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This week



The seven piglets are now a week old. Out and about running around, play fighting and looking cute they are time wasters watching their antics.Plastic tape has been put up between the sows enclosures to stop the piglets running into the black sows enclosure. Sandy is a good mum, a little clumsy with her brood. While I distracted her farmer J was able to catch the four males which have now been castrated.



The donkeys have been moved to autumn pasture next to the pigs, they have been trying to befriend our 2nd gite guests by standing at the fence braying loudly (and early). Chewing bark of the trees and trying their hardest to get into the chicken barn and let the chickens out it was time to move them on.




The veggie patch is in need of serious weeding (again). Not so many tomatoes this year with a lot damaged in the storm we had, hence the marks on them, once these have been cut out they still taste pretty good. The haricot blanc have been picked and stored just before the rain came. Borlotto beans are beginning to dry on the pods ready for winter soups and casseroles.





Work around the farm has meant moving a fallen tree from one of the fields ready to be chopped into logs and stacked for drying for next year and beyond. Last years wood piles of chestnut and oak were collected and stacked in the dry next to the house ready for us to use once the evenings start turning chilly. Enough kindling from the offcuts of fence posts made in the early summer have also been stored, all of which is very dry to should have no excuses for lighting a fire.

Our dear children headed back on Friday and Saturday to take over looking after the farm while Farmer J and I  have a short break away. This meant putting in place enough food (for animals and children), moving fencing for cows to move to new pasture, writing instruction lists of feeding and husbandry, including emergency contacts. Things get a bit more complicated when you have animals!

Our break away to a small village on the Lot river (about 2hrs away so do able if we need to get back for an emergency ) will be a break we are really in need of. I have my holiday reading, the weathers planned to be not that great but just to be somewhere different with a break from the routine will be lovely.


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