Maria and I took a trip up north to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary today. We took 25lbs of carrots up with us, recommended by the flyer we pick up now and then at Madison Market, our super awesome neighborhood coop here on Capitol Hill. It seemed like a lot, but it went fast! Their website recommends bringing four 25lb bags of carrots to feed all the pigs. When we got there, we wandered around the farm for a while before we figured out who was in charge and asked what to do. Judy gave us a quick tour and upon bringing our carrots she took us into the “California” pigs pen. She threw a few carrots and then called the rest of the pigs and left us with them. It was amazing, around fifty pigs slowly trotted in from the fields to get carrots. We threw out all 25 pounds in a few minutes and sat, watching all the pigs around us, admiring the strange sheep and the horses as well. After a little while another pig came running up to us, but I couldn’t tell what it was at all as it came fast. It turned out to be a larger calico pig, who after wandering around us a bit proceeded to act just like a dog, but more friendly! It came up to us and rubbed against us, laying down on Maria’s feet looking for a belly rub. We must of scratched it for twenty minutes for wandering down into the field to look around a little more. The pig followed us and oinked as we walked away, squealing as we got further away until we’d stop, let it catch up, and pet it more.

Eventually we lost it and went back to look around the farm some more. Judy explained the situations with their recently burned educational center as we offered volunteer help. As usually they need help on the weekdays which is hard for us, being so far away, but they can always use help so we’ll probably try to go up on a couple Sundays to help out. They’re going to need help rebuilding the educational center after they get done with the red tape of insurance. She also mentioned that Side Car for Pigs Peace, a Vegan shop up in the University District that we’ve been to a few times, is having a hard time finding volunteers, so maybe we can help out there.

Yesterday we went to VegFest with Betsie and Alan, so it’s been a very vegan weekend. Unfortunately most of the good vegan wares we were already aware of and there wasn’t any labeling policy so we had to go and examine the ingredients at every table but it was nice to see some familiar vendors and get some free Ice Cream.

After Veg Fest we went out to a movie and wandered around Capitol Hill for while. It was very nice taking the bus around and hanging out in the park near Seattle Central. It’s great being in a diverse, accepting city, where there’s always something to do and the weather is almost always good enough to go out and do something. Seriously. Move to Seattle.