Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes (37 page)

Not long before she died, a policewoman and an RSPCA inspector turned up saying that some passer-by had reported the Wheen
household for neglecting their animals, specifically Perdita, aged nine, and Julia's old horse, Easter, who was then thirty-six.
The policewoman said these animals clearly weren't in perfect condition and therefore should be put down. Francis retaliated
by saying that they were just very old, like the Queen Mother. By the time she reached her hundredth birthday, would they
like to see her put down too?

'We told the policewoman that if the animals became distressed, then obviously we would consider it, but that they were actually
jolly happy and regularly visited by the vet.' As if on cue, Perdita started making her happy snuffling sounds and Easter
whickered and nuzzled the WPC's ear. The following day, their vet rang up both the WPC and the man from the RSPCA to say that
if they tried this again, he would sue them for slandering his professional integrity. Two years on, Francis and Julia still
miss Perdita, with her expressive face and intelligent eyes which met you on the level, just as Winston Churchill said.

Three more pigs go off to Snells in early July. Charlie and I wait anxiously for the verdict from Rowley Leigh, who has received
his pig via the fish lorry from Bristol. Three days later, he emails to say:

Just cooked part of pig. Extremely good flavour, rich in taste and almost gamey. Skin and fat still a little thin for my taste.
Any fat is too much for most butchers so never listen to Mr Bonner on this score.

Beetroot and runners are excellent. Not mad about the courgettes. Turnips good and I haven't tasted the spuds yet, I'm afraid.

What we want is fat - because it makes the meat so much tastier and lubricates it, you can cook it for four hours and it comes
out like butter.

Mr Bonner describes it as a 'cracking pig' and, the day after the carcass is delivered, our name goes up on the noticeboard:
'Pork - Dillington Park Nurseries.'

We have four litters of piglets in less than two months from Bramble and Bluebell, and the two saddlebacks. Collette produces
eight little piglets, all healthy and well, wonderfully attractive with their black and white markings. Her sister Cordelia,
though, is a rotten mum. Late one Saturday afternoon Charlie comes running back from the farm to tell me that she's just given
birth to nine piglets. It happened quickly, before there was a chance to move Cordelia out of the big wood, so she's given
birth in the communal pig arc, surrounded by laurels and overhung by a big yew tree. I make my way across the rough ground
towards the shelter. There is no sign of Cordelia: the nine babies are lying on top of each other in a pile, smooth black
and white fur, eyes bright and open. I look around: the fat pig is on the far side of the wood, her head deep in a muddy hole,
rootling for food. That night, the smallest piglet dies. The following day we move the newborns and their mum into the maternity
shed, but Cordelia just isn't cut out for motherhood. She hardly ever stays in the shed, preferring to hang out near the drinking
trough which she shares with the other female pigs, planting her two front legs in the water and making great efforts to heave
her considerable bulk right into the stone trough, all the while keeping up a grunting conversation with her girlfriends in
the next paddock.

The mewling piglets follow her outside into the baking sunlight. Two more die, of heatstroke we think. In the office there
is a bottle of Nivea Factor 35 sunscreen which David rubs all over Josh, so we rub that on to the white parts of the little
pigs. It does the trick and there are no more fatalities. As they grow bolder, the piglets discover that they can squeeze
under the gate to visit their dad, Robinson, who, unlike Cordelia, greets them civilly and doesn't object when they climb
into his feeding trough, pushing his huge snout to one side to get at his rations. The Empress and Earl also give birth: a
litter of nine, although one dies after two days. Unlike Cordelia, the Empress proves to be an exemplary mum, herding the
piglets outside the hut for a feed if it is sunny, even washing them briskly with her tongue till they squeal for mercy.

At the beginning of August, David proudly hands us a sheet of paper on which he had itemised the cash flow for July:

Wages: Anne - £342

Dennis - £192

Adrian - £392

David - £1,000

Total: £1,926

Owing to David:

£416 - pipe work

£4.80 - stamps

£28.93 - mite spray

£66.56 - jam jars

£79.24 - wire posts for the turkeys we are planning

to fatten for the Christmas market

£20 - diesel for Transit

£30 - diesel for red van

Total: £645.53

Money owed:

Dillington House: £1,350

Rowley: £1,207

Table: £110

Montacute market: £197

Total: £2,864

We had made a profit of £292.47. I look back at the original monthly forecast, drafted in optimism when we first had produce
to sell in July 2005: £1,500 from Dil­lington House, £320 from eggs, pigs £600 from May 2006, vegetable boxes £600, rare breeds
£200. Clearly, we had been over-optimistic. We sell less to Dillington House and, to date, not a single vegetable box has
left the nursery. The rare breeds have also been a failure and we will have to sell off all the birds except for the Orpingtons
in the autumn market sales. Our investment in fencing for small groups of birds and the two incubators is, largely, a write-off.
Our pig-breeding has been successful but, in terms of having pigs to sell regularly, we are five months behind our original
forecast. Boris, our chubby, spotted boar has had so many courses of antibiotics in his short, unhealthy life that he's probably
infertile and will soon be turned into sausages. One of his brothers has stepped into his place, claiming his name in the
process.

On the plus side, we didn't factor in selling vegetables to Rowley, nor did we think that we would be able to produce double
the amount of eggs on a good day. Farmers' markets and the honesty table more than cover the projected income from the boxes
and, this autumn, we're hoping to start taking orders for them as well. Our capital costs have hugely exceeded our original
plan, but our daily running costs have been more or less consistent. Back in the spring of 2005, we estimated that our plant
stock would build up to about £5,000 in 2006. We've exceeded that and we've been selling plants steadily, if not in great
quantity, since April this year. It would be naive to think that Charlie and I might start getting a return on our investment
any time in the next few years, but I don't think we're going to go broke and that feels like a real achievement.

In the middle of August, while Charlie and I are away on holiday, a fox breaks into the chicken coop. The first time it happens,
the electric fence is down because the pigs crashed through the wire and shorted the system. That night, the fox kills over
fifty birds, biting the heads off four of them and killing the rest for the hell of it, chewing their necks or bodies. Some
are still alive the following morning, weak with shock. David has to shoot them and burn the carcasses. Two nights later,
the fox, no doubt egged on by his successful raid, digs a two-foot hole under the fence, approaching the chicken coop from
the shelter of the wood. This time he destroys sixty birds, eating none of them and again leaving several half alive. In the
nearby fields, the maize is shoulder height and the foxes are using the dense crop as cover. But David and Rodney, the estate
gamekeeper, search through the maize and in the nearby woods and shoot twelve foxes over the following three days. The remaining
chickens take almost three weeks to recover: they huddle in sad, frightened groups, staying near the chicken house and laying
less than half their normal number of eggs. Our egg income, from a high of £160 a week, drops to less than £50. When Chris
Wilson hears about the attack he says we are lucky to lose only chickens. His brother, who farms pigs in the south-east of
England, has had newborn piglets stolen by foxes. Evidently they watch the mother giving birth and strike as the baby pig
slithers bloodily to the ground.

One day in early September, Charlie and I are digging up weeds from a bed of leek seedlings. It is a warm day and in the polytunnel
we're getting sweaty and hot. As we work we suddenly become aware of two black noses peering round the doorway. Two small
saddleback piglets trot in and start munching on the lettuces. We shoo them out and they run off towards the feed shed. David
shouts at them to get out. 'Those two,' he says, as he hustles them back into the yard, 'it's always those two. They're smart.
They've decided to move in with the Empress and suckle from her along with her piglets.' Fat-Boy, who has been regarding the
piglets with a bemused look on his face, joins in, helping to herd them along the path till they reach their own gateway.
Later in the day, I spot the two of them hunkering down in the fresh soft straw that has been put out for the Empress and
her babies, chewing contentedly on some beetroot leaves that were intended for the nursing sow. Later still, I see them lying
on their sides, fast asleep and facing each other, their front hooves touching as though they are holding hands. One of the
Empress's small black piglets has scrambled into the cosy space between their two stomachs and, lying flat on his belly, is
sound asleep, too.

From trees lining the walls of the nursery we've picked peaches, apricots, nectarines and small plums. They've been juicy
and delicious and as sweet as fruit grown in the Mediterranean sun. Next year there'll be enough to sell and, as the fruit
is so good, this winter we're going to plant more trees. As the days draw in towards autumn and the hedgerows blossom with
nature's own harvest of blackberries and sloes, and the squirrels give up their summertime thievery in favour of walnuts and
beech nuts, we start making plans for next year.

Financially, we should be on a firmer footing: we'll have enough pigs to be able to sell at least one every week and we're
talking to more pubs and hotels in the area about vegetable supplies. Once most of the rare-breed chickens have been sold,
their runs can be turned over to more egg-laying birds. David wants to add beef cattle to our smallholding, rearing them in
a two-acre field up by a tumbledown farm that we've got our eyes on. Bramble and Bluebell are pregnant again and we plan to
buy one more breeding Berkshire, so Earl can look after a harem of two.