The Colony of Bath

Spot’s Day Out

Having observed her pet human, Rosalynn, leave the house pushing a contraption on wheels, Spot’s mind whirled with the possibilities for the day. She’d long since figured out how to release the clasp holding the gate to the pen shut, so that was the least of her worries. She looked around her, taking in the confines of the pen and her four piglets feeding at the food trough and snorted a piggy-sort of snort as they clambered over each other to get the majority of the remains of their earlier feeding. Spot waited patiently for them to finish and or lose interest in the scant remains before grunting to call them to her.

Spotless, Spotty, Spooky and Slash came running over to see what was up, bumping and nudging each other as they came. The piglets laid down as they reached Spot and listened attentively as they knew, knowing their mother as well as pigs can, that she was cooking up something in the way of an adventure and it didn’t include being within the confines of their pen.

Spot kept a look-out to be sure Rosalynn was well-down the road before she grunted softly to her piglets telling them of the planned outing. She cautioned them to stay closely by her side at all times and run when told to. Spot wasn’t worried about getting caught out by her human, but the partner human she associated with Rosalynn may have plans to make pork chops of her, or heaven help her, put her in for another shearing.

After looking cautiously around to be sure her human was gone and there were no signs of Sajanzv either, Spot lifted up on her hind hooves and nudged the latch holding the gate closed, pushed the gate open and trotted out followed closely by the four piglets. Enjoying their newfound freedom from the pen, the piglets gamboled around Spot’s hooves as she sedately meandered up the road the opposite direction her human took.

With a pig-like chuckle, she watched the antics of her piglets as they made their way along, tripping over each other as they went to examine each new object along the way that they found. A windblown leaf was intensely interesting until the leap of a grasshopper jumping nearby drew their attention to it by jumping onto a rock. Being the bravest of the bunch, Slash crept closer to check the insect out. Spotty and Spooky were right behind him with Spotless bringing up the rear. Being forever hungry it seemed, Slash always looked at the possible edible qualities of things so he leaned as far forward as he dared and his tongue darting out, tried to eat the grasshopped. Before his tongue reached it, the grasshopped sprang into the air and landed on his nose. Startled, Slash tried to see the critter perched on his nose, with no success. Lowering his nose to the ground, he tried to knock the pesky insect off his nose by digging in the dirt and when that failed, he lowered his front quarters to the ground and pawed at his nose with a hoof to dislodge the grasshopper. Having had enough of these strange creatures, the grasshopper leaped skillfully from its precarious perch on Slash’s nose off to the side of the road and disappeared into the brush.

The piglets rejoined Spot as she had maintained her ambling pace up the road while they played with the grasshopper. They next came upon a neighboring wheat field. Spot brightened considerably as she remembered Herrero taking her to a wheat field to find truffles. Last time a mean boy had come out and gotten quite upset that she’d been digging up the ground in her search as apparently the wheat was supposed to be harvested first before digging. Being a one-minded piggy, she didn’t know anything about harvesting wheat, but remembered that she had run squealing in terror from the boy’s loud voice. The thought of possible truffles awaiting them was more than she could resist.

Spot looked at the tall stalks of wheat. She reasoned that they would be near to invisible amongst them, so she turned towards the field and mowing down some of the stalks with her massive girth, she entered the field, her body holding down most of the wheat in her path for the piglets to follow behind. Having made her way to the center of the field, she happily starts digging with her snout into the soft ground. If she’d been a world-wide sort of pig, she would have known that truffles aren’t to be found in wheat fields. In her mind, there was always hope, with her piglets gathered around her, she hoped that the treat wouldn’t be long in being found.

Quiet blankets the field except for the soft, snuffling sounds of the pigs as they dig up the ground in search of the truffles. A sound from afar, a slamming door, reaches Spot’s ears. She abruptly stops her forraging to listen, hears attuned to the direction of the sound. The sound of running booted feet next comes to her and her little round eyes take on a startled expression. The sound is coming in their direction, towards the middle of the field where they are well-hid from the road, carried on a gentle, chill breeze. Spot froze in piggy-style horror, momentarily unsure what to do.

Grunting to her piglets in warning, she did an aboutface and moved back along the smashed-down wheat path she’d created on the way in. Just as they reached the roadside, Spot looked back and saw the disturbance of the wheat headed in the direction of where they had been just recently. Hearing the farmer’s exhasperated wails as he comes upon the destruction they’d created, Spot turns tail and heads further up the road away from the wheat field. As if she is a pig on a mission, she picks up her pace to a fast waddle to put more distance between them and the irrate farmer.

Snout in the air, Spot notices the position of the sun and that it has traveled quite a distance across the sky. Not wanting to risk their hides by being late in returning, Spot grunts once to her piglets, does a piggy u-turn and heads home. She does a fast piggy waddle past the wheat field they’d damaged and increased her pace as they neared their sty. Spot held the gate open while 1…2….3….she looked up the road and there was Slash, trying to pounce on a butterfly. Spot gave a sharp squeal causing Slash to jump to attention and come scurrying over to join his brother and sisters in the pen. Biting the lower bar of the gate, Spot backs up into the pen pulling the gate behind her.

Not long after, feeding time came around once more and all was as it should be in Spot’s pen.

The End