Was whippersnippering madly this morning. I had reloaded the cord which had retreated into the head and so thought there was not that much left. But I kept on till I had emptied the head and cleared four more trees.

One is the greengage which had thrown out another stem from below ground level which was the same size as the main stem. Problem was to work out which was which as the graft union seemed to have disappeared. I ended up opting to keep the slightly thicker stem which has about three inches of bark of a different texture at the bottom. Hope I was right. The leaves and branch formations were otherwise identical so it was a tough choice. The damson seems to have thrown suckers out everywhere, but at least they were fine whippy things and so easier to distinguish from the parent tree. They are all now surrounded by a high donut of cut grass, and there are now only two more trees to rediscover in that half of the orchard. Of these, one is the apple that is most likely to bear fruit in a given year (though not this year due to frosts at the wrong time), and the other is the pair of hazel nuts that have survived (fortunately mutually compatible in terms of fertilisation).

A cottage to clean and that gave me the excuse to have a cup of latte and a cinnamon scroll at the Pancake Parlour, then walking the dog. I was a little disconcerted to see that the pig slaughter next door has commenced, with one of the pigs (looking distinctly red after being scrubbed for de-hairing) hanging from the front of the barn, with the damn dog loose in the yard. I hope they plan to practice better hygiene when they are butchering it as I have agreed to buy half of one of them.

The dehairing comes before the carcase is opened, for those of you who don't know about these things. The proper process should be that they dress it out, hang it in a coolroom for a couple of days before butchering it. The cool room does exist, in the house next along, so it presumably going to be used. I will have to get a wriggle on clearing out the freezer though as that 'fortnight' they mentioned seems to have become foreshortened.