Mama’s surprise, beating the rain, Victoria’s working vacation

Mama called me yesterday to tell me that when she went out to feed the potbelly pigs she found a surprise package waiting for her. Tilly, who I thought was getting very fat very fast had delivered a litter of seven piglets overnight. They are all beautifully marked and should be very easy to sell. I was not in the market for little pigs but we have to take them none-the-less. We have to assume that the father is the wild boar that had been hanging around the place about three months ago. His is the only contact they would had had with a male. How he pulled this off I do not understand. We ought to be glad that this is the only pregnancy we have had to deal with. And just to think, Mama and I were looking for ways to get rid of the pigs last week. Mama has separated out Molly into the hog pen but we are waiting to see if her sudden weight gain it the result of the same consequence. If it is, we will have a lot more pigs to deal with. It is really kind of funny because Mama had been after me for months to buy a bred sow so she could raise some babies. Now she may have more than she would have originally hoped for.

As soon as I got home last night I got the tractor and a pallet and began loading the hay we had bought Monday night onto the pallet so I could move it into the goat barn. Just as I was loading it Zack and Ethan pulled up in the drive. They had come to see the piglets. Zach helped me finish loading the alfalfa bales onto one pallet and while I went to the barn to offload those, he and Ethan loaded the remaining ten bales of TIF grass onto a second pallet. That was a big help. Those were the heavier bales. To get them into the barn loft all I have to do is open the loft door, raise the pallet to that level and drag the bales into the loft. Now we have a total of twenty-one bales in the loft – safe and dry. I felt a sense of urgency in getting them stored before it began to rain. I set aside one older bale for Mama to give Tilly some hay to make a proper bed for the little ones. That too got stored in the dry before we got any rain; which is predicted over the next five or six days.

It will be good to see any rain come out of the forecast since we have not had significant rain for several weeks now. I have not been free to water the plants around the house and they have suffered for it. Mama keeps promising that she will do it but it is not something she sees as a great need and often overlooks it or forgets it outright. If it does rain it will help me catch up. If it does not I will have to do the catching up myself. She is very much in tune with the animals and all of their needs – never slighting them in the smallest way. My trees and plants, on the other hand, have to make due in large part when I am not available to get them watered and otherwise tended to. So far, they have all done well enough but the trees in the garden need a bit of extra attention this weekend…rain or no rain.

Victoria is flying out today to meet Cori and Nate and the kids in Tennessee. She will only be gone the week but Cori and Nate appreciate the help as they complete their week of classes to be fully certified as missionaries through BIMI. Mama is still aching a bit because she did not get to go along but I think it was all for the best. This will give Victoria exclusive rights to the kids for the entire week. I hope she is up for it. I know Cori and Nate will appreciate the break even though it is a working vacation for both of them.