I Do Love Little Pigs

For at least five years and probably more, we have invited some pigs to come stay at the farm each summer.  This is all my passion, but other people have come to love the pigs too.  I don't like indoor pets and we could only have a dog if we lived somewhere that it was safe for a dog to run around loose.  But pigs are just about perfect.  They eat everything, they are easily pleased, they are cute, and they have small needs. And they give us a reason to save all our leftovers -- they eat anything leafy, anything cooked, they love pumpkins.  They are always ready to eat, so it makes visiting them and feeding them deeply satisfying.

Nowadays we borrow the pigs from Bev (if you have ever read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Bev is described admiringly by Michael Pollan).  Bev owns Eco-Friendly Foods and he built a slaughterhouse (NO SMALL FEAT) that meets the national standards as well as the animal friendly standards. It is a slaughterhouse but the animals are treated with dignity.  Anyway, Bev connects up farmers with the market by being the middle man.  He works incredibly hard and is still trying to get out of debt.  Somehow he understands me and my need to have little pigs on the farm and he makes that happen.  Not necessarily in a timely manner, but when I ask him to bring me some pigs in the early summer, he rounds up three pigs that seem promising and delivers them.  

We all feed the pigs, talk to the pigs, and make them people friendly.  They usually arrive pretty skittish and shy. By the time they go home in November, they are pigs who like attention -- while they eat, I lean over the fence and scratch one on the back and she leans into me, pretending I am not there.  We only accept small pigs in case they get out and need to be rounded up.  All the boys know how to catch a pig and Peio arrived with pig skills. Generally speaking, we women are not inclined to throw ourselves on a squealing pig but we will round them up by leading them home with food (Carrie, while pregnant, got three little pigs to come home by luring them with a bunch of celery.).

Last week Bev texted me to say he was coming to pick up the pigs sometime around 1:30 in the afternoon.  Usually I am here when they go, but this time I couldn't be here. I told Carrie to watch for Bev and help him.  At 3:00 I get a call from my mother:  "Where are you?"  "On the way to Loudoun." "Are you on your way out or on your way home?"  "On the way out."  "Where is Jon?"  "Shopping.  What do you need?"  "The pigs are out."  "I thought Bev picked them up about an hour ago."  Silence.  We hang up.  I text Michael B and tell him to help Grandma catch the pigs.  I text Carrie and tell her the pigs are out.  I text Bev: "Now you are in trouble! My mother just called to tell me that the pigs are out and I told her you had already picked them up!"  After a pause, he writes back: "On our way back now. Door wasn't latched completely."  And Carrie texts me:  "Bev picked them up 30 minutes ago."

I am mystified by this information and I wait impatiently for more updates.

It turns out that Bev had arrived at about 2:45 and, with Carrie's help, it took them about two minutes to load three very cooperative pigs into the trailer.  Carrie closed the gate and Bev drove away. Carrie had to go pick up Zoey so she left immediately.  No one noticed that the gate opened up and the pigs walked back out of the trailer before Bev got more than a few feet from the pen, probably.  Apparently people were honking and waving at Bev as he drove up Route 7, trying to tell him about his open gate, but he didn't notice.  Apparently he didn't know that the pigs were not with him until I texted him.

Meanwhile, Michael found the pigs running back up the hill through the woods, returning from the Vegetable Field.  He followed them back to the pen where my mother and Michael L. were trying to understand why the fence was wide open.  Bev came back and they all put the pigs back in the trailer and he left again.  He told Carrie that it wasn't her fault -- he should have checked the gate before he left.

One more story: Last year Bev came after dark and the two of us rounded up some uncooperative pigs, using flashlights.  They wanted nothing to do with us.  Finally we had the big one boxed into a horse stall and we had a plan that I would move her toward Bev and he would catch her.  He caught her by a back leg but she squirmed away and ran toward me as I was trying to block an open doorway.  So I had to do what the boys do and I dropped to my knees and threw myself on the pig.  Pigs scream terribly when you catch them, and you have to hold on tight.  I was laughing so hard, holding on to one leg, waiting for Bev to rescue me, and he did.  He lifted that big squirming pig over his shoulders and put her into the trailer, which is much more than I could have done. The second pig he did all by himself, which was absolutely fine with me.

Rebecca says I like the pigs more than I like my own children.  That is a gross exaggeration, of course. But I do appreciate the pigs for all their fine qualities, and they are so much simpler than human children. And Bev tells us that he usually lets them grow up to be moms to see if they will be good moms. If they are people friendly they have a better chance or something.  

I call it the Peter Pan Pig Spa because they are always young, and they get completely coddled here.  Why not?  Every pig deserves to be coddled.  I don't really mind if they get eaten as long as they have had a fulfilling pig life.