Hallowe'en Photo Shoot Goes Horribly Wrong

 Dear Readers, if you have ever attempted to do a photo shoot with a guinea pig, especially one dressed in a very cute Hallowe'en costume (which the guinea pig may not have --- strictly speaking --- agreed to wear) and a collection of props, you may have already learned what I found out today.  

Sometimes things do not go according to plan.

Here we have a basic set for a photo shoot: the letters are all still affixed to the background (that "a" in Happy may be backwards, but who pays attention to details like that?) and we have a few basic props appropriate to the holiday in the foreground.  No piggy in sight, but that comes next...

Charlotte. the piggy model, has arrived!  Not looking too pleased, but you can't keep everyone happy, and now the "w" in Hallowe'en seems to have fallen off and put back on a bit hastily upside down...

Now we have lost a few letters from the sign and Charlotte's headgear has slipped down over her eyes...

It looks as if the Director has figured out how to turn on those little pumpkins and they are now flashing, but not quite properly synchronized...

Ah!  I'm afraid this might be as good as it gets, Readers!  We have lost a few more letters but both pumpkins are flashing at the same moment and Charlotte is in the middle, still wearing her costume and glaring at the camera.  Shall we quit while we are ahead?  Perhaps that is for the best!  

Happy Hallowe'en to all piggies and piggy people out there, and we hope no one dressed you up against your will and made you pigticipate in a photo shoot!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Slave's son made this Hallowe'en scene out of Lego and we borrowed it for our photoshoot. It even lights up!

We do not have a black cat for Hallowe'en but Heidi is the next best thing.

 Here she has some of her favourite chickweed for posing nicely. She is such a good girl.

Here you can see our two mops...er Peruvians...Declan and Dara with the pumpkin. The leaf on the top has to be pressed to make it light up so we used a phone to hold it down. Much less dangerous than a real flame with all those whiskers around. 

Happy Hallowe'en to all of our readers. 

Two New Piggyfriends!

Slave took our Peaches to see Pauline at Pooh Piglets Rescue as she needed an extra pair of hands to deal with a sebaceous cyst. She had seen two lovely Peruvians on the rescue's Facebook page the previous week and never expected to find that they were still there but.....

.....there they were! A family had been to see them at the weekend, picked them up and cuddled them and then went home with two other pigs. Slave can never pick up a pig at Pauline's and leave him behind. 

They had been handed in at the rescue all tangled and matted and Pauline had shampooed them and given them good haircuts. 

Slave had gone to the rescue with her son as her car was at the mechanics so he held one piggy and she had the other. Then they swapped pigs. He went back to his car to fetch the extra carrier that always accompanies Slave to the rescue " just in case ".....and in they went to come home.

She has named them Dara and Declan. In the above photo, Dara is at the front. He is alleged to be eight months old and has some white hair in his coat so it is easy to tell them apart.

In this photo, Declan is at the front. He is reputed to be two years old. They are not related but are the very best of friends. Slave has trimmed their fringes so that she can see their dear little faces and they can see out. They are lovely little guys who are obviously used to being handled and are the typical laid back Peruvians who are easy to pose for a photograph but, having dark faces, their eyes do not show up that well.

Please welcome these little fellows to Piggyfriends.

Padraig Becomes a Prairie Pig

Hello, everyone!  I'm the newest Prairie Pig and my name is Padraig, which is an Irish name (you say it something like "Porrig" unless you are Auntie Penny who speaks Irish and can somehow also sneak a "d" in there through the back door).  Actually, it was Auntie Penny (even though she lives thousands of miles away!) who alerted Pig Mum that there was a guinea pig on the website of her local humane society shelter.  And of course, Pig Mum loaded her carrier into the car right away and went out there to get me! 

So far I really like it here.  I have friends now, and I get to visit with the other six Prairie Pigs twice a day at cage cleaning time.  Also, the food is pretty good!  See?  We get red pepper twice a day!!!

And Ernie loaned me his extra little wooden house so I have a cozy place to sleep.

Do you folks know about this stuff?  It's called grass and it is the most delicious food I have ever eaten!  It's my new favourite thing in the world!

That's my story so far.  I am looking forward to meeting everyone out there in Blog Land, so write in soon to say hello and tell me about yourself!

Slaney has a Photoshoot.

 Hello Readers, Peaches Piggyfriend here.

Our new friend, Slaney, at Piggyville had a photoshoot and she sent us some pigtures. We voted on which were the best and here they are.

 

The sun shows off her lovely red coat very well. Below you can see her other side, which is exactly the same.... just like me. She even has red eyes the same as mine.

Her mum was going to take her outside to have her pigtures taken but there was an evil hawk hovering over the garden so it was safer to stay indoors. The hawk was after the baby turkeys but they ran away. Can't be too careful out there!

A New Piggyville Girl!

"Hey, Ceilidh, is that our Pink Piggymobile?" asks Shannon.

"Yes, Shannon, it is!" replies Ceilidh. "And there is a copy of the Journal of the American Cavy Breeders' Association right next to it!  Maybe Mum and Dad are going to a guinea pig show?"

"Oh my gosh, Ceilidh!" cries Shannon. " A piggy must have arrived in the Pink Piggymobile!  We have a beautiful new red satin sister!  What do you think we should name her?  What about "Slaney", after the River Slaney that flows into the Irish Sea near Wexford?  She looks like a lovely Irish lass!"

 

Dear Readers, please welcome Slaney to the piggy blog. 

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New Piggyfriends

There hasn't been much to write about lately but now we have some wonderful news. There have been three additiions to our herd and we would like to tell you about them.

First of all this is Heidi.

Slave went to Pooh Piglets Rescue and this lovely lady was waiting for a home. She had been left at the rescue and had been very unwell. The wonderful Pauline, who runs the rescue, saved her life but Heidi was not eating, her coat had fallen out and things were not looking good for her. 

Pauline had several piggy mums, whose babes had been weaned, so she put two tiny girls with Heidi, who immediately perked up and started eating and caring for these babes as if they were her own. Her coat grew back and she needed an experienced home, where she could be monitored. 

She is a Swiss breed piggy so Slave named her Heidi after the Swiss girl in a favourite childhood book.

She was sitting in a hutch and the babes were hiding behind her.

The babes are sisters although one was very much smaller than the other and didn't want to come out from behind her surrogate mum.

Slave likes alliterative names so the little girls are called Honeysuckle and Hattie.

Above you can see Honeysuckle, the bigger of the two and below is Hattie.

They have grown quite a lot since coming here and Hattie is now nearly as big as her sister. Honeysuckle was the bossy one at first and Hattie spent most of the time hiding behind big Heidi and sneaking out for veggies from the safety of her fluffy coat but now that Hattie has grown, Honeysuckle has decided that there is no point in trying to be the Alpha pig when the others don't care for the job and they are a happy trio.

Please welcome Heidi, Hattie and Honeysuckle to the Piggyfriend clan.

May Queen

 It is May Day Holiday and we always choose one of our girls to be our May Queen.

This is May. It is the blossom of the Hawthorn Tree.

This is Peaches Piggyfriend and we have chosen her this year. " What is this all about?" asks Peaches.

"You really want me to wear this?" asks Peaches. "Seriously?" "It is edible," says Slave. " You are allowed a munch if you like."

Finally!! Not the best photo that we have ever posted but we got there in the end. Thank you, Peaches.

Mom Finally Took Our Easter Photos!!!

Apparently it is very hard to get a good photographer around Easter Time.  Our Mom did not take our photos until today, if you can believe it!  

We are very happy to be celebrating with bunnies, because bunnies like to eat so many of the same foods as we do.  (Okay, we realize these are bunnies on towels, tins, books and cards, but we are not picky!)

I, Scottie, was very good about posing, knowing that I would get a treat afterwards.

While I, Coke, was more intent on getting the book open so I could eat --- I mean, read it!

A very Happy Easter to All!!!

 

Emily Gets to Wear the Easter Bonnet!

 It's not as if any of the Prairie Pigs are usually competing to appear in a photo shoot, so this year when little Emily decided she would volunteer to be the official Easter Prairie Piggy, it was easy to talk Lovely Rita into donating the use of her famous Easter bonnet.  Doesn't Emily look cute in it?

We are still waiting for the snow to melt here so we can have fresh grass and maybe even see some flowers growing outside.  We hope wherever you are for Easter, that there is less snow and more sunshine!

Slave's family always gets together to colour Easter eggs.  This year they made them with piggy-approved herbal designs (cilantro --- yum!) and used onion skins to colour them.  We thought these ones turned out particularly pretty.

We would like to wish all of our readers, all piggies and piggy people everywhere, a very happy Easter.  Eat a chocolate egg, sniff a Spring flower or take a moment to bask in the sun, and if you have an Easter bonnet of your own, make sure to get it out and wear it!

Happy Easter from the Piggyville Girls

 

We are the girls from Piggyville, North Carolina, and we are here to wish all of our friends a very Happy Easter.

I am Shannon ( on the left ) and my friend, Ceilidh, is on the right. She never shows up well in photos just like Fionn Piggyfriend as they are both black piggies with black eyes. They even have the same little patch under their mouths.

We think that our Slave is going to share out these chocolate eggs and we are going to have something yummy for posing for this pigture.

                                              HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE.

Wishing our readers a Happy Easter!

 

"Come with me Benedict," says Slave.

"Oh no!" says Benedict. " I am in the bathroom. Rafael and Valentine told me about being brought here the other day. I hope that I am not going to have a bath"

"Not this time sweetie," says Slave. " We are going to do something special and afterwards you can eat that carrot."

"We are going to wish a very Happy Easter to our readers so please keep still."

"I will eat the mini eggs," says Slave "and you can have some of that carrot for being a good boy. Thank you Benedict."

 

                                       HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYONE AND EVERYPIG!

Spring Cleaning

 Slave says that Spring has sprung. There are flowers in the garden.

Slave says that we should apologise to the Prairie Piggies, who still have snow.

 

We are lucky to have grass all year round, although it is still too cold for us to go out and pick our own yet. 

Slave says that it is time for Spring Cleaning. Well as long as she doesn't expect any help, that is OK by us. 

"Where are we going Rafael?" asks Valentine. " I am not sure but I think that Slave is carrying us upstairs so that can only mean one thing....the BATHROOM!!" Eeek!!

 

 

"We didn't think that she meant that kind of spring cleaning," say the boys.

Both the brothers get messy grease glands and are going to be cleaned up with this jar of Swarfega.

Rafael tried to escape by climbing up a towel that was hanging over the edge of the bath.....

......but it fell on his head.

Now they are back downstairs drying in a box of towels and will be rewarded with a slice of juicy melon.

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Spring, Glorious Spring!

Hi everyone!  I am Ernie from the Prairie Pigs and I am here to wish you all a happy first day of Spring. That part is perfectly sincere, but wearing this silly daisy costume is not my favourite thing in the world, to be honest.  Slave tried it on Charlotte first, but wily Charlotte kept tearing the head-dress off and making sure her eyes were closed when the picture was taken so Slave went looking for other spokespigs.

I don't like it either, but I know that there are rewards (EDIBLE rewards!!!) if a pig behaves himself for a few minutes, so I put up with it.  If we ever find out where she hides this costume between photo shoots, it will meet a violent end.  A few nibbles here and there and it will not be quite so photogenic.  HAH!!!

I mean it about wishing everyone a happy first day of Spring, though.  Winter is very long up here in Canada and while the ground is covered with snow, there is no grass for our afternoon snack.  When Spring comes, the snow melts and the grass grows again, and we will get a pile of it everyday, not to mention chickweed and plantain and all sorts of other tasty weeds.  Mmmmmm!  I can almost taste them already.  Come on Spring!!!

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 On behalf of all the Piggyfriends, Rafael is here to wish everyone a very happy St. Patrick's Day.

Orla was going to be in our photo this year as Slave's pendant would have showed up well on her bright, white coat but I was picked up to have my nails trimmed and, as Slave had her camera at the ready, I became the...er.. victim. Not that I minded as I was rewarded with a carrot for being a good boy.

Please join us in raising a glass on this special occasion....

.......filled with fresh, green grass of course.

                                                   Slainte! Cheers! Good Health to you all!