Wednesday – PIG DAY!
I was up fairly early and headed down to the hall to try and sort out an email I’d had from Calmac to say my card had been declined for paying for Shiona. It took ages to get through and by the time I did Shiona would have arrived and I was really fretting but I then got an email through to say they’d tried again and it was fine. Phew. The whole ‘getting the pigs here’ thing has been an epic undertaking. I’d said to Ady it would either go really smoothly or really badly…
We all went to meet the ferry and Shiona pulled off with her two dogs on the back seat of her car and the two pigs in the boot! They had been called Bindi (on account of a black dot on his forehead) and Betty but we have renamed them Tom and Barbara :). We all cooed at them through the window and then Shiona followed us to the static and we walked the path to the croft to see if she thought they would follow her. Sure enough they jumped out of the boot and followed her all the way shaking her bucket, across the bridge and into the croft. Over the electric fence and into their new home :).
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They seemed really settled and happy straight away and we’ve done lots of petting them. I heart them lots 🙂 They will be our breeding pair for ever so get to have names and be loved – we’ll just eat their babies 😉
We walked back to the static and Shiona had a cup of tea with us and a bit of a chat before she headed off. We really liked her and will definitely stay in touch, not least because she offered to send us anything we struggle to get and a place to stay on the mainland if needed. In return I really hope she’ll come back and stay with us at some point too. Lovely to meet fellow crofters living the dream 🙂
We had some lunch, checked how Chainsaw Dave was doing (his wife Sylvia was air lifted off island again on Tuesday. She has been given the all clear for cancer but now has a trapped nerve in her back which they were concerned was bowel cancer so whisked her off quick. She is not back now for about 6 weeks as she is having a belt and braces last dose of chemo before being signed off). Chain was off on the ferry to join her yesterday so needed some help looking after the baby and packing up. Others had helped already so he didn’t need us though.
Back to the croft to check on the pigs and Georgie was walking by with Tinker (one of the island dogs) so they came and sat with us in the sunshine and chatted for a while. We walked back with them and were met by Dr Butt and his students, all come to see the croft and talk to us about our story. We took them back to the croft and sat down to talk. We gave an introduction to the four of us and our story, our travels and how we ended up on Rum and then took questions before introducing anyone interested to the birds and pigs. Really interesting questions asked, odd how different people think of different things to be curious about :).
They left and we went back for showers and were planning on settling in for the night when Vikki arrived wanting to meet the pigs too. I got dressed and we walked down together and I showed her around as she’d not been up to the croft since we had animals arriving and strimming done. Then she came back and ended up staying til 130am and helping me drink 2 bottles of wine! A very late night 🙂
Today – To the croft to feed animals and get some stuff from the horsebox before heading to meet the Shearwater. I did spot a dorsal fin twice through binoculars but was unable to spot it without or show anyone where so it could be identified so we’re not counting it as a sighting! It was glorious out there though, sunny and breeze free. We did see various birds and went off course at one point behind Soay where Ronnie (the skipper) had spotted a big bird on the clifftop and suspected a sea eagle. It turned out to be a great skua but was still impressive.
Also on the boat were two tourists who’d been reading our story in the paper and wanted to chat to us so we talked to them for a while when we came off. I headed to the teashop as I’d arranged to take a phonecall from WWOOF – we are now WWOOF hosts 🙂 🙂 and Ady and the kids went to Mike & Georgie’s as Mike was heading off on the Shearwater to go to the mainland for 10 days to see family.
We dropped Mike at the pier and the kids went off with Georgie to dig for razor clams on the beach as it was a really low tide. Ady and I changed the gas bottle on the campsite shower block and dropped a gas bottle off for Vikki, staying for a coffee with her before meeting back up with the kids.
I’m having a quick catch up online before heading off to feed the pigs their dinner and then having mine.
I heart them too 😀
How long to you thnk it’ll take them to dig up/over the area they are penned in?
Comment by Layla — 24 May 2012 @ 8:14 pm