Figure 1 -“The Gossipers,” Codman Community Farm, Lincoln, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2021.
The topic today is gossip. This is not the gossip of modern times, nasty internet gossip and viral falsehoods, but rather the gossip with its origins in two people, or in the case of Figure 1, two pigs wallowing in the mud and talking about someone else. Such gossip is generally not so kind, as in “she’s barely put on a hundred pounds since spring!” But it is a pastime for a late summer’s day.
I encountered these two pigs at the Codman Community Farm in Lincoln, Massachusetts. They really seemed to be in gossipy chat, almost smiling and having a very good time of it! We know, od course, that pig’s can talk, you just have to take the time to listen to them. We remember E. B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web.” So pigs always bear a certain sadness about them! There is an organic earthy smell to the mud and the barnyard. After all …
“Life in the barn was very good- night and day, winter and summer, spring and fall, dull days and bright days. It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything.”
― Charlotte’s Web
Canon T2i with EF 100 to 400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 190 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/800th sec at F/7.1 with no exposure compensation.