I have started about five blog posts, but without exception they have all been angry and ranty, which isn't the route I want to go down, so they are festering as draft posts until I can give them the calm attention they need.
Today's post will not be ranty at all, and all credit goes to someone who suggested I blogged about something else that is going on in the PDA Soapbox household at the moment:
Pigs.
We are getting pigs, and we are all incredibly excited, some of us so much that rage flares, but on the whole the planning and preparation that is going into getting our first pigs is a very happy time.
Just to give you some background information, we have a very small field a couple of miles from home. It is our haven, the place we go to to escape from the noise and bustle of everyday life. We keep chickens and ducks, and soon we will keep pigs.
In the last couple of years, as we've been fighting and surviving through assessments and diagnoses, and through the trauma of our oldest in school and the decision to home educate him, our field has become something of a chore, we have lost interest, we haven't spent the time up there that we have done in the past. We've all lacked energy and interest.
The decision to keep pigs has brought the energy zinging back. Once again we are spending whole evenings at our field, building fences, fighting off North Yorkshire's most vicious midges, and yesterday, building a pig shelter out of sixteen straw bales.
Usually a task like this would see our oldest (15, almost certainly PDA) trying to take control and putting everyone's backs up and PDA boy doing the same, but ending up throwing punches in frustration. In short, any group activity like this usually ends in meltdowns.
Yesterday went rather differently. The building of the shelter was separated into three parts, and each of us was in charge of a different area each, satisfying our individual control freakery.
Oldest was in charge of the logistics of moving the straw bales from where they had been dropped off to the area we planned to build, I was the master builder, PDA boy was chief basher, hammering thin wooden stakes through the straw bales to keep them anchored to each other and, hopefully, to the ground. Time will tell how successful our attempt is, when there is a resident pig to rub against the carefully placed walls!
For the first time in a long time, we felt like a team. We worked together well, and all have a huge sense of pride in our achievements. The first day of the summer holidays was an epic success.
On to the pigs.
We are getting three pigs. The first is an adult micro pig called Winston. He belongs to friends and is currently living in a place where he isn't being looked after as well as he should, so he is coming to us as soon as we are ready. He is black and about the size of a very fat Labrador.
Of course it would be cruel to keep him all alone, so we feel it is our duty as caring future pig owners to make sure Winston has friends.
Out of the goodness of our hearts, we have found him two little, tiny piglets who are as yet too young to leave their mother. They will join our founding herd of little pigs in eleven days (not that we're counting or anything...).
I'm not going to jinx the process by discussing these, but will update and blog about them when I can.
The start of our summer has been a resounding success. Today we are having a rest day so we have the energy to tackle tomorrow, more fencing and making sure the pig area has no nails left lying around.
I sincerely hope the holiday carries on as well as it has started!
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