I went to visit the piggies again today. They've gotten really, really big, but even more noticeably, they've gotten furrier. I think they're growing in their winter coats. They also seem to recognize me; when I call to them their little tails start wagging and they poke their snouts through the wires of their pen. I would give them names, but I'm pretty sure that they have ones already - seeing as they're somebody's pets - so I've decided to refer to them as White Pig and Black Pig. They both have patches of white and black on them, but one color seems to dominate on each of them so that they can be easily distinguished. They can also be distinguished by the fact that Black Pig is enormous.
The sign above them in the last picture warns people that the piggies will bite. They aren't aggressive, but they will assume that your fingers are edible.
I also took pictures of other shit around the farm stand, like Big Sheep, who is about twice as large as her companion, Little Sheep, and some landscapey shit.
Other news: remember the
tea sets I showed you a while ago, which have been in my family for generations? Today we took one of the cups from the big pink set and some pictures to get them appraised. We gave one of the cups to the appraiser and he recognized it right away as a ceramic copper lusterware piece made in Staffordshire. This surprised us as we'd assumed that the set was made in China; its designs are of Asian influence, but were created in merry old England. Our ancestors were English, but the line that the tea set comes from were already in the United States by the end of the 1600s, so the set was probably imported and purchased in America.
We'd known that the tea set was given to Eliza Thomas, my great-great-great-great grandmother, in 1830, as a wedding present, but had assumed that it was older than 1830. The appraiser verified this and said that it was likely made between 1805 and 1815. He also said it was in very good condition, with no cracks or chips, and seemed impressed that we owned the entire set: tea pot, creamer, sugar bowl, etc. Then he argued with the other appraiser who was there about what the set would be worth. He said that this particular type of ceramic tea set was very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and we could have gotten a lot of money for it then. However, people aren't interested in collecting that sort of thing anymore - it's just not "in" - so it would probably go for about $2,000 at the most. The other appraiser seemed to think it was worth less, maybe only a few hundred dollars. But the first appraiser seemed to really like the set and offered to buy the teapot from us for $350.
We refused, of course. Old family shit is really valuable to me and my mother, and the tea set is basically the oldest family shit we have. Before we got it appraised we'd agreed that we wouldn't even think of selling it unless the amount offered for it was enough to buy a house or something. We wouldn't have any problem selling it if it were worth, say, a million dollars or something. As much as we value old family shit, we think that the old dead former owners of the tea set - who include a bunch of poor farmers, Quakers, and one grandmother who lived through the Depression - would think we were crazy for turning down an opportunity to live comfortably for the rest of our lives in order to hold on to their old shit. Fortunately the amount the appraiser suggested for the set didn't come close to the amount at which we'd consider selling it, so no Big Decision was necessary.
The appraiser said the other tea set (the child's one) was from the Victorian Era and is worth about $300. Again, not enough to consider selling it.
Now that the old tea set has been identified to me, I've looked around the internet for similar examples. I've found one or two that were kind of like it, but none that were identical or nearly as old. I still know that it isn't one of a kind, though - because you can find the same set in Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables in Salem, MA.
