Bert and Ernie Help Out

 Hello everyone --- Bert and Ernie here!  We are still the new pigs on the block here at Prairie Pigs, but we are trying hard to become indispensable members of the team by being extra helpful to Slave, especially at cage cleaning time.

Here we are, helping to sweep out our cage.  Well, it's more of a quality control function really --- we are carefully inspecting the hay that Slave has just swept up.  Can you believe it?  In this dust pan alone, we found seven strands of hay that we had not even tasted yet.  What a waste it would have been to throw those into the compost!  We hope this serves to demonstrate the importance of letting your guinea pigs help with cage cleaning decisions.

Well, that's enough work for one day!  Here we are engaging in our favourite activity ---  girl watching! (Since it's still several hours until afternoon grass snack time, which is when Meabh the Brave gets let out for her floor time, there are no actual girls to watch yet.  We are really just sitting on top of our wooden houses and staring intensely at the back door of Meabh's cage, rather than girl watching precisely.  But we are absolutely ready to leap into action at any moment that a girl pig might suddenly come into view!)

We hope that everyone out there is safe, healthy and enjoying the summer, and that piggies everywhere are looking for ways to help out!

Better late than never.

After a really cold Spring, when our hawthorn trees did not blossom, the weather suddenly turned really hot and "hey presto", as if by magic, all the trees turned white with mayflowers.

So, although it is ridiculously late, here is Caoimhe being our May Queen.

Slave went to pick some blossom and asked her son, who was visiting for the holiday weekend, to choose a lady pig who would sit still and he selected Caoimhe.

"What is this stuff," asks Caoimhe. " Is it edible?"

Actually the leaves can be eaten. Slave says that when she was little, the children used to eat the leaves and called it the bread and cheese tree.We are not sure that it would be nice for piggies as we eat neither bread nor cheese and anyway the tree has nasty thorns so we will not recommend it as a food item.

A Piggy A-Z. M is for Maki

Hello readers!

We have been sent a photo of one of the Piggyfriends#2 herd, who live in CT.

The girls all had a spa day, with shampoos, pedicures and haircuts and here is Maki, relaxing in her towels and enjoying a leaf.

A Piggy A-Z. M is for May Day......or maybe not.

 Hello readers. Picchu Piggyfriend here.

We were going to make a May Day post. Our girls were competing for the right to be May Queen and have a crown of mayflowers. We have a hedge of hawthorn ( may ) along the side of our garden.

I think that Bella would have won by virtue of her mere weight although Caoimhe is growing to be a big girl too.

Unfortunately, our spring has been unseasonably cold this year and there was not a single blossom to be picked so the girls will have to wait until next year. We cannot have a May Queen without any May.

Newsflash: New Prairie Pigs Arrive on The Doorstep!!!

 There has been a lot of excitement among the Prairie Pigs in the last few days: two new little boars have appeared very suddenly in the next room!  We only found out about it after Meabh the Brave (who also lives in that room) came for her usual evening visit and told us the whole story. 

Apparently our Slave's vet clinic phoned her a few days ago to tell her about two guinea pigs who urgently needed a new home.  All of the other Prairie Pigs have come from the local humane society shelter, but this sounded like a situation where help was needed right away, so she asked the clinic to give her phone number to the piggies' owner and, before we knew a thing about it, she was off to collect them and quite a stack of paraphernalia that came with them.  

These are our new recruits --- Bert and Ernie.  They are two handsome Abyssinian boars, and to tell the truth, we are a little jealous that they get to live in the same room with Meabh the Brave and have chats with her in the middle of the night after Slave is asleep.  

Here is a closer pigture of Ernie, showing off his beautiful luxuriant coat.  It's a good thing we know that Meabh is not swayed by mere physical attraction and that her heart belongs to us, her four favourite boyfriends !  

                                                                           

These little wooden houses came along with our new additions from their previous home. They are

a bit rough, but guinea pigs like that sort of thing; easier to get your teeth into when applying those customizing touches!  We Prairie Pigs are not much for climbing, so we were surprised to hear from Meabh that Bert and Ernie not only nap inside these houses, but also hop up on top to use them as viewing platforms (especially for peeking over into Meabh's cage which is just a few feet away).

We're hoping that soon these little boys will be allowed to come and visit us on their own; we can hardly wait to meet them and begin telling them some of that all-important inside info about life as a Prairie Pig and how to get extra snacks and treats from our Slave!

Nugget is 6!

I had a birthday April 20th, but my mom wasn't able to get a pigture of me on the special day because her camera refused to turn on. She was very disappointed.

This afternoon she tried again, and to her surprise the camera turned on --- then immediately turned off!  My dad tried taking out the new batteries and putting them in again, and for some reason, the camera decided to work.

(This is supposed to be about me, I think???)

Anyhow, my mom didn't have much time to prepare so she picked me up from my cozy where I was resting, got one of my towels and placed me on the sofa by her favorite pillow. She says that in hindsight (I'll have to ask what that means), she should have chosen one of her cranberry towels to match the pillow, but she was concerned that the camera would change its mind.

(Is this about me yet?)

My parents won't tell me exactly how old I am, but say I am very young.  Despite some health problems earlier in the year, I'm feeling much better now and have gained weight in the past month. I'm very happy to have celebrated another birthday!

Introducing Our New Sofa!

We have just received this exciting news flash from our field reporters, Scottie and Nugget:

I am Scottie, and have I told you I have a new sofa? I mean, my brother, Nugget, and I have a new sofa, although I did my best to claim it first!

In the first pigture, I think you can see that I am perfectly configured to the shape of the sofa, as the instruction manual suggested. (OK, I am kidding about the instruction manual.) One step into it, though, and I completely relaxed. It is the ultimate in comfort. Well, besides our other sofa, of course!

Now I'll display it on its side, so you can get a better view, and I'll just scamper off. You can't see me, can you?