Sure, I know what you're thinking. The title of this month's article seems rather bizarre. What's funnier is the concept of me trying to explain it all to you, but I promise to do my best. First, when I write about the pigs, I keep saying they are such creatures of habit and routine. What I've forgotten to mention is that we humans are creatures of habit and routine. Marcie loves oatmeal. When we went to the store she bought a small tub of oatmeal and we placed it on the lower cupboard shelf next to the stove. (Never mind that she cooks oatmeal in the microwave.) I should have known that the lower shelf might become a problem. That's Tyler's favorite cupboard to open and I thought that since he hadn't found anything in that cupboard for a very long time, he'd pretty much leave it alone. I was wrong. One day, he got in there (so quietly that no one heard him). He helped himself to the oatmeal (pretty much the entire small tub) and was wagging his tail the entire time. In fact, he couldn't understand why I was trying to get him out of the kitchen at all. Fortunately for me, Tyler didn't create a large disturbance which would have alerted his three sisters to the potential of goodies.

I wish I could tell you that we two humans learned something valuable from this experience. We did not. Within a few weeks, we'd bought another tub of oatmeal, the bigger one this time, for I thought of baking cookies and a cake. We placed the large tub of oatmeal in the same cupboard. Tyler left it alone, but then we'd gone out for the morning once, only to come home to four pigs in the kitchen (how they opened the gate is still a mystery to me). Four very happy pigs, with very waggy tails were in the kitchen. The problem was that I had only spotted three happy pigs and was worried about the location of Louise. After all, I didn't know that Louise had hidden herself behind the island in the kitchen and was busy with her head in the bucket of oatmeal. I had to do a great deal of shooing in order to remove the pigs from the kitchen. The important thing here is that I wasn't angry, for it was more my fault than theirs. I'm very proud to say that we two humans have learned to place the oatmeal in an upper cupboard and now we haven't had any more kitchen cupboard break-ins.

As for our wonderful feathered alarm clock...

Marty is our Nanday conure. He's a very beautiful, bright green color with blue- tipped wings and orange legs. He's larger than a parakeet, but smaller than a parrot. One trait that Marty possesses is that he can make the loudest bird noises that I've ever heard. I believe that Marty and Tyler have some sort of arrangement together, despite the fact they are in separate rooms. If Marty hears Tyler get up in the morning (Tyler is always the first one up in the morning because he thinks Marcie is going to give him her banana peel), Marty begins that one shrill sound that sounds like a blue jay on steroids. It's the type of alarm clock I need. Perhaps Marty gets so loud because he wants Marcie's banana peel. I'm not sure, but the fact remains that this bird can literally make the shingles on the house rattle.

I said last month that the pigs were all cranky because they'd spent so much of the month of May in the house, due to large rains we had here. I was right when I thought we'd been deluged...we set a record of 9.59 inches for the month of May. Yesterday, we had over three inches of rain, but the pigs got out in the morning for their "outdoor time" before the rain hit. Which brings up another story about water and pigs. Garbo is not particularly fond of having her face washed. In fact, you can hear her a mile away say that she isn't having a good time. However, she's been known to stand outside in the pouring rain (despite the fact all the pigs have houses outside). If she's let inside soaking wet, she gets dried off with a towel and she's not very happy about that, either. I guess there's no pleasing her.

To anyone wondering whether the pigs have bothered the flowers that I planted on the outside of their fence, the answer is no. They've been very good about not trying to eat them or even root toward them. I've given the pigs a lot of big rocks and pieces of concrete to play with in their yard. Garbo and Tyler have been the ones to really appreciate rooting them around. In fact, one day we looked outside and it seemed as if Garbo was building a pool.

Life with pigs is always interesting and certainly unpredictable. As I slowly get the basement painted, I wonder how they will like to have their living quarters down there with the cats. I plan on moving my computer down there, too...so I can be downstairs as much as possible.

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