Piggies!

Day 331: At the end of last year's Washington State Fair (aka the Puyallup Fair), I decided that the driving involved in taking two shifts per week was a bit more than I could handle, so this year, I just signed up for Fridays. Yesterday I had the early shift and as usual, came in through the green gate so I could stop at the Pig Palace before I went to my duty station in the Park's information booth. There were two sets of piglets on display, the little white guys (lower left) only a day old. Later in the day as I walked around the rest of the fair, I found more piggies in another barn.

So what is the univeral appeal which pigs seem to command? I think it's because they always look like they're smiling. A pig in clean straw is a paradigm of contentment, and the proverbial "hog in mud" seems happy enough to have generated a catch phrase. Even when they're squabbling over whose turn it is at the teat, a nestful of squealing, wriggling piglets is a sight to brighten any case of the blues.