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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2e8B2uw:
Welp. So far, it’s 39 outside, 49 inside, and I just finished putting up the insulation, which isn’t actually enough to cover the whole thing but at least I can blanket-fort the bed. If I can get the cat off this blanket. Ha!
I’m also deciding if I can manage a Lost Kings update. There’s some material that’s from about June that is really itching a hole in my mind just now and I want to get it out so I can think about something else. But it doesn’t have a neat, pat ending. So far I haven’t done a multi-chaptered bit in that series that updated one at a time, and I don’t know if I want to. It’s a big commitment when I’m trying to just squash out the bits that need telling in between the main saga. Which is. Almost! Done! I just have some really heavy scenes to write.
Going back to Buffalo tomorrow. Tonight’s baby pigs video, btw, is the cutest of the lot, and features some scampering about.
It’s going to be so cold tonight. But we watched Red fluffing up her bed for her babies, and it was unexpectedly very cold last night and they came through it just fine.
The runt is doing fine, too. Farmbaby misunderstood and thinks the word is “grunt”, so she keeps asking where the “grunt” is.
They’re all grunts, is the thing. While we were watching, Red settled down and rolled over to expose her teats so the babies could nurse, and called them all over, and then sang to them the whole time, with just an unceasing little pattern of grunts. If one squealed too much, she’d wriggle her whole self and reshuffle all the piglets so they could start over. She has twelve nipples, as pigs do, but two seem not to have let down any milk, so she has ten functional teats, and nine babies, and piglets are terrible at logistics and counting.
We’re wondering how Cookies is faring, similarly, since she has twelve babies, and it looks like one of her teats isn’t letting down any milk either. But they all seem to be thriving– it’s harder to get a look at them, of course, since she’s the more aggressive sow and cornered the entire pig house for her farrowing, so Red hasn’t gone in there at all. When they were both in a big room together, they weren’t so territorial, but at this point Cookies is defending the house, and Red’s aware enough of the dynamics to just not go near the doors. (She uses the eaves to scratch herself, as she always has, and stands next to the door to drink from the waterer, but she doesn’t even sniff in the house. She knows Cookies’s babies are in there, and she wouldn’t mess with them. Likewise Cookies leaves her nest alone.)
Anyway, it’s harder to look in the house and see those piglets, but I think at noon chores while Cookies is out at the feeder someone usually goes in just to count and make sure nothing’s amiss.
The grunting is cute, and the babies are big enough to run around with their ears flapping now, which is the cutest part of pigs in general. They’re just so big.
Red is so mellow, though. Cookies is less chill, but Red let us walk right up to her and stand over her and even touch one or two of the babies, though she was more watchful if we seemed like we were gesturing toward them. She’s just a chill animal.
The opposite of chill, lately, is Farmbaby. Today she had a tantrum so severe she sounded like a velociraptor. Her mother asked wistfully if the Terrible Twos really had a hard ending when a baby turns three. Surely they do? Surely this will end?
Shucks, it’s getting colder in here. 47, and I can see my breath now. The heater is just so annoying– on the lowest setting, in 2 hours it’s 85 in here, and I have to shut it off, and then within 2 hours it’s 30 in here and i have to turn it on again, and that’s just not a restful night’s sleep.
Last night’s lack of rest was caused by not one, but two cats, and not a harmonious pairing. Tonight I just have the one [Whiskey], and i hope the other [Beans] is inside being obnoxious to my sister. She climbed onto the roof last night and meowed at us, and Whiskey hiss-growled at her, and when Beans finally figured out the new insulated door flap and let herself in, Whiskey alternated growling at her and purring aggressively because I was petting her. Beans slept uneasily on my feet, and Whiskey by my elbow, and I blanket-burritoed myself because it was 31 and I hadn’t prepared for that.
Welp. So far, it’s 39 outside, 49 inside, and I just finished putting up the insulation, which isn’t actually enough to cover the whole thing but at least I can blanket-fort the bed. If I can get the cat off this blanket. Ha!
I’m also deciding if I can manage a Lost Kings update. There’s some material that’s from about June that is really itching a hole in my mind just now and I want to get it out so I can think about something else. But it doesn’t have a neat, pat ending. So far I haven’t done a multi-chaptered bit in that series that updated one at a time, and I don’t know if I want to. It’s a big commitment when I’m trying to just squash out the bits that need telling in between the main saga. Which is. Almost! Done! I just have some really heavy scenes to write.
Going back to Buffalo tomorrow. Tonight’s baby pigs video, btw, is the cutest of the lot, and features some scampering about.
It’s going to be so cold tonight. But we watched Red fluffing up her bed for her babies, and it was unexpectedly very cold last night and they came through it just fine.
The runt is doing fine, too. Farmbaby misunderstood and thinks the word is “grunt”, so she keeps asking where the “grunt” is.
They’re all grunts, is the thing. While we were watching, Red settled down and rolled over to expose her teats so the babies could nurse, and called them all over, and then sang to them the whole time, with just an unceasing little pattern of grunts. If one squealed too much, she’d wriggle her whole self and reshuffle all the piglets so they could start over. She has twelve nipples, as pigs do, but two seem not to have let down any milk, so she has ten functional teats, and nine babies, and piglets are terrible at logistics and counting.
We’re wondering how Cookies is faring, similarly, since she has twelve babies, and it looks like one of her teats isn’t letting down any milk either. But they all seem to be thriving– it’s harder to get a look at them, of course, since she’s the more aggressive sow and cornered the entire pig house for her farrowing, so Red hasn’t gone in there at all. When they were both in a big room together, they weren’t so territorial, but at this point Cookies is defending the house, and Red’s aware enough of the dynamics to just not go near the doors. (She uses the eaves to scratch herself, as she always has, and stands next to the door to drink from the waterer, but she doesn’t even sniff in the house. She knows Cookies’s babies are in there, and she wouldn’t mess with them. Likewise Cookies leaves her nest alone.)
Anyway, it’s harder to look in the house and see those piglets, but I think at noon chores while Cookies is out at the feeder someone usually goes in just to count and make sure nothing’s amiss.
The grunting is cute, and the babies are big enough to run around with their ears flapping now, which is the cutest part of pigs in general. They’re just so big.
Red is so mellow, though. Cookies is less chill, but Red let us walk right up to her and stand over her and even touch one or two of the babies, though she was more watchful if we seemed like we were gesturing toward them. She’s just a chill animal.
The opposite of chill, lately, is Farmbaby. Today she had a tantrum so severe she sounded like a velociraptor. Her mother asked wistfully if the Terrible Twos really had a hard ending when a baby turns three. Surely they do? Surely this will end?
Shucks, it’s getting colder in here. 47, and I can see my breath now. The heater is just so annoying– on the lowest setting, in 2 hours it’s 85 in here, and I have to shut it off, and then within 2 hours it’s 30 in here and i have to turn it on again, and that’s just not a restful night’s sleep.
Last night’s lack of rest was caused by not one, but two cats, and not a harmonious pairing. Tonight I just have the one [Whiskey], and i hope the other [Beans] is inside being obnoxious to my sister. She climbed onto the roof last night and meowed at us, and Whiskey hiss-growled at her, and when Beans finally figured out the new insulated door flap and let herself in, Whiskey alternated growling at her and purring aggressively because I was petting her. Beans slept uneasily on my feet, and Whiskey by my elbow, and I blanket-burritoed myself because it was 31 and I hadn’t prepared for that.
