Heebee Geebees

Herself says we get the heebee geebees when she goes near us with a measuring tape. Well I do anyway. She tells me to stop buck lepping around.   Sausage is cool about it.  She likes having her belly rubbed and when herself rubs her behind her ears she falls over on her side and closes her eyes so she looks like she's dead.

It's got cold here now.  Some mornings the hose is frozen and we don't get fresh water until afternoon.  We like the sun when it streams into our stable and we lie in it basking like whales according to herself but I'm not sure what's a whale.

There were men down our lane cutting the hedge recently.  They came and had a look in at us and laughed.  We get lots of visitors these days and they all laugh.  I'm not sure why they think we are so funny but they all say that they have never rubbed a pig before.  Then they tell her she can't eat us.  We hope herself listens.

Our laneway

Our neighbours

She has been doing a lot of muttering about a boypig for us. I'm not sure about that because from what I remember in my last place they are a bit bossy and smelly.  Plus we need to move to a new garden so we can dig it up.  We have made a right mess of this one.  It's too mucky even for us now.

Now I have spent enough time on this computer. Have lots of rooting to do today.  But I will keep all you lovely humans updated.

Rasher x

Herself's brother visited

Ready for Christmas

We know herself thinks we will be fattened and ready for Christmas.  Honestly, she thinks we are turkeys. 

We have been busy for the last few weeks sorting out our bedroom and getting it all nice and cozy for these cold nights.  Herself got us more straw. There was an old bale of hay in the corner which we opened and spread it into a nice big hollow.  We both lie in it now side by side and it's really warm and comfy. 

The food hasn't been too bad lately.  With Halloween coming up we have been getting lots of grapes.  Herself said the veg man looked a bit green handing over a big tray full of grapes.  He had reduced the price by half but they didn't sell.  So we got the lot.  We love grapes.

We still get barley - big buckets full of it.  Sausage is very greedy and sticks her big jowls into mine but I have got very good at defending myself and now she has a bit of respect for me.

We are surprised that we haven't got any spuds yet but we heard herself muttering that they can't dig them with all the rain there has been lately.  Speaking of rain, we don't get out as much anymore because we really don't like it.  In fact when herself comes down to feed us these mornings we haven't even got up and we have to do our stretching and yawning rituals (which she disturbs).

Love an old yawn and stretch

Life is really not so bad now.  We are going to keep on growing slowly and not getting fat.  This is the only way we will stay off the table at Christmas.  We will keep you posted.

Rasher.

Our Nice Friends

We have discovered that we have lots of nice friends following us on Twitter and also reading our blog.  I bet we are the first pigs ever to blog.  We are really getting the hang of it now and beginning to enjoy it.  The only problem is the mud on the keyboard from our noses causing some of the keys to stick.......

As a thank you to our lovely followers we would like to mention a few very nice people we call aunty and uncle. 

The first and most loyal is our aunty Cat.  She was the one who gave us the idea to start twittering. Then she said we should tell everyone our story.  So to aunty Cat, thank you and hope you had a lovely holiday and that Mr Don does not send anyone after you to get that photo you took of him.

Our next is uncle Lordy who even says he is going to fly over in his helicopter to rescue us before herself tries to turn us into rashers and sausages.  We heard that he did something silly on his holiday and has broken his *whispers* bottom.  We hope he gets better soon before herself does anything to us.

By the way, we would love to know what holidays are and how can Dons chase you or how can you break your bottom while you are on them?

Our next favourites are uncle and aunty Oldfarm.  They tell us all about Jemima and her babies.  We love the stories and the photos of the babies.  They also want to do something to make people aware of the horrible lives our brothers live in pig production units. 

We would love to become the spokespigs for our poor brothers who have a horrible life and don't have lots of nice aunties and uncles like we do.  So this is a small thank you to our lovely friends.  We hope you realise how happy you make two little pigs.

Feast or Famine

We are sorry we have not been keeping everyone updated lately.  We are getting nice and fat now; well Sausage is still fatter than me, but I'm catching up.  The food in this joint is for the most part not bad.  We get our barley every morning but it's the nice stuff that's a bit hit and miss.

By nice stuff we mean bananas (our new favourite), melons, grapes and pears.  We still get a few strawberries but not as many.  Our next favourites are apples, tomatoes, potatoes.  But we really don't like Broccoli, even herself says she doesn't blame us that she hates it too.  She says that when she has some of her lovely purple sprouting broccoli from her garden she will let us try it.  We are not keen on turnips, peppers, lettuce, cabbage or onions.  And worst of all - oranges and lemons.  We really can't see the point of them.

Herself got in a bit of a panic as there was no barley in the feed supplier.  She went over to get it when her daughter was at home to help her lift the bags.  It makes us laugh watching her lugging the bags up the steps and then trying to wrestle with it into the bin.  You should hear the curses - we cover our ears!

Well anyway this day she went over and Sylvester the big man in the office took her money and gave her the docket.  She drove over to the other yard and the man there walked around looking at pallets and scratching his head.  Then he rang the boss.  The boss man came down to talk to herself and said that the weather had been so bad they couldn't get in to cut the new barley.  But he thought they might have a few bags over in their other place.  He said he'd ring her next day.

To cut a long story short he got some bags in, but then told her it doesn't keep well at this time of year when it's freshly cut, so not to buy a lot of it.  He threw in two bags into her boot and the car was almost on the ground with the weight.  Herself then had no one to help lift it in.

Now she says she heard on the news that it's going to get very expensive as the weather has been so bad the harvest is poor and also they keep putting up the price of fuel.  She told us we will be eating a lot more potatoes when the potato people near by start harvesting.  She said we better get to like potato as much as melon - some chance!

We will keep you updated a bit more now as we are getting the hang of this blogging and it's making us famous!

Trespassers

We had lots of excitement over the last few days.  We woke up one morning to discover these looking in at us. They are Limousins.

They had broken out of their field and had got into the field beside us.  We couldn't figure out what they were but figured they were just big pigs that ate grass.

Then herself discovered that we were in a paddock not owned by her out laws at all!  She had to ring the farmer and ask him was it okay to leave us here.  Luckily he said, "sure what harm will they do".  He hasn't looked over the wall recently to see obviously.

Then the handsome fruit and veg man started giving our strawberries and melons and all the other nice yummy stuff to some other pigs.  He gave her yucky broccoli that had gone yellow.  She said she wouldn't give it to us.

Sausage is a lot fatter than me and she bullies me so now herself has started giving us our own bowls.  It's very confusing though because I keep thinking that Sausage's food is a lot nicer than mine and she thinks mine is nicer than hers. 

You can see how fat Sausage is in this picture.  But at least I have the bigger bowl.

We have really rooted up all the garden now and even uprooted an ash sapling. We hide in behind the rest of it when the sun is out and we get too hot.  It's nice and cool in there.

Herself says we have to get our ears pierced and tattoos on our shoulders next, but she is just waiting until she gets the stuff sent out to her in the post.  This is for her herd number and so we won't get lost or mixed up with other pigs.  We think we are going to look like punk rockers.

Our Diet

Herself says that if you eat something do you ever wonder what it has eaten?

We are pigs so we are omnivores which means we eat basically the same as herself.  We love fruit, particularly sweet fruit like plums, pears and strawberries.  We eat them first and then later the other icky vegetables like carrots and potatoes and we are not keen on cabbage or broccoli.  Herself says we remind her of small children.

We also eat barley and we really love it.  Herself adds some water to it and we fight over who can keep their head in the pot longest.  Rasher usually bites me when I am greedy.

 Herself decided she was not going to feed us pig food because it has genetically modified soya and maize in it.  It actually says it on the label.  She asked a few feed manufacturers about getting GM free but only one even researched the possibility of getting some in.  It worked out to be about 4 times the price.

We have made a right mess of the garden and it's all mucky now with the rain.  But we root about under the grass and we find slugs, worms, grubs and roots.  This is why our noses are always dirty.  Herself says that people panic when they see the mess we make of land but we actually do a lot of good.  We turn the soil around very gently, aerating it and rotivating it.

When we become *whisper* "rashers and sausages" or even pork belly or ham we will taste more gamey because of our diet.  Our meat will be darker and have more flavour.  
diet
We are very happy with our diet so far and hope herself continues to get strawberries from the nice fruit and veg man.  He knows we love strawberries now and he always tries to give her some for us.

Tags: GM free feed  Pig rearing GM free  Pigs

Our First Post

This is our first post and we are very excited about it.  When herself first suggested we write a piggy blog, we didn't have a clue what she was on about.  But then she explained to us that there are lots of small people (and not so small) who haven't a clue that rashers and sausages come from us - shudder!  So maybe we should enlighten them.

She named us Rasher and Sausage (a bit unkindly we feel) however we are happy enough with our names now.  Sausage has a curlier tail and is slightly smaller than I am.

We were born in a lovely garden centre called Caragh Nurseries near Naas, Co. Kildare where Jo was our first "herself".  We had lots of brothers and sisters also called Middle Whites and we were a bit sad to leave them, especially as the new herself arrived down with a cat box to collect us.

When we arrived to Carpenters (the name of the old man who farmed in the traditional way with a cow byre, pig sty and stalls in the old barn for the cart horse).  Herself shoved us in a stable and shut the door so we couldn't escape. We had lovely deep straw and as we were tired we cuddled down into it and fell asleep.

After a couple of days she let us out into the walled garden full of lovely long grass.  We were very happy and straight away started rooting up all the grass searching for grubs and bugs underneath.  We get very dirty noses doing this, especially as it always seems to be raining here.

Now we have settled in and have turned our garden into what looks like a rotivated field.  But we like it like that.  We have permanently dirty noses and when we eat our barley bits of mud fall into it.  We love strawberries and when we eat them the juice dribbles down leaving rivulets through our muddy snouts.

We hope to write lots more posts about our adventures now and hope you will read them and make lots of comments.  After all we don't want to become breakfast really and we hope that you will help us stay as Rasher and Sausage.

Tags: Free Range Pigs  Middle White Pigs  Pig Farming