Nothing Better Than a Clean Pig...

After a while, the guinea pigs start to, well...stink. When I announce to my son that it is time to give the pigs, as we call them, a bath, he is jubilant. "I want to help, I want to help!" he chants. The funniest part is putting them in the tub and watching them swim. Oh, you didn't know guinea pigs could swim? Well, let me tell you, guinea pigs are FINE swimmers. I did not realize this until I accidentally discovered a youtube video of swimming guinea pigs. Of course I immediately had to try this out on my own.

Here you can see a small sample in this video. It is hilarious. The pig at first tries to resist. They stand up and up on their tippy-toes, straining their noses up out of the water. I never fill the water past their mouths, I don't want them to accidentally drown. Usually, you have to remove them from their safe standing spot and push them into the deeper end. Then, they swim like little otters. My son LOVES this. He jumps up and down and claps.

Next comes the soap. We scrub them all up. Their little undersides get very dingy from sitting in their pine bedding all the time. They pretend like they don't enjoy the bath, but I know better. After that we rinse, and then drain the tub. They stand there looking pathetic as the water drains away. The part they really like is the blow drying. Unfortunately, this takes quite a while.

They stand there and half shut their eyes, purring blissfully in the warm air. My son helps, but I have to make sure he doesn't hold the dryer too long in one spot. We don't want any skin burns. Something else you have to watch out for is the shake. Like a dog, they will shake off the water after they get out of the bath. This will spray anyone within 4 feet with pig water.

They are SO nice to cuddle after they are all blowdried. They smell great and are very soft.

On another note, we had a great day out. This was my first day of spring break, so my son and I went and did a bunch of fun stuff. We went to Ames, did our recycling, had lunch, played Lunar Mini Golf. He was really excited. Everything is painted dayglo colors and there are no lights except blacklights. Very cool. It was a little expensive, but you can play up to three times for one visit. We don't keep score, we just keep going until we finish each hole.

http://www.glowminigolf.com/

After that we hit the video games. We drove some motorcycles and shot some bad guys. I think we disgusted the tweens that were trying to hang out in there and look bored. They looked irritated and left. Imagine that, someone actually playing the video games.

Another cool thing we discovered today is the indoor farmers market in ames. It is year round, and has a really good selection of free-range, organic, horomone-free meat and eggs. They also have honey, lotions, soaps, and in season, mushrooms and greens. We bought some towels and a cool canning apron, since we were stocked up on meat and eggs. The people in there were really nice. I plan on going back when there is some produce going.

http://www.localharvest.org/blog/19239/

Check it out. We are trying to go more and more local as we can. Anyways, the weather is going to be beautiful the next few days, so hopefully, I can get out in the yard.