Another waif and stray, I mean visitor, for Cedar Lodge.

What a busy weekend. Saturday we were meant to go to Juliet and Kevs early to help Juliet who was doing a tea for her parents and some friends for their 40th wedding anniversary, but... we had 2 more loads of hay to get in and some sheep had flystrike. We warned them we'd be late and finally got there at 2.30pm! Harriette and Eric sorted out the sheep (yuk) and I helped with the hay. God those last few bales were heavy!

We really needed to move Olympia but ran out of time so hoped she'd keep her legs crossed until Sunday.

During Saturday morning I had a phone call from Vicki. I misunderstood Grrr (Stan's Paihia name) for Gail to start with and told her she had the wrong number. When she said Michelle and Eric I realised she didn't. Anyway the long and short was that Stan had suggested she might be able to stay with us. He had told Eric about Vicki but had Eric had forgot to tell me. We arranged to pick her up in Matamata next morning.

Had a nice afternoon with the Stokes and co. We would have stayed overnight but it got complicated so we didn't.

Sunday I was about to get dressed when Eric came dashing up from the pigs with that excited new dad look. Olympia had waited until Sunday but not late enough on Sunday! 8 more piglets. She had farrowed in a hollow under the tree and looked quite comfortable.


The other pigs were ignoring her and in fact one of the piglets had wandered into the crowd of big boys and girls. The boar gently lifted his leg to let the little one through, so cute.

Why can't I walk?!

We had a plan to go to the Small Block Expo in Hamilton on Sunday. I had said we would pick Vicki up and go afterwards. I was going to drop Alice off with the Scotts on the way in as she didn't want to come to Hamilton. The morning was passing and Alice was getting more and more impatient. Anyway I decided to take her through and Eric phoned as I was on my back to say Vicki had arrived so I went to pick her up. Vicki is a vet and on a 6 month holiday in Auz and NZ. She had been here for a week and done some diving, where she met Stan. She came through to Hamilton with us and is going to stay for a few days. Today she has been clearing the drive and building fires!!!!!!!!! Eric has been out and dug great trenches round each fire and doused them. I swear he will be up hourly during the night checking for 30 foot high flames. Vicki is totally unaware of the world of blog so we are educating her!

The Small Block Expo was good but very small. We were hoping to see more alternative energy stands. I wouldn't bother going again but was glad we went once.

I'm not concentrating as Eric and Vicki are chatting about a dead animals and Vicki's travel plans! Will post some more photo's and say goodnight.

Oh, and this is the finch nest in my runner beans