3 Months, 3 Weeks and 3 Days

 

Saturday 3rd November 2012

3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days. That's the gestation period of a sow. Nice and easy to remember.

Now Daisy and Gerald got it together on Friday 13th July (easy to remember again), so by my calculations I had 5th November in my head - easy to, well - Remember, Remember!

So I was a little surprised last night to find Daisy lying down puffing and panting. She looked decidedly ready to give birth. But surely this was too early.

That got me wondering...When they say three months, precisely which months are they talking about? The ones with thirty-one days or the ones with thirty... or even the one with twenty-eight?

Cold nights.
Not ideal for newborn piglets, as they cannot regulate their own body temperature.
This is why I have brought Daisy into the stables.

So a quick search of the interweb revealed the magic figure of 114 days (+/- 2 days). A quick bit of reverse mathematics told me that those three months must be thirty day months, despite the fact that this would be impossible with the months in their current order!

And the +/- 2 days bit meant that my original 5th/6th November estimate needed to be revised forward by maybe 3 days. Last night!!!

Like an anxious expectant father, I tiptoed into the dark every hour or so to check on Daisy. But by 11 o'clock she was calmly asleep, snoring.
And today she was back to normal, though she has been spending a lot of time asleep.

Maybe it will be 3 Months, 3 Weeks and 3 Days. 

Luckily I'm not expecting loud explosions from fireworks in the immediate vicinity.