Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. Today, Bart and I spent hours with potatoes - harvesting, lugging crates, and spray washing. The weather and soil conditions have conspired to promote slug infestations, so the whole potato patch had become a slug feast. Washing potatoes is not my favourite job - mainly because I am drenched at the end of it - but I reward myself by feeding the rotten ones to the pigs. I love feeling like their best friend when they all rush over to nick their share of the food. We have so many piglets on the farm now, I was kind of intimidated by the inundation of squeals and yelps that greeted me and my basket of rotten potatoes. Lesson of the day: never come between a pig and his food.
We have several breeds of pigs on the farm. While many farmers in England pride themselves on raising pure rare breed livestock, others are beginning to interbreed a few types of rare lines to build up larger populations that are more robust. The farm currently has some lop-eared varieties (whose ears flap all over the place when they run!) and pink-and-black saddlebacks.
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. - Winston Churchill
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