I spend a lot of time in front of my computer – organizing, writing, preparing, reporting, and networking. All sorts of fun and interesting exchanges, done in the name of furthering a sustainability revolution and bringing forth a world in which all life truly thrives. I love a lot of what I do. But the reality is that I am sitting down a lot, planted in front of a computer screen. This is especially difficult considering it's summer in Vermont, a season that is glorious and voluptuous and begs one to get out into it and smell the sweet air, taste the fresh new vegetables peeking out of the rich black soil and revel in all the warm weather after a cold and long winter.

When I can't sit down in front of the screen a minute more without going stir crazy, but still have lots to do, I have taken to going out my office door to visit the 10 piglets on the farm where I live. I love pigs; I can watch them for hours. I find their grunts and snorts and rooting around in the mud very grounding. It’s just what I need to get out of my head and “typing fingers frenzy” and settle into a more grounded and “earthy” feeling. There’s nothing earthier than a pig. No pomp, no pretense.

When I was young I received a tiny piglet in my Easter basket one year. What a thrill! She was pink and scratchy and wiggly and cute. She fulfilled my dreams of having a pig just like my older sister had. I named her Sally, the same name my older sister gave her pig. We kept her in the kennel by the barn on our suburban spread in northern Illinois; land that had once been a farm but now was a suburban home on the cross-roads of corn fields and Chicago commuters. I would spend hours in that kennel with Sally as she rooted through my shoe laces, snorted and smudged my white sneakers, and rubbed up against my legs for a good scratch. She grew big fast, real big. When school started up again in September, we gave her back to the farm where she came from, where she carried on a dignified life of raising litter after litter of piglets. My mother would often bring our carpool of kids there to visit Sally and we would tumble out of the car to play with the huge sow and her squirming piglets. Not your ordinary carpool stop, but one my schoolmates and I still tell stories about.

I tell my kids that I once got a pig in my Easter basket, and I don't think they really believe me. Or maybe they do, but wonder why I haven't done the same for them too. I don't know; I expect it has to do with being too busy at work to take on a pig as a pet, too much time inside in front of a computer to tend to a pig. But I try to educate the kids on the virtues of pigs as I find myself heading to the pig pen more and more often to get grounded when I get too lost in cyber space. Next time you are in danger of losing your moorings, get down with pigs! You have nothing to lose but your pomp and stress.