks accomplished on time - a result we’d be very happy with if we’d managed it on our own.

So, a big thanks again to Shirley and the helpers she found for us - David, Carol, Paula and Andrew. It did make a big difference and the help was much appreciated,