Strange Days

Pavarotti from the Prairie Pigs here, reporting in from Western Canada.  Are other piggies out there observing that their Slaves are behaving very strangely these days?  Because our Slave certainly is!   

For years we've been trying to convince her that she should stay at home more, that guinea pigs really require room service 24/7 and she should be restricting her trips into the outside world to urgent errands like buying more groceries for us.  Well, either there is something very weird going on out there in the wide world or our arguments are even more eloquent and persuasive than we thought, because suddenly that is exactly what she was doing --- staying home almost all of the time and only going out when the piggy (and human) snacks are running low.

(Here we have an example of the good part of this change: me, enjoying an "Early Mid-Afternoon Snack", a meal we only invented after Slave began staying home more!)

This all seemed like a wonderful idea at first, but unfortunately, the story gets darker.  There's an old saying: "Be careful what you wish for."  Well, now we're thinking that there might be a downside to Slaves staying at home all the time: sooner or later, even with all of the piggy chores they could be keeping busy with, they are going to get bored and start looking for ways to amuse themselves.

Look what she did to Sundance!  She dressed him up like a pirate!

And poor Heathcliffe had to wear this bumble bee costume!  He was sooooo embarrassed.  The Piggyfriends' Slave, our Aunty Penny, is growing a little indoor garden of parsley and lettuce for her piggies.  Why, oh why, can't we have a Slave who spends her time on useful things like that?

Slave claims she just "happened" to come across our Halloween costumes when she was cleaning the closet in our room and thought we might like to try them on.  A likely story!   Did she ask us if we wanted to do that?  I don't think so!  It seems that the Human/Slave mind can be a dangerous thing when left to its own devices, without proper piggy oversight!

Do other piggies out there have any good tips on keeping their Slaves under control?  We could use some help!

A Piggy A-Z. K is for Kindness and Keeping Close

We have been sent a photo and a story from our friend Ann, Slave to the the Piggyville Girls.

The Piggyville girls each have their own cozy to sleep in. Tilley loves
to sleep either on top of Honeydew's house or inside it. Honeydew acts
like Tilley is her baby, though they are not related. Squirly is too big
to share with anyone. This picture reminds me that no matter how close
or far away our friends or family members may be we carry their love in
our hearts and cherish their memories.  Sometimes with our busy lives we
forget to tell our friends and family members how much they mean to us.
So reach out and connect with someone you love. Ask your parents what
life was like when they were youngsters. Take some extra time to listen
to your child or spouse tell you about their day. Call your friend that
lives across the pond just to say hi. There is no better time than now.

Honeydew is willing to share her home with Tilley as long as she sleeps on the roof.
Squirly is snug as a bug in her tunnel. They are taking a nap after
enjoying their tea time treats. Their bellies are full from eating red
bell peppers, carrots and Broccolini which is a hybrid of broccoli and
Chinese kale.

One Sofa = Hours of Relaxation

Nugget here, and still on my sofa! I mean the sofa I share with my brother, Scottie. He is thinking of becoming a builder or an architect, and he likes to change furniture around. The other day he pushed over the sofa so the back became the cushions, but I didn't let that stop me. That's how I am sitting in this pigture, on the sofa's back. Hey, it is comfortable. You should try it.

In fact, "comfort" is my middle name. Oh, wait. No, it's not.

We have other places to hide under or play on or in, but our mom says instead of being couch potatoes, we are "couch cucumbers." I am just happy to hear the word "cucumber"!

Is it time to eat?

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)