Pig N Fords

Here is how the official website describes this year's 81st annual Pig N Ford races at the Tillamook County Fair:

Saturday World Championships

1. Bobby Wasmer
2. Marty Walker
3. Chris Hurliman
4. John Haertel
5. Ben Salo (DQ)

"Bobby had a great start and was able to jump to the early lead and never look back. Marty stayed close throughout the race trying to find an opening. John had some starting troubles, which gave Chris the opening to get the final trophy position. Ben decided to have a little fun while he was in the back of the pack and skip an exchange for fun. The crowd loved it and was able to finish third without the final exchange, but skipping the last exchange is against the rules."

Indeed it was an exciting event, made especially entertaining, as they describe, when Ben skipped the third exchange after trouble with the hand cranking during the second exchange put him out of reach of winning.

Wait. . . What about the fact that the sport entails grabbing a screaming piglet under the arm and racing around a horsetrack in a working model T Ford? After 81 years of Pig n Fords, Tillamook County has, believe it or not, made this ritual normal, and non-ironic, within its borders. I'd guess 5,000 people came from around Oregon to see this feat.

After the race, at which PETA was completely absent (It is easy to think the race is cruel to the pigs, but it is nothing compared to the feedlots they were born in), the pigs get auctioned off. My local natural meat provider, Lance, bought six and is fattening them up right now. They will be ready for purchase in late November or December.

Mini Watsa's response to my Slime Mold inquiry

Slime Mold 1
Originally uploaded by griles.

Hey,

Thanks for those pictures! I really have never seen anything quite like it... the sime mould I worked with was of a different order and species than these are. All slime moulds come under the class Mycetozoa. Listed below are the different orders and families.

Protostelia
Protosteliida
Myxogastria
Liceida
Echinosteliida
Trichiida
Stemonitida
Physarida
Dictyostelia
Dictyosteliida

I worked with Dictyostelium, and largely laboratory strains that never formed huge masses that your slime moulds (if I may call them that) do.

I believe that the kind you were looking at belong to the order Myxogastria. They are true slime moulds or plamodial slime moulds where cell membranes are missing. These 'cells' just clump together to form these huge feeding stages called plasmodia (exactly what u saw!) that are quite fascinating. Dictyostelia are cellular slime moulds and form much smaller feeding stages.

Your kind actuallym move at the rate of a mm per hour but can go as fast as 2 cm per minute. They just engulf all kinds of organic matter in their paths.

So, in answer to your question, no, these don't look like what I worked with. Mine required a microscope to be viewed. These are fascinating...you should see if you can look at a bunch under a microscope...see the individual spores perhaps.. or just starve a glob of it and watch the spores form. WOnder what they'll look like then...