Pig Sty?

I was a bit pi**ed off yesterday because my house was a mess. “Bloody pig sty”, was my first thought. But then I thought again…. “hold on, Sharon, pigs don’t live in messy houses”.

Now I’m no authority on pigs - I’ve never kept them, never lived close to them, or had any other dealings with them other than that parts of them sometimes appear on my plate. But I do remember being on a weekend break in Wales a few years ago, and watching the pigs on the neighbouring farm go about their business. The male pig especially fascinated me.

He had a field to himself with one of those tin hut type things that pigs often live in. Nothing unusual there and had it not been for the fact that he was dashing back and forth between the road, his hut and a corner of their field, I probably wouldn’t have taken much notice of him. But I did. And he was tidying.

The end of his field ran parallel with a relatively busy road and it was clear that some of the passengers in the cars using the road had had no qualms about throwing their unwanted rubbish out of the window, much of which had landed in the pig’s field. Said pig clearly wasn’t impressed and was diligently sorting through it, taking useful stuff into his hut to improve the comfort of his bedding and the not so useful stuff to one corner where it was, if not gone, at least tidier.

Richard and I watched Mr Pig go about his business for ages, completely transfixed by his behaviour. He clearly knew what would add extra comfort or warmth to his bed and what wouldn’t and at one point even dragged the remains of a rather large cardboard box half way up the field and into his hut, moved his bedding, placed the cardboard where the bedding had been then piled the bedding back on top. How clever was that?

No, my house didn’t look like a pig sty. It looked like a human inhabitance full of the kind of mess that only we can make.

It’s a bit better now, though.

Sharon J xx

~~+~~

Image Credit: The Pug Father

~~+~~