Pigging Order

One of our favorite parks to visit is a working farm not too far from where we live. Every spring we enjoy quite a succession of new baby animals. Calvin, Henry and I go about once a week starting in February to see who's new to the barnyard. This week, our little cousin Lily (who's halfway in age between Calvin and Henry) and her mom came, too. A calf was born the night before we came, there were several sets of lamb twins and triplets, and some baby goats, plus some chicks just growing out of their yellow down, but the highlight is always the pigs. In March and early April, three sows gave birth, so there are 32 piglets at various ages ROUGHLY suckling, or rooting around the barn. Outside in the pigpin this week, the black spotted piglets were frolicking and teasing each other in a bumbling cluster at one end, while nine fat little brown pigs lay in a snoozing piggy pile in the sunshine, one on top of the other. Calvin watched for a minute and moved on, but Lily watched a little longer, then exclaimed, "Look, Mom! Someone sorted the pigs!"