Look at your skeleton. Lucky we are to have one. Have you ever looked at your fingers, felt around them, pushing the skin about, worrying at the bones laying there under your skin. Like a bone person living within you? Harder yet gentler. Have you ever run one finger down the other finger feeling the bone in there. There is a bone in there you know.
We prefer to live without looking too deeply. Like looking at a black and white image that is quite appealing.
Compared to this red image, the real one, that is a bloody visceral mess, all the piglets passed out asleep under their heat lamp. Their red heat lamp. Red is not a restful colour. But this is what they really look like.
Happy wee piglets. About this time in their development (four/five days old) the piglets begin to seek warmth away from their mother. Until now they would sleep very close to their mothers. But now they are in the creep most of the time, where they can lay out flat and safe. Relaxed. No worries about sudden sow movements from their mothers razor feet.
The cold must be coming because all the animals are building big warm beds.
And look at how fast these piggies are putting on weight in their black and white rendition.
The heat lamp is above a metal trash bin for two reasons. 1. The metal conducts and retains heat so when it is really cold the piglets have a great big hot water bottle to climb inside and 2. if the light bulb falls it will smash apart on the metal, lessening the risk of a barn fire.
By 9pm last night, when I did my last rounds, the piglets were all INside the metal rubbish bin, the hot light warming the metal and keeping them all toasty warm while Poppy slept right at the entrance to the creep only a breath away her own skeleton covered in a solid layer of pork fat quite prepared for the winters cold with no need for a heat lamp.
I hope you have lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
34 responses to “Your skeleton”
Yes, bones are good, healthy bones are brilliant. Bad, damaged, sore bones are not so much fun. Something I hope the beautifully upholstered Miss Poppy and her lovely heathy piglets will never be acquainted with. They have such a good diet, and plenty of opportunity to exercise and strengthen themselves. I wish I was one of Miss Celi’s pigs….
Poor Kate. I hope you are having a good day. C
I am having fun on our holiday, and being sore afterwards is the price I happily pay for it! And after all, it’s not so very bad any longer, and 10 minutes flat on my back is enough to get rid of the pain. But I’d STILL like to be one of your pigs 🙂
Pork chop piggies..such a shame …but thats life! I would love a piglet as a pet but they have a habit of growing big…think l would still enjoy. They looknso cosy in their creep..all tucked up and dreaming happily of apple sauce.. Yes. I have felt my fingers and bones..so easy when your hands get skinny and boney like an old witch. At the time l was practising my Su Jok therapy..looking for a certain point but not sure if l found it. Lots o love
Hmm, I learned something about the benefits of the trash can. I was just cleaning out my mom-in-law’s chicken coop yesterday and thought about asking her again not to use a heater this winter. I really do not feel it is needed in the south but she insists every year. I have terrible memories of barn fires up north in the winters. We never had that happen but neighbors and friends did.
It is a very real fear too, I don’t give my chickens lights here and we are terribly cold. Winter terrifies me when i have to use these lamps for the little animals. But only for short periods because going from the hot to the cold and back again is not so good for their health in the long run. Soon the piglets will just bury themselves in the straw. c
I think about my skeleton quite a lot. It asks me to think about it. It aches, you see. Just sometimes. And I’m interested as I get older by how my own flesh sits differently on my bones. I’m quite happy with it actually. But it does change. It all changes. The piglets look so warm and in love with each other. Brotherhood in the flesh. I love that.
They almost look like sunbathers 🙂
They look so peaceful and content. Red light is also much less disturbing to the eyes when they wake at night. One of the reason night ops on a ship is all red lighting. But of course you know this from working with photography and film. 😉
Super pics of the piglets! They will grow so fast! xo
They are filling out nicely already 🙂 Laura
Maybe because it’s harvest time but I see the opening photo and think of a porcine cornucopia, although this one wouldn’t look so good as a Thanksgiving table centerpiece.
My husband told me the other night that I was talking about my hands too much. But I notice them more now that I am sixty. The blue veins. The brown spots. The think skin. They look sixty.
They must love the heat lamp. Do cows feel the cold much?
Cows have a nice warm compost heap in their bellies keeping them warm.. c
they all look very peaceful 😀
Yesterday I attended a funeral and as we left the coffin in the ground, stepping on the thick damp grass back to the car, I took my niece’s hand. It felt so solid and good. I had never held her hand before.
On another subject, I heard the poet –last name Alexander–can’t remember her first name at the moment–speak of her poems as having “good bones”. (She spoke at Obama’s inauguration.)
Elizabeth Alexander.
hmmm, just thinking of our bones, our framework, what gives us shape; will we be tall or short, delicate or rugged. Our bones really do create the model, don’t they. Never really thought about it before. Seems our heat has left us here too and the days are progressively becoming cooler. Not out of order; it is getting close to the end of October. I just hope our winter, and yours too, is gentle with us. Everybody’s bones, including little piggies’ I bet, thrive O so much more easily in a kinder, gentler winter season. Hope you have a lovely day too! ~ Mame 🙂