Petunia, we have to have a little talk.......

Mo is away this weekend, so I took on the task of mucking out the barn. After doing the horse and donkey stalls, I decided to completely strip the sheep stall as it was getting quite damp and a little high. I cleared it right down to the stall mats and swept the aisle but before I could put down fresh woodchips, I was called away. I returned to the barn about 45 minutes later. Ms. Petunia Pig had taken the opportunity to decorate the sheep stall according to her tastes - mouthful after mouthful of hay which she had trucked from her own stall and from the open bale of clean hay stacked in the aisle - she was caught in the act!

She had been one very, very busy little piggy , though not the tidiest in her travels. There is a reason we call a messy room a pig sty, I think. I had flashbacks to the long-ago years when I had a young child, and I would clean the kitchen only to return a few minutes later to dirty dishes, crumbs on the floor, peanut butter on the counter, sticky fingerprints on the walls.

My conversation with Petunia went something like this:

J: Ahemmm…Petunia, excuse me, but I just cleaned that stall.

P: And your point is?

J: Well, that's the sheeps' stall……your stall is over there.

P: My BED is over there; A pig needs variety and this stall looked inviting - a little sparsely furnished but I fixed that.

J: So I see. And that's another thing, Petunia. Carol and I have noticed that your bed has gradually grown from half a bale of hay to about three bales….and the hay for the other barn animals is disappearing rather quickly.

P: And your point is?

J: You can't help yourself to the hay that way, Petunia. You have a nice fluffy comforter for your bed. Hay costs money and money is tight around here. We need hay to feed Spritely and Gideon and Swinger and all your barnyard friends.

P: So you're saying the other barn animals will starve to death if I use up all their hay?

J: Well, figurative speaking, yes.

P: And then I would have the whole barn to myself?

J: PETUNIA!

P: Okay, okay…I take it back. If you didn't have to clean out their stinky stalls, you wouldn't be in here to keep me company and sing to me and feed me melon and scratch my ears. And I do like that. I'll leave the hay alone….but do you think you might reach that box of graham crackers for me? All that exercise decorating the stall made me a little hungry.

J. Sure, Petunia. Have two.......And, Petunia? Even if there were no other barnyard animals, I'd still come out here to keep you company. You warm my heart.

P. Thanks. You're okay too. Oink, oink.