A Piggy A-Z. K is for Kiwi.

Hello readers. This is me, Kiwi Piggyfriend. My brother, Machu Picchu and I were the last piggies to come from Palace Piggies before they relocated many miles away.

On behalf of all the Piggyfriends, I hope that all of our readers are OK and getting by during the frightening pandemic that is affecting humans all over the world.

I have to admit that we do not write this blog on our own and need our Slave's help sometimes but she has had to spend a lot of time queueing at the store to get our veggies. She has to drive to a town and then stands in line outside the store for an hour before she can get inside. Later in the year she grows lots of our food in the garden but it is too early to be picking much at the moment.

For the first few weeks, the store was rationing everything so that she could only get three of each veggie. You can imagine that three cucumbers do not go far between a herd of hungry piggies. She has not been able to get any romaine lettuce at all but recently the store have allowed more than three of each item so last week she tried her luck and put eight cucumbers in her cart along with other veggies and the checkout lady did not take them away, What a relief. She also stocked up on carrots, celery, and chicory but some veggies do not keep for a whole week.

Our little local shop where she could top up on celery and cucumbers without having to go to the nearest town has been shut as have most other shops.

She is not even allowed to go to visit her friend Roly's farm, where she cuts our grass and forages amongst the crops for tasty weeds and leaves. So she has set up what we call our Parsley Farm.

This is in our pig room and you can just see a corner of a pen in the pigture.

Here is some more of it.

You can just see a piggy in the left hand pen. I think that is Saffron, who lives with her family next door to me, under the little stool. Slave has started lettuces in that tray at the front and has to move it all to get to our pens to feed us and to clean. She has tomato plants on the table and, if the weather improves, they will be going out to the greenhouse but it takes a long time before they produce a fruit.

Grass is growing much better now that spring is here so we are not starving but we would like to have all of our veggies available again. Slave would like the little shop to be allowed to open and to visit Roly again. She has plenty of food for herself in her larder but never imagined how difficult it would be to feed a herd of piggies.

Let us know how you are all getting on. We would love to hear from you.

Happy Easter !

 

Hello, everyone!  I'm Pavarotti from the Prairie Pigs.  I just wanted to wish everyone and all of the piggies a Happy Easter.

I think everyone would agree that things are a little different this year, but my two friends here hopped by for a visit and they brought dandelion greens which I think are the very best way to celebrate Spring.  I haven't seen dandelion greens all winter, so this gives me hope that Spring is on the way at last.

Our slave is complaining that she didn't get as much chocolate as usual.  I offered her some dandelion greens, but she said I should eat them all myself (she did not have to tell me that twice!).

I hope everyone is relaxing at home and giving their piggies some extra attention and hugs.  Don't worry --- the sun is shining and it's a little warmer all the time:  Spring is coming !!!

Guinea Pig Jigsaw

We have received this lovely pigture of a guinea pig jigsaw puzzle with a little note, but don't know whom to thank for it!

Hello everyone,
All this talk of jigsaws reminded me of one hidden away in my cupboard ... never completed because (a) it's too big for my table and (b) when I tried starting it on the floor, the cat decided to sit on it.
Stay safe everyone and enjoy more piggy
 time. xx

Meet My New Brother, Scottie !

Scottie came to live with us in late January, and I am very happy to introduce him to you! My mom and dad named him Scottie because he reminds them of the Belted Galloway cows of Scotland. They adopted him from a couple who thought they had purchased two girl piggies at the pet store, but one night they discovered four little faces instead of two looking up at them. Scottie is one of those surprise babies.

Since my new brother is young, he likes to run around our cage, popcorn, and use our sofa as a trampoline. Here are pigtures of each of us on the sofa. Scottie is the black-and-white pig, and I, Nugget, am the white, black, and tan pig.






I had surgery in January so I wasn't able to meet my brother for quite a long time. When we met, we immediately got along, and the next morning our dad saw us resting side by side and knew we were going to be good friends.

My surgery went well, as I hope you can see.

We send good wishes to all.

Nugget (proud big brother to Scottie)

Mother's Day.

Hello readers. We hope that you are all safe and well. Here in England today is Mother's Day and Slave's son, our pigsitter, would have taken her out for dinner but we understand that there is a nasty virus circulating amongst the humans and all the restaurants are closed. He is not even allowed to visit her.

Here at Piggyfriends, our only mother is Mama Bonbon so we are posting a photo of her enjoying a pile of grass with her daughters, Bella and Miss Marple. ( In that order in the photo. )

Bonbon has really got stuck into her grass and even has some on her head.

" We are sad that you cannot go out with Sean," says Mama Bonbon. " Would you like to share our grass?"

Take care everyone. Love from the Piggyfriends. xxx

Candle Lighting in Swannanoa, North Carolina

The Piggyville girls have sent us a report about their candle lighting ceremony.

The Piggyville girls lit a candle on March 9th. in memory of Peter Gurney and all of our dearly departed loved ones. They chose to place the candle next to a Peace Lily. The lily's bright green leaves and fragrant flowers symbolise the rebirth of the soul. The lily is also a symbol of peace and hope. May we all find comfort in celebrating the lives of the ones we love and have lost.

The girls decided that since Mum has such a short candle it would be better is they all sat for individual portraits.

Tilley, being the new piggy in the pen, was unfamiliar with the candle ceremony. She decided to strike her Sphinx pose.

Honeydew arrived at the candle lighting ceremony atop her favourite cozy.

Squirly prays for all the Piggyfriends and wishes everyone a good night.

Candle Lighting Day 2020

Every year the GPDD organises a Candle Lighting Day on March 9th. when their members and friends ( and anyone else who would like to join in ) light a candle at 8pm. in their respective time zones so that the light goes around the world in memory of friends both human and animal who are at the Rainbow Bridge. This is the date of Peter Gurney's birthday. He wrote many guinea pig books and had lots of piggies of his own.

"Would you like to light our candle this year Miss Bonbon as you were not here last year?" asks Slave.

" I am not sure that my little paws can manage that dangerous looking device," says Bonbon.

"That is alright," says Slave.  "I will switch it on for you. See!"

" That is better," says Bonbon. " I would not want to get too close and singe my whiskers."

 " Now sit nicely next to the candle," says Slave. " I will take your photo and send it to Audrey. She is going to collect the photos and put some of them on the GPDD home page for everyone to see."

We are lighting our candle in memory of a whole host of Piggyfriends past, our dogs, fish, birds and mice and most especially for our human Daddy Slave, who passed away last year. We are grateful to our pigsitter, Sean, who helps Mummy Slave by fetching hay bales and taking all of our soggy paper and hay to the tip, jobs which he used to do. We all miss him very much and try to cheer up our Slave every day.