You find us this November overwhelmed with piglets and other animals! Well, almost...

Marlene had a litter of six lovely little pure breed GOS piglets in the middle of October.  They were Rodney's last (posthumous) litter and they are all little tykes now.  Stout and strong and full of life.  We've just weaned them from Marlene, a little bit early as they grew so quickly. She's quite upset, but they are now in another pen and happily exploring without a thought for her grunting on the other side of the wall.

They were quickly followed by Cassie delivering DelBoy's first litter of piglets (well, his first litter of piglets to be born here). She had 11, which is a fabulous number of piglets considering it was her seventh litter.  Unfortunately three didn't make it, which is sad, but means that the remaning eight will grow really quickly getting more milk than they originally thought!  They are already half the size of the Old Spots and we are wondering whether - when we wean them - we'll be able to put them all in together - like a pig kindergarten!

Meanwhile we've been busy making jams and chutneys and have just bought a job lot of 120 jam jars!  We had such a bumper year of fruit that our freezers were full of it and jamming is the best way to preserve it from now on.  We've been selling quite a bit of Keith's lovely jam to our B&B guests.  If you're coming to visit you can always take a bit of Spillers Farm home with you.  We've also just bought some ice gel packs that keep meat frozen for up to 24 hours so why not take some sausages or a lovely joint of pork or lamb away too?  

We've also had another more domestic new arrival.  Spike - our new cat - so called as he has a white stripe on his nose which looks like a spike.  Our neighbour Edward persuaded us to take him on as he had too many cats and wanted to find a good home for him.  Spike is from the same mother as Sils, so they look pretty similar (except he's much slimmer - at the moment....) He's about a year old and arrived yesterday.  He's a bit furtive, but getting used to his new surroundings.  Every time Merryck sees him he wags his tail furiously and tries to play with him.  Merryck seems to love him.  Not sure if it's mutual!  Spike is still not sure what Merryck is.  Sils on the other hand is perfectly disgusted with the new arrival. She is not talking to me for sure and since Spike has arrived she's taken herself off to the airing cupboard and won't come out.  So far she's hissed at him a couple of times, so that bodes well! I'm fully expecting a bit of fisticuffs soon and then it'll all probably be over and they'll settle down to life with each other. Check out our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spillers-Farm/194357824143 for more pictures but here are a couple to keep you up to date :0)