Heart with arrow and BACON banner on upper arm

Your sister says you have taken the sow up to the top field and will not come down until she farrows, so I am writing this on the back of the feed list while the kettle does its best. The forest is up to the stile now. Mr Pryce swears the foxes have moved in under the cart shed, and the hens have stopped laying out of pure spite. I have counted the eggs twice. Nine. Nine is an insult.

Yesterday I went into Hollin Wood after the runt, the one you named before you had the sense to stop naming them. He was under the holly by the old gate, rooting like a man who has lost his watch, and when I shouted he ran at the brambles as though they owed him money. I followed him out to the far edge where the trees stop and the village roofs show through the gap. There, nailed to the gatepost, was a heart somebody had cut from a tin lid and painted red, with a yellow ribbon across it and a tin arrow driven clean through the middle. I could not read the writing for the rain, so I scraped at it with my thumbnail. It said BACON. I laughed until I had to sit down on the stile.

Come home, you daft article. The pig is fat, the gate is mended, and the heart is still on the post. I have left the arrow where it is for you to take down yourself.

Love, Maud