Pig

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig
Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.
And then a new litter bring forth in the spring
Shalt she, the new mother of sweet little things!

Bit of self-disclosure now: my absolute favorite animal
is the pig. There is something innately charming about
their geometrically simple body shape and piggish snout.
(Wearily) Yes, thank you for pointing out that they are pink,
but how many animals do you know that can be caricatured
by a circle? Eh? Round is supreme. Shape trumps color.
And if you've ever watched Babe (or read Dick King-Smith's
The Sheep Pig, from which the movie was adapted), you'll
know that pigs are smart. They roll in brown mud to cover
their pinkness. Haven't you heard? Brown is the new black.
Even pigs know that.

But back to the farm thing.

Meet our sow!

She has a new litter of piglets who look just like her

Seven* of them

including the spunky little runt.

She gave birth to them in the spring by C-section

and already their appetites are insatiable.

They drive her crazy,

but she's a mom, so she puts up with it,
because it's what moms do.

More than twenty years ago, my brother made me a
present of a perfectly round orange pig, with a zipper
in its belly, enclosing little round miniature piglets.
I think it was then that I remembered how to be a child
again. I still have that pig today - her name is Pig -
and she was my inspiration for this sow (although Pig
wasn't a nurser). I thought that, since I'd done those
oviparous chickens, I should do a viviparous pig.
And throw in lactating as well.
Might as well give the kids the full story.

Kate turns two this week, so BigPig and
her family were her birthday gift.




Kate immediately sat on her (of course)
and called her Humpty Dumpty.


We also plan to use her as an ottoman sometime.

*There are only six piglets in the photos


Because one of them is going to a new home!

So many of you were on the right track in your guesses,
and a few of you came really close to the full picture!
So I picked the commenter who said it first -
congratulations to Angie (commenter #15 on Day #2),
who wrote:

okay, so those do have to be little b***** n****** and it
does have to be a pig to go with your chicken. this
zipper is it's backside where the little baby piglets
are born from and i bet they will have little velcro-y
snouts to stick to their mommy's n******. oh, i do hope
it's a pig! i grew up next door to my grandpa and
his pig farm and i helped him with the pigs every day...
i love pigs (especially the sweet little piglets) and
have always had a hard time eating pork. :)

Angie: I love pigs so completely that I eat them
on a regular basis. And chickens, too. And cows.
Shoot me an email with your name and postal
address and I'll ship Piglet to you!

Thank you all for playing along - you are such good
sports! I've gotta say, though, that some of your guesses
made me blush! Those little fleece circles with velcro centers
were piglet snouts.

SNOUTS.

See?


More livestock coming up, but not quite so soon.