Background to this picture: It rained overnight and I was pleased to see that I was able to dig out more of those tiger lilies. It had been a long time since I'd had a photo shoot with the dinos/Neanderthals so I took all four Neanderthals out to help/observe. My pigs came along to play in the dirt (also one reckless Dove chocolate -- I was disturbed to see that it was kind of squishy by the time we came back in and was smart enough to put it in the fridge BEFORE trying to unwrap to better assess its condition). Back to the photo I had been trying to take outdoors. The Neanderthals had a hard time staying upright out there; I didn't get any photos I was satisfied with and gave up on that.
The pigs, however wanted to go back out and complained that the soil was rapidly drying in the sun (the sun that had started to melt the stupid little chocolate!) The pigs wanted to roll in some mud. You can see that I humored them with a little artificial rain. (As opposed to the real rain that is coming down in buckets as I type this. If the pigs didn't have the game tomorrow, I'd throw them outside and let them have at it...well, no, I wouldn't really throw them out in this storm...)
Back to this picture. I told them that I hoped the dirt was madescent enough for them and they looked at me blankly. "Madescent," I said. "I hope it's madescent enough now." Their eyes glazed over. "I hope it's damp/moist enough." Then I showed them the word online. It means "growing damp" according to one dictionary. Another says "slightly moist, or becoming so." Turns out they didn't want madescent. They wanted full strength, sloppy mud. Right! I can arrange that. More artificial rain coming up! "Aaah," they said. "Heaven!"
