The heat was hot and the ground was dry and the air was full of smell

Mimi bit me yesterday. I was giving her a corn cob. She loves corn cobs especially with corn and butter left on them. She was chewing half of it when one of her piglets took the other half away. I grabbed it away from the kid and gave it back to Mimi - she's lactating and having to put up with her offspring so she deserves a treat. As I handed the cob back to her she grabbed it and my right index finger, puncturing two holes in the finger. She may have punctured the corn cob too but I didn't wait around to check. Off to the faucet to squeeze out any infectious pig germs under running water.
A day later my finger looks like a porcine vampire got me. No big deal.

The piglets are really cute. They run and play and bash each other. They dig up the back yard, side yard and front yard. They eat the bird seed and run off the birds we are trying to attract. I removed the camper shell off of the Ford truck my dad had given me. I put it carefully on the ground in the front yard. I made sure it wasn't damaged in any way. The very next morning Mimi and the Piglets (good name for a girl band) had moved in. They sleep in there now and they have rooted up the dirt underneath so as to make it more comfortable for them and yet decidedly unattractive to my eyes. Every morning at 4:50am I bring them two dishes of food. One for Mimi and one for the piglets and place them at the front of the camper shell. Our pigs are spoiled.

The perpetual deck renovation project has seen some rare progress. After I knocked down the gazebo over the spa which was aided by some shock and awe and gravity, Things actually went pretty well. I now have fully 2/3 of the deck resurfaced and I'm even contemplating the final third. This last bit is the part we use the most so it will have to be done quickly and well....maybe I should think about this for a while longer. Don't want to rush.

Kristi's garden grows. July is harvest month and the garden is just beginning to pay off. She's coming back in with all her pockets stuffed full of heirloom tomatoes and peppers, the occasional ocra and squash. Real soon now Kristi will be harvesting bushel basket loads and then she'll have to be processing and canning stuff every day. We've been talking all day about making our own cat food. They eat $.50 per day, $15.00 per month in canned food. We have enough trimmings off of meat and carcasses to cover the quantity. Add rice and stock and bone meal and you have a complete diet for the cats. But will the eat it? That's what we have the dogs for.

Tomorrow a treat! I have the smoker cleaned out, wood prepared, a pre-burning pit readied and a pork picnic rubbed and seasoned. I'm going to get up at 6am and smoke 9lbs of pork for about 15 hours for our fourth of July feast. Kristi made fresh flour tortillas (using some of the lard from the same pig that donated the picnic) and I'll make some cole slaw and corn on the cob. I'll have to be sure to avoid any vampire pigs.