Joshua and I are keeping two pigs this year, Yorkie and Hampie. Some of our friends are buying the second pig from us at the end of the season. I recently sent them an email to update them on various thoughts about the pigs, which I thought I’d print here for y’all, too, as well as some recent pictures of the piggies:

It’s Spring here in Tennessee, which means things have been busy here at The Wallow. Joshua bought me an awesome hammock, which I love to nap away the afternoon in. I haven’t felt much like posting, but that doesn’t mean stuff isn’t happening. I’m just less likely to want to sit down and get something down on the computer. The last few days I’ve been itching to post and trying to think of what I want to communicate with the world. All I’ve come up with is, “I love Spring!” Not very deep or original, I know, but that’s all that’s really on my mind. Here are the things I’m looking at these days:

As of tonight, two little pigs live at The Wallow!

When I went to buy them, the only surprise was that the pigs aren’t as big as I thought they’d be. The guy I was buying them from put them in the back of my truck, so that went smoothly. When I got home, it was my job to get them out of the truck and into the barn stall I’ve made up for them. Getting them out of the truck was a bit of an adventure. Little pigs do not want to be gotten! It took some determination to get hold of them, and there was a lot of squealing.

I love restaurant food. I love my food to be covered in cheese and grease and contain magic-restaurant calories and be made by someone else and brought out to me. Increasingly, I’m less interested in the part where it’s made by someone else. I really enjoy being at home, and I really want to know what’s in my food (even if it’s cheese and grease). I want to save money by making things at home. All sorts of reasons. Sometimes this leads to frustration, though, as the stuff at home tends to be “healthier”, and doesn’t always satisfy me when I have a craving for junk food.

The other night, I was hungering for something restaurant-y, but I didn’t want to head out to an actual restaurant to get it. I opened up my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook determined to make myself something yummy. I don’t have very much experience cooking, but I was sure I could find something. The very first item in the very first section (appetizers) was pizza rolls. Ah ha! Cheese! Meat! Bread! Hard to go wrong.

I found this post in my drafts. Apparently, I never posted it. It’s 5 months later now, and I’m well settled into my new home at The Wallow. What has happened and what has yet to come? Here’s the draft I wrote back in August:

“I won’t be moving to my new house in Tennessee until October. So much waiting! I’m reading up on bees and pigs in the meantime, as well as prepping for Burning Man and Alchemy, which happen between now and then. There’s lots to do, but I’m spending a lot of time daydreaming away, too.”

Every time Joshua or I makes something homemade (usually Joshua) that I’ve only ever purchased from elsewhere, I am amazed. Every time we go shopping, I buy bagels. I really like having them for breakfast and sometimes as snacks. This time when I went to reach for them, Joshua stopped me and said this would be the week we made them at home.

Moving in at The Wallow involved a bit of reclaiming the house from the nature that had run rampant in the absence of people. The main project was mowing the yard, which had become insanely overrun with weeds. The other thing that turned into a huge project was the fact that woodpeckers were dining on our home.

Now that it’s 2010, I’m thinking towards the year ahead, which always involves a nod back to where I’ve been. The biggest whirlwind of awesome has been in just the last handful of months. In case you missed some posts, here are a few of the highlights for me:

Here at the Wallow, Joshua and I had a nice tail-end to fall with our new cat, Juli, usually affectionately just called Kitteh. Now that it’s almost winter and it’s much colder outside, she doesn’t have much interest in staying out. Very occasionally, she sits at the door to go outside, but then just a minute or two later she’s back at the door wanting back in.

Here at The Wallow, we have a lot of bees and we have a lot of wasps. Is there a difference? You bet!

Since I’m in love with bees and I hate wasps, it always bugs me when I hear someone confuse the two. The other day someone commented on a yellow jacket sting saying they hated bees. I piped up to say that yellow jackets are wasps, not bees. The other person said it didn’t much matter when you were being stung. Ah, but it does! It matters in the moment right before you think you’re going to be stung (because you might want to act differently depending on whether it’s a bee or a wasp), and it matters when you get stung (because one is just bothersome and one hurts like hell!)