Chez Spud

…but hold your nose because my breath doesn’t smell too sweet….

This is Prudence, a Middle White pig. A rare and endangered species in the UK. Can’t think why…although, to be fair, both the Emperor of Japan and Anthony Worral Thompson keep herds of Middle Whites as they believe they produce the best tasting pork. An Emperor and a celebrity chef? Can’t say fairer than that.

Oh but they so got hit with the ugly stick, poor things. You can’t really tell the full horror from my photo, although frankly that’s enough to give you nightmares. Here’s one by Dave Hamster on Flickr.

Even here she’s hiding her face which, well, it’s a face only a mother could love. Short snout, upturned in a comedy manner. It’s quite a sight.

Me and those Megaboys met Prudence today at a local rare breeds farm. Alas, a fleeting visit due to non stop whining/whinging/refusal to  walk by a certain someone. I loved it (apart from the whining/whinging/carrying) but the boys were a bit blase about the whole thing. I felt the red mist descending as I sat cuddling a newborn lamb so they could pet it, only for them the scream like girls and run away because they were “scared’. IT’S A NEWBORN BABY LAMB NOT A CHILD SNATCHER…

‘m really irked by their constant fear of what feels like absolutely everything. Today the movie “Up” arrived from MrAmazon. We saw it at the cinema and they were glued to it. But they handed it back to me and demanded it be returned as it’s “too scary”. Likewise Wall-E is “too scary” as is Ratatouille and countless other Made For Children movies. And don’t get me started on dogs…

Luckily we made our acquaintance with Prudence early on. Despite her looks, she was utterly charming and patiently pottered up to me and tipped her head back and opened her mouth. It took me a while to cotton on, but she was waiting to be fed. She can’t truffle for food on the floor due to her unfortunate snout design. So she politely opens her mouth so you can drop a few pellets of animal food in to her mouth. I loved her immediately but the boys were less enamoured as, yup, “too scary”.

There are some pretty serious teeth in that mouth by the way, the photo is flattering. But she had such a delicate manner, and was so polite, I really am quite smitten despite her manly snorting and snuffling noises. In fact I loved all the different types of pigs they had there, and suddenly had a pang for the pigs we kept last year (which are now residing in our freezer and our tummies).

I was quite adamant that we wouldn’t have another pig this year as we aren’t really getting through the meat as fast as we need to in order to justify another pig. But then I spotted that the rare breeds place are selling some of their teeeeeny tiny Kune Kune Maori pigs, which are very social and are mostly kept as pets. You can see them here, and their ridiculously sweet piglets.

Oh. It’s love. I neeeeeeeed one. Don’t I? No doubt they will be “too scary” but who cares? It’s not for them. It’s for me. It’s all about me. It’s always about me….me me me.

That’s why I blog. I’m a megalomaniac. Just so you know…

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News just in…the pigs are deceased and my freezer is now well stocked. I’m amazed at just how much meat one pig produces, and that’s without the sausages. We’ll be eating pork until the end of time.

The meat arrived in a fairly bulky way…huge, massive rolls of shoulder/leg which we puzzled over for a while and decided to leave until PigWomanJan came and butchered it in to meal sized portions. The pluck (heart, lungs, liver, kidney) was mercifully mostly missing, due to disease. And the butcher spared us the horror of pigs heads, but did chuck in some trotters for (surely?) pure comedy value. Certainly won’t be eating them let’s put it that way.

And so, the wee little piglets that arrived in sacks in the back of PigWomanJan’s car are now food for the masses. It’s been a real experience, and it’s a good feeling to have food that we raised ourselves. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating of course.

I noted, with interest, that their wigs didn’t come back. Perhaps the butcher kept it..or did Postman Andy finally get his wish?

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Autumn 2009, originally uploaded by isayx3.

I like doing tribute shots, it’s a good one for when inspiration is low and is also a neat way of paying tribute to photographers who you admire.

The pigs have gone. We left very early this morning, to be at the slaughterhouse for 6am. Our pigs were very calm and well behaved, unlike the lot in front who had very noisy sex in the holding pen….well, that’s the way to go I suppose. It was all very orderly and the animals were treated with due respect. I’m surprised I didn’t feel emotional about it at all, I had a real fondness for them however. Feels strange to know their enclose is empty now…they had a good life though, a huge outside pen, truffling for acorns from the trees….it was a pretty blessed life as piggy lives go. And their end was stress free for them (they were asleep in the trailor!) and humane. As it should be.

Interesting people watching opportunity at the slaughterhouse…and old country gent handed over a wodge of notes to the slaughterman, growling, “That’s the money for the killin’” at him, in a deep Suffolk accent. ‘The money for the killin’…waaaaah, Mafia stylee.

My 4.15am start is catching up with me. It’s only 8.40am and it feels like lunchtime. I feel like going back to bed but am on Mummy Duty today, curses.

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Look look look! It’s hard to know which to love more…the purple sparkly shoes or the purple heart tights…but the combination is a winner. Helpfully Little Miss Stylish was snapped on these yellowish tiles, oh so Wizard of Oz. So I called this photo ‘Dorothy’s Weekend Shoes’. Perhaps she flirts with purple sparklers on a weekend?

I had to mess with the original photo a bit to get it looking like this. The original, an iphone snap, was ok but Dorothy’s mama’s black shoes really bugged me and her papa’s shoes had sneaked in too, plus her skirt was quite distracting  and the colours were rather muted. Other than that I loved it ;-)

So I processed it ‘lolo’ in Camerabag to give it a square crop and vivid colours. I saved the ‘lolo’ version, opened it in Fotomuse and added a frame and a texture to (a) mute the mama’s shoes and (b) make it look really, really cool. My name is Spud…I’m an iphoneapplicationaholic.

Here’s how it looked before:

I like my edited-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life version much more, although I wish the mama’s shoes weren’t there. Next time I’ll just push her out of the way. You know, for the sake of my ‘art’…

And with that I will wish you all a contented week. Mine’s getting off to a fearsomely early start…we head off with the pigs tomorrow at 4.45am. It’s time for them to be exited and we are taking them to deepest Norfolk to do the deed hence the unspeakably awful time of departure. I’m hoping fatigue will mean I don’t notice ‘the business’ that we’re there to do.

Over and out. x

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‘That’ time is approaching…the little piggies we have nurtured from piglets are now fully grown and ready to go to the sausage factory in the sky. Well, the slaughter house/butcher in the next town. I feel a little sadder about this than anticipated … watching them potter about in the Autumn sunshine is quite lovely. They have a huge enclosure and have led a pretty charmed life. Sorry about the big chopper that is coming to chop off your head (with apologies to Oranges & Lemons).

But their impending end brings a logistical challenge: where on earth are we going to put all that meat? And how much meat does one pig produce? Or, more to the point, how big a freezer do I need to buy…how many cubic litres must it be…so big…or SO big? PigWomanJan tells me it’s a reasonably compact amount of meat but it’s going to involve a chest freezer purchase. I love that, I’m to be a chest freezer owner at last! Hoorah.

I am a child of the 70s and now I’m going back to the 70s with the purchase of a chest freezer. Do they still have those wire basket jobbies for the top layer? And must they be filled with Sarah Lee Black Forest Gateux, popsicles, Crispy Pancakes and broad beans from MrRandom’s allotment that no one had the heart to refuse, garnished with 10 years of ice because there’s never a good time to defrost a chest freezer is there?

Of course there won’t be much room for such fancies in my chest freezer as it will be filled full of pig meat.  We have decided not to have the pluck, however. It took a while to decide, but we don’t want the pluck. The pluck is the lungs, heart, liver and stuff…offal I suppose. Who gives a pluck?

The chest freezer will live in the newly cleared out garage. This is all fine and good although it plays to the second of my two major fears in life.  I have this ‘thing’ that one day I will open our garage door and find a dead body in there or, worse, someone living rough who attacks me. My other fear is finding someone dead in a chest freezer. Now I could potentially encounter BOTH horrors all in the one trip down the garden path.

I am plucking BRICKING it, I am.

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Playing along with Jane of Spain Daily, and her Corner View. This week it’s ‘A Place of Reflection’.

Controversially, I snapped this with my old Sony P&S. The Nikon is thus sulking and pretending not to care, but I can tell that she’s hurting inside. Don’t worry trusty Nikon, it was a spontaneous shot..I was pig feeding…making them talk to Extranjera re wig preferences…pig whispering if you like? Then I spotted ‘the shot’, what’s a girl to do but point & shoot? Don’t be hurt, I still love you the most…fret not..it’s me not you..kiss and make up?

This is my office. If I was remotely creative I’d call it my studio, damn I wish I was creative. But it’s definitely a place of reflection both figuratively and, because of all the glass, literally. The desk is in the corner pointing away from the fabulous view down the fields. When I sit on the sofa to ‘do some reading’ I inevitably end up doing nothing, just watching the world go by. Although that seems to involve watching foxes pick off baby bunnies at the moment, sob.

I’m off to soothe the Nikon somemore. Nikon whispering…

Edited to add more photos, none of the inside, it’s REALLY boring! Think, peach swirly wallpaper. Hmm, redecorate?

At the bottom of the garden..office to the right

On the day it was installed...looking rather bare!

Edited again…Nikon wanted to show what she can do…clearly feeling threatened by the Sony P&S. Sheesh, talk about insecure…

Nikon has the final word

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Somewhat alarmingly, HRH Blogger of Note Extranjera keeps goading me to fish out that swishy wig and put it on a pig. “Pig ‘n’ Wig” she calls it, like “Guns ‘n’ Roses”, or “Pick ‘n’ Mix” (Let’s take a collective moment to mourn the passing of Woolworths shall we? UK peeps only….)

Never one to shy away from a challenge I plotted a ‘Pig ‘n’ Wig’ shot for Her Royal Maj before, during a particularly challenging downward dog pose in yoga (read: trying not to fart, or “let go a boomer” as NBF Ali calls it)  I realised that posting pictures of dressed up pigs on the internet would bring the mighty combined forces of animal welfare and Freaks R Us knocking at my door pretty rapidly. But what to do? Her Royal Maj wants a Pig ‘n’ Wig? Then she shall have it. Extranjera SHALL go to the piggy ball(s) (more of which later).

But let’s step back in time shall we? Let’s review our pigs’ lives, their successes and failures, their fame and their fortune before we subject them to ridicule and bacon sandwiches. There are three little piggies, and we own them as part of a ‘co-op’ with a couple of friends. They were born in January 2009 and came to live with us in April; 2 boys and a girl (although were were initially told 2 girls and a boy…doh, you would not BELIEVE how easy it is to sex pigs [no, not like that] more of which later). So here’s one in the very early days, so small, so sweet…they are Norfolk Blacks…got to love those sunshades!

Pigs! Fun for all the family, here’s MrSpud and Diggy giving them a tickle. They look SO small here. In those days, April, I probably could have popped a wig on them no problem..a beard and googly eye specs too I would imagine.

But, look, it’s not just fun for the family! We can ALL get in the pig pen…here’s the ‘wife‘ taking shots with Bloggy Approved Nikon kit, and her daughter looking funky as ever. NB Bertie having to be lifted up, he’s not that keen on the pigs. Or dogs. Or girls.

Oh, here’s the wife again shootin’ pigs again…nice wellies … FOR LONDON! ONLY GREEN WILL DO IN THE COUNTRY…

And, because I don’t think enough people have seen this photo (567 according to Flickr…not that many actually…one of my photos had 22,000 views this week. YUP, 22,000 – crazy! It was on the Yahoo homepage, I think?), here’s the wife about to enter the pig pen. Why is her skirt tucked in her knickers? What does she think is going to happen in there? They’re not ‘those’ kind of pigs you know…

Oh, and as mentioned earlier, pigs are pretty easy to sex. I ‘think’ the one on the right is a boy. Not sure why, just something in the turn of his head…

But before we all get too emotionally involved with the pigs, here’s how it’s going to end up for them later this year…

So back to Extranjera and her ‘pig ‘n’ wig’ request. Well I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, but equally I feared the wrath of the ‘njera’. So I asked the pigs for their view and made a video for evidential purposes. Note how huge and shouty they are these days…I was prepared to accept that ‘no meant no’ on the basis of their speed and pointy, hurty trotters. Plus, they eat people, did you know that? So I wasn’t prepared to push the “pig ‘n’ wig” suggestion too far…

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