Lucy and Kowhai
One sunny afternoon a few months ago I noticed that Old Lady Lucy, our pet kunekune pig, was standing in the middle of the top paddock covered in mud and screaming. Something was clearly wrong.
I went over to check on her, but she was irritable, aggressive, and didn’t want to be touched.
So I did what one does when your pet pig turns psychotic. I called the Martinborough Pig Whisperer.
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Lucy the kunekune pig
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“I don’t want to get this pig,” I said to Rick. It didn’t matter that I was already sitting in the back seat of our friends’ ute on the way to get it.
Rick was sitting next to me, practically bouncing with glee. “I know you. As soon as we have her, you’ll love her.”
In the front seat were our friends Leelee and The Wolf. “Pigs are great,” they yelled, practically in unison.
The Wolf is a do-it-yourself mastermind who’s had a lot of experience transporting pet pigs, and Leelee has such an uncanny ability to communicate with pigs that we call her the Pig Whisperer.
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Kunekune piglet - Image from 'Armchair Caver' on Flickr
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“You want a what?” I said.
Rick smiled. “A pet pig. A kunekune.”
I paused, then laughed. “For a second I thought you were serious.”
Rick looked at me blankly.
“I am serious,” he said. Suddenly his voice changed pitch, like he was talking to a baby. “They’re just so darn cute.”
I knew I was in trouble then.
31 Comments | Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs, Podcasts | Tagged: kunekune, pet, pig, sow, Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine | Permalink
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Sheep in front of the olive grove
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“There’s a sheep down in your paddock,” our neighbor Jim said over the phone. He’d been working along the fenceline when he saw the sheep. “It looks pretty sick,” he said.
I immediately called Hamish.
Hamish is the stock agent who leases our paddocks to graze his sheep and cattle. He’s in his mid 60s, I’d say, and he’s got a broad New Zealand accent and a gravelly voice. A man of few words, he’s nevertheless friendly in a low-key, Kiwi farmer kind of way.
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Frantoio olives (click to enlarge)
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“They’re all still green,” Rick said.
We were standing in the middle of the olive grove on a cold morning in the middle of May. Nearly five hundred olive trees surrounded us, and there wasn’t a single ripe olive to be seen.
The frosts would be starting soon, but the grove simply wasn’t yet ready for harvesting. We didn’t know what to do.
Frost damage can completely destroy your crop, because it ruins the taste of your oil. We needed more time.
I looked around at all the green olives. “We have to delay the harvest. There’s no choice. We just have to hope the frost doesn’t get us.”
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Wine Centre Open
I took a deep breath and walked up to the counter at the Martinborough Wine Centre. All around me bottles of gorgeous wine and olive oil stood sparkling on the shelves. I was there to try and sell our olive oil for the very first time, and I was nervous.
Would a Real Live Store actually want to put our little labor of love out on display with all those bright shiny things?
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Petting newly shorn Sweetie
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We have a new sheep at our place. We call her Sweetie because she really is sweet. But she has a little problem.
She arrived about three months ago when Hamish, the stock agent, brought about 20 new sheep to graze in our paddocks. “One’s a pet sheep,” he said. “Belongs to my sister. That one’s never going to the butcher.”
At first the new sheep were down in the paddock beyond the driveway and the row of gum trees. I didn’t see them much. But after a while Hamish moved them into the paddock where the chicken run is. That’s when I got to know them.
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Rick and I had been living in the country for only a couple of months when Rick’s city friend Fiona came to visit.
Well in the olive grove
Fiona is like a graceful, exotic bird you feel compelled to pamper and adore, and Rick had promised her a relaxing country weekend far away from her stressful professional life. So it caused us great concern when, just hours after her arrival on Friday evening, our tap water suddenly stopped running.
I was in the kitchen preparing to cook dinner when I turned on the kitchen faucet and nothing came out. I checked the sink in the guest bathroom and found the same thing there.
Out on the deck I made the announcement.
“There’s no water.”
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Podcast available.
Old Man Henry is our geriatric rooster. He is mangy and decrepit. The feathers on his head are just quill stubble. He’s half blind, bow-legged, and he pauses strangely after every step.
Old Man Henry
On certain misty mornings, when the light is right, he looks as though he’s stepped out of some twisted chicken fancier’s version of Dawn of the Dead.
Yet this unlikely old man is a Nobel Peace Prize winner among poultry. And it is by peacekeeping that he earns his keep.
When I brought home our first two young chickens nine months ago – the sisters Henrietta and Ethel – I had no plans to get a rooster.
I didn’t want to deal with baby chicks hatching left and right, and I had nightmarish visions of cracking open an egg for breakfast to find a half-formed fetus inside.
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