The swine herd gets inexplicably demoted

My photos started out well yesterday. I had this big plan for colour and light.

I made a classy shot of the air hose from the pump drying out by the fire. When cold (air) hits heat (steam from hot milk) we get condensation in the lines.  Which results in water in the pump (bad).  

Then the Kiwi Builder working out in the snow flurries.

Yes, I know these snow flurries are hard to see. But we have had so little snow this season, that a thick flurry made me all giddy with excitement.

Then I did one of those astounding quick changes from the blimp in many layers to svelte like lady about town out to get her blood drawn.  (laugh)  This process, not the quick change the blood letting,  should only have taken an hour. Plenty of time for more artsy images later I thought.

Anyway I arrived at the duly appointed hour, the blood gathering was in the gym at the local high school and the blood letters were short staffed, every step took a terribly long time – much to my delight because I was reading Wolf Hall (still working my way down our reading list). I have big fat veins, excellent blood pressure and tons of iron. Good girl, the ladies in the white coats said. You make our job easy. I smiled gracefully and turned a page.

Later I was directed to a table with a whole bevy of high school student hand maidens whose job it was to make sure that I ate and drank something and did not faint where I sat or leave too early and faint in the car park (like I am the fainting type!) whereas in fact they seemed to be doing an awful lot of eating and drinking themselves and we got to talking about the Shush Sisters. As you would!

Well lo and behold I discovered a beautiful young high school senior who is perfectly capable of Artificially Inseminating (AI) Charlotte, she will assist with any birthing problems, do all the icky castrating and ear piercing and lives on the ridge 5 minutes from our house!  She told me where I could get all the necessaries and will pop in later in the week to have a look at the pigs. Her mother is the Ag teacher! Plus, bless her, she can understand every word I say!  I told her I need her to mentor me through the whole process and how do I know when the pig is in heat, how long does the semen last, do I need to buy straws? Papettes, she said, as she laid her hand across her mouth so as not to laugh too loud, leaning back and refolding her long legs. “I am serious”, I said. “I need to learn all this stuff. You are going to be my teacher. And I will pay you.”

Oh no, she shook her head. “It is better” I said. “You deserve to be paid for a job. And then I can ask you to do it again, if it doesn’t work the first time.”

“I would much prefer a virgin birth, just as long as I get my babies”  I raised my voice as I looked up, nodding Hullo to the Principal as he stumbled past, shaggy eyebrows raised.  Eye contact slurring to the right. “And I will pay you to do the castrating too,  girls probably do a much better job of that I would say” I watched his back straighten.  My own hand to my own mouth this time. We all silently giggled as he shot out of the gym and down the hall.

I turned back to the growing crowd of students.

‘Could you pass me another cupcake, please?’  I said.  They passed me two,  and loaded their plates with the rest, looking at each other with clear dancing eyes.

So there we are, we don’t have to separate Charlotte from Sheila and load her into the trailer and take her over to see a nasty bad tempered boar with no time for niceties and probably bad breath.  We have a girl for that now!

Another word for ‘inexplicably demoted’ is Plutoed.  Because that is what they did to Pluto. They demoted that poor unsuspecting planet.  So I will have to call the swine herd and tell him he has been Plutoed. He won’t mind as long as I come to visit once in a while.  I will take my girl.

So our first task is to work out when Charlotte is in heat. More to learn. Excellent.

Good morning darlings. I got home by 4 O’clock. Just in time to rip all my tidy clothes off, relayer my body in teenage boys hand me downs, the clown suit, thermal boots, wooly hat and two pairs of gloves and launch out into the afternoon to do the chores.

It was dead calm all day yesterday. Still below freezing but not even terribly cold.  A good day. Today is going to be a wee bit warmer,  the sunrise is a little earlier and the sunset a little later.  Things are looking up. We are looking up. All of us. You too. We may hit the gutter sometimes but we never stop looking up to the stars. The stars are beautiful way out here.

Have a lovely day.

celi