I always wonder when speaking to people how they picture me and my surroundings...  Do they think of me as young, can they picture my pastures and my back gate that squeaks, that I so often mention?  After a while even though you have never seen a face you begin to feel like you "know" a person.  They are assigned a mental image that your mind connects with their voice.  You try to imagine what their homes look like as they discribe themselves and their everyday experiences...

I've slowly begun meeting the people I've gotten to know over the last few years with our Kunekunes.  I've met Cyndi Berry of Kunekune Preserve, Leslie Bradley of Brandywine Croft, Barb Rossi of Bel Canto Farm, Erica Kuntz of Koru Fiber and Dairy and last Sunday we were able to meet Susan Drake of Long Island Kunekunes. 

No mental picture can do justice to the enchantment of Susan, her farm, and her pigs!  As soon as we pulled into the yard we were greeted with a sense of welcome and ease.  It was the perfect conglomeration of well kept gardens, random outbuildings, and a hodgepodge of miscellaneous chickens of every shape, size, and breed.  Susan's husband explained that their hatchery accidently doubled their order of seventy-five birds...  And right in the middle of her nine acre strip of Long Island were her pigs!  First we met her boar--handsome, HUGE, and masculine in a very pleasing way, her gentle giant is a Kunekune we should all be pround to be breeding from.  Sadie (her sow) was adjoining.  A slightly plainer solid ginger, Sadie too was tall.  Long through the body and surprisingly trim and chipper for having just reared nine piglets she was happy to greet Susan who let her out into the yard to roam with the chickens.  She had the most beautiful tail that she swished and curled as she went...

Susan then whisked us off to her kitchen where her husband was preparing "lunch".  My husband knows what a fan I am of "breakfast"  for lunch and dinner.  Well, we had "breakfast" for "lunch".  That's right!  Blueberry pancakes, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, fresh grapes and bing cherries... It was divine.  Their kitchen (really their whole home) was just as welcoming as the rest of their farm.  All of us with children can appreciate a "don't worry about your shoes"!  Susan explained that her slate floors were ment to stand up to everyday life.  It was so pleasant to sit at her kitchen table and gaze around at her beautiful home and chat about Long Island, Kunekunes, health charts, England, London, and her love of English food.  All while her amazing husband was piling pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns on our plates. 

Susan then insisted on taking the kids for goodie bags from her barn where she sells her own baked goods, old fashioned candies, and organic teas on the weekends.  They each got a bag for the road and Brain and I got three monterous cookies and a bag of Honeybush tea.  Then we headed off to help the guys load up our piglets. 

This turned out to be the most exciting part.  Sadie's piglets did NOT want to leave!  I mean REALLY!  And these piglets are not your normal little guys that I'm used to.  Poor Susan and her husband were left to wrestle them  out of their fence and into the crates.  The last piglet was proving quite a challenge until Susan body tackled him to the ground kicking and screaming while the guys attempted to get ahold of him.  Only minor injuries were sustained and Brian asked if she had ever considered trying out for the Giants.  In the end everyone settled in their crates on our trailer wrapped in beach towels, surrounded by the kids bikes and wagon and stroller.

Susan and her husband plan on attending our day with AKBA in August and we would love for all of you to be able to meet them.  Susan's pigs are going to prove such a valuable addition to our USA herds.  They have a look all their own that everytime I look at my pair, they grow on me a little more strongly.  Strong feet and legs, upturned noses, curled tails, broad muzzles, SIZE...  I can not wait to begin breeding them into our herd. 

To everyone else enjoying their Long Island Kunekunes congrats.  For myself--I feel as if we are the most blessed.  Not only do we have our piglets, we have wonderful memories to go with them.