Pig Movements

Just as we were getting used to having no pigs to spoil the view immediately in front of our house, Hughie appeared this morning with Betsy and Bobby - who've been very happy down the road - and began setting his electric fence below our house.  The Diary had hardly got down the field to remonstrate with him before Bert Cameron appeared with a brand new tractor, delivered this morning by Royal Mail (his father-in-law used to be the local postie).  Picture shows Hughie, left, Bert, centre, and Angus-John right.

The Diary knows nothing about tractors, but the way that Hughie and Angus-John were queuing up to be photographed in front of this one suggested that it might be something rather special.  And Angie-John was saying how he was about to get a new tractor which was almost as good - which says something about how much these young men are making out of their crofting activities.  It won't be long before we'll be reading about the first millionaire crofter.

Bert had been summoned to move the pigs' house, which he set about doing - though those watching were somewhat puzzled that Hughie felt he had to help the tractor to lift the tank.

The Diary has been at some pains to point out to Hughie that this old fuel tank doesn't actually belong to him, but to a certain lady crofter who had noticed that it had disappeared from her apportionment.  Further, The Diary did point out to Hughie that the said lady would, on his advice, be sending Hughie a fairly hefty bill for its use.

While the tractor was making a very fine job of shifting the tank across the field, Angie-John was saying that one of his three sows (which are also in our view) wasn't in piglet after all (much celebration about this) so he'd had to move his boar across from Portuairk to deal with her - which, apparently, this beast had set about doing with commendable efficiency.  So we now have pigs making bacon in our view.

Meanwhile, the tractor was manoeuvring to lower the tank into the new pen. The Diary had, as usual,  helped Hughie string the wire round the plot on the basis that, by making sure the job was done properly, there was less likelihood of the pigs ending up in our garden.

The Diary was just taking a picture of the tank being lowered when Bert misjudged the tank's centre of gravity, so....

....it promptly rolled off down the hill.  Fortunately, Hughie wasn't helping to lower it at the time.

With the tractor away, Betsy and Bobby came out of the trailer in good order, obviously pleased to be closer to our vegetable garden.  So we have the pigs back, right in front of our house.  Now, instead of having a wonderful 25-mile view down the Sound of Mull we have a view of.... Hughie's pigs.