More piglets expected

Doris, our third Berkshire gilt, has been brought in to the farrowing pen as she bagged up abruptly this afternoon and has begun panting - all signs of an impending birth.
Her earliest due date was today and, while she’s fairly large, had appeared to be at least a few days off farrowing when checked this morning and again just after lunch.

But by 5pm, her udders had dropped markedly to the point that they were visible between her rear legs (”bagging up” as it’s known).

Wanted: a double bed!

With my mum coming to stay for a few months from June we’ve been looking for a cheap or free double bed that can be sufficiently broken down to carried upstairs and low enough to fit under the eaves.

But after weeks of scouring ScotAds, we were getting nowhere while no one has offered a double bed on Freecycle for a while.

I did post a Wanted notice on AberdeenshireWest Freecycle, but that prompted a message from the moderator advising people not to reach for the moon.

Forced labour for immigrants

Gordon Brown’s latest scheme is aimed fairly and squarely at gaining the votes of Britain’s bigots, while gaining a free source of labour for the Government’s “community work”.

The Chancellor favours requiring migrants to the UK to do free community work for the people they’ll be living alongside and so “prove” they can contribute to society.

He also wants some form of trial citizenship and envisages citizenship being a contract that could be revoked if people didn’t stick to their side of it. (Nothing about what happens if the government or British society fails to stick to their side, though.)

Snowing again

Temperatures plummeted abruptly yesterday evening as I quickly discovered when I went out at 10pm to find my wellies frozen together and my damp overalls turned into boards.

I came in to tell the Other Half to expect a frost in the morning, but was just in time to catch the end of the news with the weather forecaster predicting a band of cold, moist air moving in from the Atlantic and over the north of Scotland.

Cold, moist air meeting sub-zero temperatures could mean only one thing - snow.