Under the Flood

Water defines me in many ways. I am drawn to water like a magnet. Only common sense keeps me from jumping into open water in freezing temperatures, or when it runs in a torrent. I feel a connection with the rocks bravely shouldering the force of the current.
Each day I pass over a creek on my way to and from work. Most days it is a quickly moving but very shallow stream, the pebbles clearly visible. Ducks float on its surface. For a few short days of spring I can watch fish struggle upstream to spawn.
This week the stream has been a raging torrent of muddy water as the warm weather has melted the foot of snow we had piled up from the last snow storm. Even the larger rocks are hidden under the dark water.
This made me think of how we feel overwhelmed by circumstances in our life. We want to just give up because the fight seems so hard. But we musn't forget that we are making a difference. Those rocks are changing the course of the flow, even when the water is so deep we can't see it, and so are we.

Porcine Concentration Camps

I love pork, and I love pigs. Pigs are wonderful creatures. They are smart like people, and expressive like people, they like to cuddle like people. I came upon this picture from a friend's Facebook post.
After looking around the net I discovered that in many commercial industrial pig production facilities (I won't call them farms)sows are kept in crates like this most of their life.
Sows are put in farrowing crates when they have a litter. I knew about that. It helps to protect the baby pigs from crushing. They are artificially inseminated very soon after birth. When the piglets are weaned the sow goes into a crate like this. (previous practice had them go into pens w/ other sows, and they were not bred again until AFTER the piglets were weaned)

I will be carrying this picture with me. Every time I am tempted to eat bacon or sausage or a pork roast, I will look at this picture. If the pork is not verifiably from a farm that raises its pork in a compassionate, sane manner - I won't eat it.