Winder Hall Blog

It’s about time I blogged again and the other night I was inspired. Apologies for the drivel but I’m 39 today and feel entitled to some pre-dementia waffle. It can only be down-hill from here which brings me neatly to my passion for fell-running:

This year’s running has been a bit of a disaster. My winter training didn’t happen as I was struck down with man-cold… for four months. As a consequence I haven’t really raced at all apart from a disastrous week-end in Scotland in June. Enough said about that I think.

Here’s a picture of me racing on a good day …. May 2005 if you must know!

However, in spite of a lack of racing success, I have been on the fells quite a lot this last couple of months and have a new slim-line digital camera to take with me from today (it’s my birthday). Watch this space for fantastic sun-sets and my favourite bits of Lakeland.

What’s the point of the story anyway, I hear you ask?

Well I was inspired whilst jogging up my local; Hope Beck. The heather slopes of the beck were bathed in the warm orange glow of pre-dusk sunshine and after a month of rain and generally crappy weather, the water was crystal clear, gushing loudly over small rock-falls. The craggy outline of Hobcarton, my evening’s destination loomed above me and for the first time in ages stood proud in the evening sky.  There were still some big grey clouds to add atmosphere, but they were for the moment, on the other side of the valley.

Anyway, I thought to myself whilst panting away, I am truly lucky to live here, I love it, I don’t want to live anywhere else and I can run up these hills whenever I want… well… as long as I don’t have to do something else. Freeeeedom!

Wilma’s first attempt to reach cyberspace involves standing on her feed bucket.

Well since my last blog, Wilma the celebrity pig, has been in print (Times & Star), on air (BBC Radio Cumbria) and has finally made it into cyber-space, care of Natalie Mace of the BBC! There’s lots of photos of Bramble and Wilma and I’m afraid to report I make a brief appearance. As ever, I wasn’t clean-shaven for the photo but I was clean.

Natalie’s written a great article so if you’ve got time, visit the BBC Radio Cumbria web-site at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/articles/2007/04/19/porkorpet_feature.shtml

You’ll be asked to vote on “pet or pork” and when I last looked, five votes had been cast. The vast majority of votes have been for the least serious option of Farmer’s Weekly Centre-fold. Sadly her hams aren’t anything to look at but that’s why she’s the runt of the litter.

With Wilma in cyber-space it does however look like Wilma’s brief brush with fame is now at an end. On the plus side, Wilma has spent today with her brothers and sisters in the paddock. And after all, running about with other piglets, digging up the ground, wallowing in mud, eating and sleeping is really what being a pig is all about.

PS - I’ve been looking around the web for other porky blogs, so if you’re into pigs why not try Neil’s blog at http://www.numberonepig.co.uk/Pig%20Blog.htm. Neil’s web-site is featured on our links.

Oh no! What have I done? With a large pinch of journalistic licence I’m beginning to worry that my kids and the above headline could be splashed across tomorrow’s tabloids.

I’m still gob-smacked that anyone has actually stumbled across my blog, least of all, Neville the journalist from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. I’m even more surprised that he considers Marjorie’s recent good news a news-worthy story.

The connection between my children (who live in a house) and the pigs (who mostly live outside or in a sty) is that we now have a house-pig. This has been a recent development since the week-end when Ann discovered one of Marjorie’s latest brood was not feeding, being picked-on by the other piglets and shortly to die. Well we’ve lost two already and so we started a four-hourly bottle-feeding regime with ‘Wilma’, as this piglet is now called.

The remaining human and canine members of the family have adjusted remarkably well to this new member of the household: Bramble, the dog, has made room in her basket for Wilma and taken on the role of surrogate mother. Rosie Blue Skye, our toddler, has relinquished a milk bottle to allow the remaining members of the family to feed Wilma. Cameron, my six year old son, plays hide-and-seek with Wilma round the kitchen (tiled - and now frequently mopped). I’ve even caught Eloise, my eight year old daughter, snuggled up with Wilma on the sofa, in our carpeted (not a great idea) lounge. They were watching a video… yes, you’ve guessed it: ‘Babe, the pig’…. no … just pulling your leg!

Having watched developments over the week-end, I have a number of observations to make:

1. Pigs are part of our livelihood. Keeping them alive, helps bring home the bacon. No pun intended. But can an animal that’s been part of the family become part of breakfast?
2. There is a deeply primal instinct in us all, including Bramble the bitch-dog (she’s never pupped) to nurture the young and vulnerable and the instinct cuts across species.

3. Is Wilma going to suffer an identity crisis. Is she a pig-pig, a pig-dog or a pig-human? Can she or could she ever re-integrate with the other pigs?

4. Pigs are definately the most intelligent farm animals and are reportedly house-trainable.

5. Pigs love eating and keeping them well-fed is a costly business. Eating could cause Wilma to grow to be the size of her mum and Marjorie is the same size and four times the weight of a farmhouse kitchen table? Would we really want to share our house with a half-ton pig?

We haven’t been able to answer any of these questions yet and Wilma may of course not survive. But if she does, we may have a big grunt of a problem on our hands.

Postscript: The headline derives from Wilma’s current bout of diarrhoea. We think this is because we’ve susbstituted the cow’s milk for a more nutritious baby milk powder. Rest assured, my kids don’t live in pig shit.

Well this week’s big news is that Marjorie, our gorgeous Saddleback sow, safely delivered twelve live piglets. It was a long wait for all of us and this last week, Marje’s belly has been practically dragging on the ground - ouch! sore nippples.

Like most big girls in late pregnancy, she’s suffered from water retention and her already quite fat neck, has become fatter and led to even louder snoring. I know this because Ann had the ‘brain’wave’ of re-locating our baby-listener from the nursery into Marjorie’s sty (well Rosie Blue Skye is now old enough to shout the whole house awake is she chooses to). I found this pretty un-settling as my normal routine is to sneak into bed with just Ann’s gentle snoring for company. But the bedroom now echoes to Marjorie’s snores, grunts and farts as well. Worse than this, if Ann is awake, she can listen in to my bed-time tummy rub and good-night pep-talk that I religiously give Marje on my way home. Honestly can’t a man share a quiet moment with his pig without his wife eaves-dropping these days?
Anyway, with Ann as midwife, Marjorie safely delivered twelve piglets before lunch on Wednesday. Two were very runty and in their short time on this planet were christened ‘Cutie-1′ and ‘Cutie-2′. Marjorie rolled-over onto the smallest one late on Wednesday evening. Cruel but kind. We tried feeding the second one ourselves as it didn’t have either strength or instinct to latch onto Marjorie. It survived just over twenty-four hours but started fitting and died shortly afterwards. The children and myself will be conducting a short ceremony and burying Cutie-1 and Cutie-2.
It may have been better to let nature take its course right from the off. This was the vet’s advice but he’s got lots of pigs and not much time or patience. We’ve only got one sow and all her piglets are special to us.

Even so, ten healthy piglets is a great start to the beginning of Spring. Well done Marjorie!