Another One Of Those Days

Our last remaining kunekune pig died a few days ago, at the age of fifteen. Nellybert are no longer pigkeepers. We won’t be getting any more because, if we did, and they lived out their natural span, we’d both be over 80 by then.

Rusty had been on his own since October, when his sister and lifelong companion, Lily, died.

Back in 2010, I gave in to the fad for keeping a pet pig. Bert wasn’t as enthusiastic, but we had the space, the time, and the money, so he relented. I’d done my research and knew pigs like company, so we got two - a brother and sister we named Rusty and Lily.

They were the cutest piglets

Right from the start it was clear that eating was their prime enjoyment. 

This picture looks gory but fear not - Rusty and Lily are tucking into a big feed of boiled beetroot. That expains the red puddles.

And they got fat. 

Rusty was more prone to ill health than his sister. In his first year, he caught a virulent strain of pneumonia, and the vet doubted he would survive. She gave him antibiotics anyway, and, although he loathed injections, he pulled through.

Five years later, Rusty fell ill again, and we called a vet to the house. He was one of the old-fashioned, no-nonsense sort. After examining Rusty, he pronounced him “foundered.” I wondered aloud if it might help to give the pig a little of the poitín we happened to have in the house. The vet fixed me with a look and said,

“Drink that poitín yourself, and tie a blanket round that pig. Then get him under an infra-red lamp.

Rusty lay under his lamp, cosy in his little warm corner. We brought him grapes, as is the custom for the poorly, along with strawberries and other delicious fruits. We fed him warm liquids, and before long he was on the mend.

And so life with the pigs continued. They went to the fields, they ate sweet grass, they wallowed in mud, they got lots of fruit and vegetable treats. They had a nice life.

And after a good feed, no better way to spend the afternoon - beside the dunghill, soaking up the sun.

There was the occasional home invasion. It wasn't encouraged. 

As they grew older, they slowed down and showed the signs of age. Both had trouble with their teeth, a common issue for kunekunes. For Lily, it was a constant battle, kept at bay with antibiotics. Rusty remained unaffected until the final weeks of his life. When Lily died in October, we worried Rusty would find life lonely without his lifelong companion, even though she had always bullied him.

He coped, staying closer to home. We got to know him better, and he became great friends with Hannah. He knew the sound of her car and would come to the orchard gate to get the fruit she brought for him.

This is one of the last pictures taken of Rusty, in the overgrown orchard - a favourite spot in his final months. He and Lily had always loved the orchard when the apples began to fall. It’s sad that he missed the apples this year.

Rusty died on August 6, 2025.

A Sad Day

This has been a very sad day for all of us at Springhill. One of our Kune Kune pigs, Lily, had to be euthanised tonight. These past few months we have seen her becoming weaker in her hindquarters. This morning she had her breakfast as normal and went to the fields to graze. She didn't return in the evening. Bert found her collapsed five minutes from home. She was halfway through her fifteenth year on earth. I don't know how Rusty will get on without her, tonight will be the first time in his life that he will sleep alone.

Sicken Chicken

I confess - I'm not that great a chicken-keeper. I do the best I can, keeping them fed, watered and clean.  They've got a big range and during the non-vegetable growing months, they get to run around the yard for half the day. The crowd I have now are pretty mature. I'd say the oldest of them are at least six years old. And they decline, especially if they are the ones bred for intensive egg production.

This past week there is one hen that has been relentlessly bullied. The last straw was a couple of days ago when I let them out in the morning and this persecuted hen was first out with the others raging out behind, pushing her up against the wire fence and pecking at her. Horrible to see. It was time to separate her from the others. But what to do? There is a small shed we use for situations like this but swallows are nesting there and the young ones are days from leaving the nest. We couldn't shut the door to keep the persecuted chicken safe. The first night she stayed in the log shed but she was lonely and miserable there. We discussed euthanasia but neither of us wanted to do that. All today she toodled about eating just enough, drinking just enough. She tried to settle for the night in Hannah's place but that wasn't a goer. The log shed wasn't an option either so she's in with the pigs. Sadly, Rusty scoffed her grub. I never knew he liked sunflower hearts, and it surprised me that he could get his big piggy snout into such a tiny bowl. 

When I last looked in she was resting beside Lily. Poor hen. Her own kind won't leave her alone and she finds solace with two pigs around fifty times her size. She might be dead in the morning, maybe naturally, maybe crushed. One thing's for sure - she's safe from Foxy.

No pictures of pigs with hen for it was too dark. So just Rusty and Lily sans chicken.

From One Pedant To Another

Granny! I've been reading your blog and you're wrong about Rusty and Lily's age. You said they were coming 12 this year and they're not! They're the same age as me. Twelve! 

My oldest granddaughter did not use these exact words at the supper table this evening but that is roughly what she said.

I tried to tell her that the pigs were a bit younger than her and that my blog was not always precisely factual. After all, within my posts, I've often given an impression that I love my grandchildren and that I think they're great.

Granny!

I called her a pedant. We brought down the Oxford Concise and looked it up  - a person who is excessively concerned with minor detail. Oldest grandchild to a tee.

It's not even fair. Sure I barely even know what age I am. Birthdays come round so fast these days. But after they'd gone I went to my Kunekune file to see what I could find out. A whole big book in there regarding the Declaration of Movement of Pigs. Yet they've only moved once in their lives, from Knockloughrim to Cullybackey. Their birth certificates were in there as well. Turns out that Martha was right. They are twelve. Or was she right?

According to their birth certificates Sperrin Awakino I (Rusty) and Sperrin Tutaki II (Lily) were born on the 24th April, 2010.  When I posted (on 15th March) that they would be twelve this year they were still eleven. Who is the pedant now? Granny!

When this photograph was taken Rusty and Lily were eleven months old and Martha was eighteen months.

Herding Pigs

Roy is on a course of antibiotics and does not like them. However, he is prepared to take them if I encase them in a thick layer of soft cheese. His anti-inflammatory meds are administered by syringe and both he and Judy find this more palatable. It seems like such a short time ago that I remarked to Bert,

Isn't it great having young dogs and no vet's bills to pay!

At least they are both in good enough form. Balls to be played with (Judy) and pigs to be herded (Roy and Judy). Our pigs are the best-herded pigs in the country.

It is Day Two of the quiet house. Hannah has landed safely somewhere in the Canaries. She was vague as to exactly where or maybe I wasn't listening. Anyways, as long as she has a wonderful time - that's the main thing.

A Bit of a Scare

Friday was our annual day trip to Portrush and although it was tiring I think we all enjoyed the outing. It's a family tradition. The grandchildren take grandparents and Aunt Hannah to Barry's Amusements where they go on all the rides. This was our third year and we found that Miss Martha is an unrepentant thrill-seeker. In 2015 she did not disdain the teacup carousel, this year she was saddened that she is still not tall enough for the big dipper. She was just big enough for a very scary ride that practically turns a person upside down and which bears signs warning folk that the contents of their pockets will fall out. Poor Evie was far too small to go on it but at least she was standing handy when the pound coins started falling at her feet. An extra two quid to spend on sweets.

Hannah and I had a couple of gins and elderflower when we got home and a bit of good craic. I was just thinking what a good day it had been when Bert came in and told me that Rusty had had a "massive heart attack". I went out to see him convinced he'd be dead or dying before I got there. He wasn't but he did look a bit petered out and and was breathing really heavily.

Apparently they'd had the usual piggy row at supper-time and Rusty had been shoulder-charging Lily out of the way when he'd given a squeal and (so Bert said) leapt two feet into the air, then fell over on his side and started gurgling. Bert rolled him the right way up and he managed to get on the four trotters and stood there breathing noisily. I fetched him an orange (his favourite) and he ate it, then moved into his sleeping quarters. We left them to it and honestly, I thought he'd be dead in the morning.

It was the first thing I thought of when I woke at five a.m. and I went out to check. Both pigs were sleeping, breathing normally and I went to tell Bert. He said he'd been out at midnight and they were both settled.

Pigs are not early risers so it was after midday that we let them out. I thought they shouldn't go to their usual field as it's a bit of a walk. Instead I put them into a secure area behind the sheds. There's not much decent grass but there's is water, shelter and a pile of dung. They both had an orange. And fell asleep.

I checked on them later. It was such a lovely warm afternoon and they'd found a sweet spot on the edge of the dunghill. They are pigs after all.

He seems OK today. Ate more oranges. This evening Bert reported that they are back to fighting over food and that Rusty was shoulder-charging Lily again.

Yet I'm not sure that Rusty would have been capable of jumping two foot into the air. I wonder if Bert was exaggerating. He does have a tendency to make things seem worse than they are. Whatever came over Rusty on that evening he seems to have got over it and may live to fight another day.

Garden Pests

Northern Ireland is currently experiencing Summer Time and I have been making hay while the sun shines, or sort of... I have been weeding, sowing and planting and Nelly's Garden is actually looking OK. If it wasn't for all the interruptions life would be great.

First of all, I took Saturday evening and most of Sunday as a vacation from what the Americans call yard work. We went out for dinner with the Banjos and slept over. Then on Sunday, we all went to Garden Show Ireland. It was Marty and Jazzer's first visit (even though they live in Antrim) and I think they enjoyed it. I bought my usual geranium and wanted to buy some white papaver Orientale but missed out on pot plants so bought root cuttings from a beautiful Dutchwoman. Two white, two salmon pink and two red. Hope they grow! Going around the exhibits I realised that my bay tree is probably worth £120 and that the three trees I'm nabbing from Bert would cost me nearly 500 if I was buying them from a garden centre. And - the half dozen lupins I'd planted the day before and that were grown from a teeny little seed were worth nearly fifty quid at Garden Show prices. I actually felt quite rich.

Monday was family gardening day and it started off well when the black and white cow had a healthy bull calf standing by her side first thing in the morning. Then there was great excitement when Evil Edna started to show signs of imminent calving. Unusually, for Edna, she was considerate enough to hold off on the big reveal until the girls' homework was done, then had the calf birthed just as supper was being put on the table.

Yesterday Hannah and I went shopping in Antrim. I bought a hand weeding tool and Hannah bought socks. Bored with the shops we went to the Castle Grounds to walk. The council workers were still clearing up after Garden Show Ireland and I found a lithodora 'Heavenly Blue' in a bin and nicked rescued it. Another £7 saved.

Today, nothing much to do so worked in the garden. Planted geraniums, crocosmia 'Lucifer', cosmos, potentilla' and used my new weeding tool which is very useful for grubbing up dandelions and creeping buttercup. It was a very enjoyable day except for the invaders. First, there was the chicken escapees, three of the young hens that have no trouble flying over the fence. They spent the day in the flowerbeds gathering up grubs and insects.

Then I was wandering around taking pictures of this and that and heard this crashing noise and there was...

...Lily, who had to be quickly headed off before she started trampling on my freshly planted flower beds.

The next invader was driving a shiny red car that whizzed into the yard with one door hanging open and that turned out to be a mother and child delivering leaflets for a church lecture. I'd already noticed posters for this event in the village and was astonished that such people still walk among us. I told the woman that I was a firm believer in evolution and she looked at me very askance. She suggested I should come and add to the debate. I said I probably wouldn't.

Click to enlarge and get a better look at Evie's plastic dinosaur and the potentilla and geranium that flank it. The invite from the crazy people is propped against the alpine strawberry.  

Not Dead Yet

Rusty and Lily. Not on the menu...yet

Tonight’s menu featured Pea and Ham Soup made from a recipe of my own devising, using split green peas of a similar age to Miss Martha. The sell by date on the packet was December 2011. The ham is that same parcel rescued from the freezer where it had been languishing since Christmas 2015. I also made a carrot cake with some middle-aged carrots that have been hanging around since Saturday last. A week is a very long time for a shop bought carrot and there probably wasn’t a vitamin left but sure the eggs were freshly laid. Which will make up for it. Thanks hens.

It is good that we have embarked upon the eating of ancient foodstuffs as our continuing existence will give hope to you all when, in the coming apocalypse, we will all be far too poor and hungry to throw out perfectly edible food.

Take it from me, times are going to get tough. I don’t think I’ll ever get the pension I so looked forward to at eighteen when I would soothe myself to sleep thinking ‘only forty-two years to go’. And when the ravening hordes come storming up the road intending to stamp through our herb garden, steal our hens and barbecue Rusty and Lily then - our young friends, Bilrus, Dave, Ben, Peter and Locky will fire on them from the tree house with home-made bows and arrows. Dave will be the Chief Archer. If the ravening hordes get really cheeky we may have to get the heavy artillery out. I hope warning shots over their heads will be enough to deter the mob.

Eighteen Pig Gardens

Another super day, literally not a cloud in the sky. I made great progress with my new perennial garden, with only a dozen or so more to plant. And a path to lay. Fitting then, that the eighteenth most viewed image on my Flickr today is one of my old perennial garden which was taken seven years ago. Between one thing and another that old garden got out of control. When Matty was sick I neglected it and it only takes a couple of years of neglect to create huge problems. Last year I painstakingly cleared it of pernicious weeds, mainly bindweed and couch grass. Then Bert suggested rotovating it. This was a really big mistake for the bindweed spread. It only takes a smidgin of root to start it off. I got disheartened, too disheartened to replant. My current plan is to lay cardboard and mulch and then only plant huge sturdy plants and shrubs. I'll start on that project when the new perennial garden is finished.

Nelly's Garden 2008, 850 views

Lily, 305 views

The eighteenth most interesting picture is the young Lily gazing up at the photographer and wondering when the next tasty titbit would be coming. That was five years ago and she was still a stripling. Still looking for tasty titbits. If the pigs don't get a treat as they enter the grazing paddock they break out. Give them half an orange or a carrot and they graze contentedly until bedtime. All is right with their world. Sometimes I wonder if it is actually the animals that train us.

Cattle, Kittens and Baby Pigs

My Flickr photograph with the second most views is this one of Rusty and Lily when they were very small indeed. They are nowhere near as cute these days. This picture has had 3,042 views. As far as I know it has not been nicked, not according to Tineye anyway.

This one of Holly sleeping in the decoration box is my most viewed picture with 6,835 views. It has also been widely 'borrowed'. I've found it on Christmas sites, interior decoration sites, Pinterest and, of course, lots of cat lover sites. For some reason it is very popular in Russia. It is also rated the second most interesting picture. 

And just to keep the thing going, here is a link to my number one most interesting picture. Bunch of cattle standing in a field, 1,942 views. Yawn.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/17223773@N00/2605884758/

Poorly Pig Tale

Rusty got sick last weekend and at first we thought it was a return of the pneumonia that he suffered from when he was a little pig. We got a shot from the vet and put him under an infra red lamp. It was a bad sign that he just stood there and took the shot. Poor thing was too weak to struggle.

Lily made all our lives difficult. It is so hard to nurse a sick pig when there is another one vying for attention, the warmest part of the enclosure and all the food so we decided to separate them.

He was completely off food and would not drink so we brought the vet out the following day. His verdict was that Rusty had 'got a foundering' and we were to give him warm liquids and tie a blanket around him. His temperature was low and he got another shot to prevent him from taking anything while his resistance was low, He needed to be warmer. So we built him a little den within a stall with rubber matting and piles of cardboard on the floor. It was lined with bales of hay and he had piles of straw bedding. This kept the heat in as did the blanket tied round his big round middle. He still wasn't eating or drinking but he was starting to feel warmer.

Rusty on the mend

The next morning I went out half expecting him to be dead but when I went into the house there were morning snuffles and grunts coming from both sides. Rusty was up and he felt considerably warmer. He took a decent amount of water and afterwards a bowl of warm mash which he wolfed down. While all this was going on Lily was squealing with rage so as soon as I'd finished with Rusty she got her breakfast too. I went indoors to tell Bert the good news.

I had the dentist that day and while I was out I stocked up on strawberries, grapes and bananas for the patient. As soon as I got back I was hand feeding strawberries to the poorly boy while his sister raged. She got some but Rusty had most of them. Lily knew she was being short changed.

Rusty continued to eat and drink so we put them together for a while. That did not work out as Lily started to bully him. He is a great lump with big scary tusks yet he is mortally afraid of his sister. He is a far nicer pig than Lily.

I had another appointment today and while I was gone Bert tried them together again leaving a door ajar so that Rusty could escape her wrath if he needed to. After a while he heard them squealing and within moments Rusty was at the back door looking in at Bert with a beseeching 'rescue me' expression. I don't know what we are going to do. If I felt he was completely well I would let them sort it out between them but that doesn't seem fair when he is recuperating.

 The day the pigs came

People – pet pigs are not for the faint-hearted. In fact they are not for anyone who has an ounce of sense.

In other news – my hospital appointment in Belfast went very well and it seems I will be getting my cataract surgery sooner rather than later.

Strawberries are their favourite food

Pigs Are Rough

It was only the other day that I was hand-feeding that brute the choicest, sweetest dates that our local greengrocery could provide. You'd think he'd show some gratitude, wouldn't you?

This is what Rusty did on my birthday. Bert was making a cake so asked me to take care of his evening chore of feeding and housing the hogs. I agreed and went to their sleeping quarters where I prepared them a supper of pig nuts, cabbage and pineapple. I then went to fetch them. First I turned off the electric fencer. The fencing is behind a length of corrugated roofing tin which is a bit makeshift and not really necessary but Bert thought it would provide an extra deterrent to their breaking out. The tin is supported by a heavy old car wheel rim. Arrangements like that are not how Clint rolls but it is very Berty.

Anyway - I was a bit fingers and thumbs with the fencing cord and couldn't get it detached. The pigs were becoming impatient, especially Rusty. I looked into his wee piggy eyes and did not like what I saw there. He was for coming through and  nothing, not electric fence or sheet of metal was going to stop him. I quickly turned to get out of his way but he charged me. The corrugated tin went flying with me on top of it. I fell to the ground. I'd had enough time to worry about getting cut on the metal or the pig getting injured but neither happened. What did happen was I hurt my shoulder and the pig ran over my arm in his haste to get to his supper. The wheel rim rolled gently down the yard just as Bert came running out. He'd heard the clattering of flying tin, wheel rim and wife. I knew he wanted to laugh but he restrained himself.

Meanwhile Lily was screaming her head off. Unlike Rusty she is mightily afraid of the electric fence and she did not know that it had been switched off. So she must have been thinking that Rusty had beat her to the supper trough and was scoffing her share of the grub. No doubt, with her super piggy senses she could hear him gobbling and smell what little was left of the pineapple.

I have been left with cloven hoof marks on my right arm and my shoulder is a bit stiff but I'll survive. Rusty is forgiven. He was just being a pig. I'll just have to be a bit more careful in future. Pigs are rough.

Scrumpin'

Sadly there is no video footage, nor are there any photographs. I know the first thing I'd have done was run back to the house for a camera but Bert never thought of it. He was too concerned about his secret stash of blueberries.

It seems that someone hadn't properly fastened the gate to the pig paddock and when Bert first noticed they were gone he was terribly worried.  First he dashed to the road but there were no small hairy pigs causing traffic chaos. Then he searched the sheds. He eventually found Rusty in the polytunnel. There he was, this recovering pig, daintily picking ripe tomatoes off the vine. But still no Lily. The sound of snuffling led him to a dense stand of clematis where he had hidden his secret stash of blueberries that he'd told no-one else about, not even Miss Martha and she adores blueberries. Apparently so does Miss Lily for she left the plants stripped bare. I thought those pigs were supposed to be poorly?