P.S. to the previous

Not only is Mangel busily engaged in digging his tunnel/down-under/wherever, he has also developed another (to us, annoying) habit. He takes all his feed bowls and puts them in his ark. Not just in the doorway, but tucked right up the back as far away from the entrance as possible. The first couple of times he was a little complacent and we managed to hoik them out with our 14' boathook. Which he observed. Now we can't reach them even with that. By yesterday evening he'd accumulated all the bowls (5) and piled them up so come feedtime, there were none for Ginger and her brood; nor for Mangel himself.

Of course, it is the easiest thing to go in his pen and simply remove the bowls. But with his strength and his exceedingly sharp tusks, and being such a friendly soul, just a little rub against legs with his head can result in very nasty gashes (as a certain Big Boss has learned to his cost). So we spent a very pleasant half hour yesterday evening, trying (and eventually succeeding) to bribe him down to the paddock to eat so that the other one of us could scoot into his ark behind his back and quickly retrieve the bowls. Needless to say, he rumbled our little plan and decided to turn it into a big game. Well. What else would he do - guaranteed attention for as long as he cared to play! No sense our getting impatient cos that would only have made him more pig-headed. No. He was not hungry.

And since he was not hungry there was no point in going down to the paddock. And since we kept talking to him nicely he was obviously on to a good thing.

Even Lancer got bored!

But eventually Mangel had also had enough. And peace descended.

I forgot to mention that all the time we were trying to cajole him, the piglets were squealing - extremely loudly - for their dinner. As was Ginger. They could probably have been heard 3 counties distant. And because they were squealing the ducklings squeaked as loudly as they could. Clearly the piglets would not make so much noise unless there was a real crisis afoot and that was the message the ducklings were getting, loud and clear! That might seem a bit fanciful, but as soon as we fed the piglets - which kept them quiet - the ducklings instantly stopped!

But I digress.

Back to Mangel and his bowls.

Why is he doing this all of a sudden?

We have a theory.

Ginger will soon be weaned away from her piglets, or vice versa.

So Mangel will have his lady back home again.

We think he is doing this to impress her on her return.

It may sound daft but perhaps in the world of pigs, food bowls are currency. After all, twice a day - just when a pig thinks s/he cannot wait another minute, food miraculously appears in the bowls.

So, if you are a hirsute, charming and caring Boar and want to impress the lady in your life, what better way than to accumulate as much 'currency' as possible? When all these bowls miraculously become full she is bound to be sooooooo very impressed.

Not for no reason do they say pigs are the most intelligent of creatures.

(Yes. We know. There's a flaw in his argument but we're not going to upset his plans are we???)