How things change in a year!

Today is my blog’s first birthday and the 12 months since I sat with Jennie in her sitting room setting up the blog seem to have flown by. So much so, that it’s only by looking back at the photos from the past year that I’m reminded of how much has happened and changed in the last year.

As you’d expect (I hope!), for me, those changes are best illustrated by the impact that the pigs and I have had on the field.

This is how it looked when I drove down to south Wales one rainy day last August to build the pig arks before moving the herd down:

Jo (and Snipe!) hard at work building a pig ark - 22 August 2008

Now, that part of the field looks like this:

The field - 27 August 2009

I know I haven’t completely eradicated the Himalayam Balsam or the bracken, but we’re getting there!

I just can’t get over the difference a year makes. Well, one year and an immeasurable amount of hard work… It feels good

Looking back at (a sunny) July 2008

I seem to have lost my blogging mojo so I thought I’d post some photos from last year, back when the sun was something warm, comforting and familiar, not a distant memory like it has been this July!

Midge - 1 July 2008

Bailey and Queenie - 4 July 2008

Brini - 20 July 2008

Captain Flint and pals - 20 July 2008

Harold and family - 21 July 2008

Scrumpy, Tia, Stella and Brusco - 22 July 2008

Snipe, Midge and Teal - 29 July 2008

The view from Mum's front gate - 29 July 2008

Maybe August will see the sun return – and with it, my blogging inspiration!

Looking back

It’s been a while since I posted any photos from our year living at my mother’s smallholding in West Wales, so I thought I’d break my blogging silence (no reason, just busy) with some of my favourites pics. There are quite a few, sorry about that!

The view from mum's front gate - 8 April 2008

The view from mum's front gate - 15 April 2008

The view from mum's front gate - 17 April 2008

The ponies, pigs and chickens all get their breakfast - 29 April 2008

Snipe decided to help us replace the guttering - 29 April 2008

Queenie - 4 May 2008

The view from mum's front gate - 5 May 2008

Tia and Bob decide to use the entrance to the chickens' yard and house as the perfect snoozing place - 8 May 2008

Shutterfly the Section A yearling meets Stella the Kune Kune - 10 May 2008

Stella makes the perfect wallow - 10 May 2008

Some of mum's Section A mares and foals - 13 May 2008

Ted, mum's Section A stallion - 13 May 2008

April showers… or April snow?

It’s all about the rain this week (and then some!) but last year it was a bit cold for rain, so we experienced some April snow!

Fog on 4 April 2008

Frost on 6 April 2008

Snow on 7 April 2008

It's snow joke if you're a newborn foal!

Midge didn't leave the concrete path all day!

Snipe and Teal loved it and spent the day acting like puppies!

Snoring like… pigs!

This is the photo of my Kune Kunes last year:

The Kune Kunes - 27 March 2008

Tia’s the one at the back, with Scrumpy on the left and Stella on the right.

They stayed like that for hours. In fact, they only woke up when I went to check that they were, in fact, asleep…!

Animal-tastic

Another round of photos from last year when we lived at mum’s:

The view from Mum's yard gate - 17 March 2008

Ted meets the Kune Kunes - 17 March 2008

Mac - 17 March 2008

Albert and Victoria - 17 March 2008

A typical March day

Gray skies and gloomy atmosphere that hint at heavy rain that’s been but will be back and yet, in a startlingly contrast to the same conditions throughout the winter, there’s a sudden fresh greenness in the fields, a sense of hope and renewal.

The view from Mum's yard gate - 14 March 2008

That’s how it looked last year and I don’t suppose it looks any different this year.

March is so predictable, and yet I get taken by surprise every time. I swear there’s more mud in the pigs’ field now than there was at any point during the winter!!

Hopefully, we’ve got some sunshine for the next few days to dry things out as I want to dig my veggie garden!!!!

Pigs in the sun

Some more photos of my Kune Kunes from last year:

Stella - 11 March 2008

Tia - 11 March 2008

Scrumpy - 11 March 2008

I still can’t get over how much Tia has changed in twelve months. In the photo above she looks so scrawny and unkept… bless her!

Ugly pig!

Not the most flattering photo of Stella in the world!

Stella - 7 March 2008

Scrumpy, Tia and Stella: outdoors at last!

Last year, after a tough couple of days persuading my new Kune Kunes that they couldn’t go outside until they stopped squabbling, I gave in and let them out in the sunshine after being woken at sunrise by Stella in the garden, who had smashed open the shed door (well, pallet*) and the garden gate to make her point.

So, I moved Vicky and Albert out of the old chicken run and into the field, on the grounds that, being bucket trained and used to going out every morning for their breakfast and coming back in at dusk for their tea, it was a lot more likely that I’d get them back than the Kunes, and put said terrible trio in the chicken run (still called that after a decade without any chickens).

It was such a gorgeous day, I don’t blame them for wanting to get out into the sunshine!

Scrumpy and Tia stretch out in the sun - 4 March 2008

Not a very flattering photo of Stella - 4 March 2008

* Said pallet was thereafter reinforced by tying two big concrete blocks to its base. They tried and tried but could no longer lift it!