Out

"You never stop learning" Such a cliché, but absolutely and utterly true. Of course I've always been someone who doubts my own knowledge, so it was never an option to think I knew it all. Which is just as well...

While in the day job I attend webinars, and tap up colleagues, to learn more; starting running a smallholding, which basically means a whole other full time job in the evenings and weekends (and sometimes from 6am before shower and breakfast and hitting the desk), has been the very definition of a learning curve.

None more so than with our first couple of pigs. These are Gloucester Old Spots, who arrived four weeks ago. Two weeks ago we tried moving them to their outside home, from a halfway house in a stable, and... well let's just say it didn't go well. The last two weeks has seen a huge amount of planning, and turning an old trailer into a livestock carrier.

What I've learned with pigs is letting them think something is their idea, rather than being forced into something (sound familiar from the office?), is the best way. So the trailer was left in the doorway to their stable, and their little house closed up. Leave them to it, came home from a trip to the garden centre, and there they are asleep in the trailer. 

No. Stress.

They're learning the electric fence (quickly) and are bounding around the place like 3 year olds on a Christmas morning. And still coming for back scratches and belly rubs.

Plenty still to learn (we've kept chickens for more than 15 years, but still learning with them). But that's life innit. And all the better for it.