An early Christmas present

I had two jobs yesterday. The first was to hand-deliver three Christmas cards to our neighbours and the second was to collect some tinned cat food from the vet. So why was it that I managed to return home in under an hour with a stray pig?

Things were fine when I delivered the first card, but on reaching the farm with the second card, I heard a familiar voice. The lady farmer wanted to give me her card to save herself a bit of time later. She is always busy and I was happy to wait while she popped indoors. Exchanging cards, we stood outside and chatted and she told me about a pig that had been dumped at the neighbouring farm down in the valley. She got a message saying one of her pigs must have escaped, but when she checked, they were both safe and sound.

Lots of calls were made, but no owner could be found and in fact, the pig doesn’t have any obligatory ear tags either. Although they had grown fond of her there, her presence was upsetting their horses and she had been offered to the lady farmer. Only, as she confessed to me yesterday, one of her pigs was a bit of a bully and she was worried about introducing a new one. Which is where I stepped in and said we would be happy to take her.

And so, we took delivery of a black and white KuneKune pig about six hours ago. Our llamas and goats aren’t impressed, but they lived with our previous pig until she died at the age of 20 a few years ago. They will all be fine in a day or two.

The image featured above was taken in London a few years ago. I’ve been desperate to get back up there with my Olympus OM2n, but once again, there is a lot of flu and Covid around and I don’t feel that travelling would be safe. Anyway, I’m going to be rather busy over the next couple of weeks…