We had a nice take-out dinner from Sweet Ginger, with sushi and Pad Thai, for our last dinner with Mika and Benjamin and Yael. Mika ate sushi with great enthusiasm, clearly an experienced sushi eater. We were loading them in the car, having a calm farewell when Jon came out of the house, "Helen says there are four police at the farm and two pigs are out." Oy. Rebecca got on one golf cart and I got on mine, even though we had no idea what we were going to do. The Israelis left, already forgotten in this moment of crisis.
The pig pen has an overgrown, bramble-filled lot on the side that is bordered by the deer fence. I looked at the fence and saw where they might have wiggled under it. A bored and hungry pig can squeeze through a pretty tight space. The police said they had found two pigs at the dumpster at the school next door, on the other side of the lot. They were looking for them because someone called in a report of two pigs on Route 7. Oy. There were two policemen somewhat close to the pigs, but unable to reach them because it was too snarly with vines and prickers. The other police officers were hanging out at the pigpen, watching us think about what to do.
I was wearing a tank top and skirt and crocs, but since I was the "owner" and I am responsible for the pigs, I plunged into the underbrush, where I have seen deer crashing through the corner where a tree fell on the fence, falling from the lot toward our side. I have never been over there before. Lots of English ivy, wineberries, brambles, vines. I stumbled through this mess, following some deer trails until I found the pigs, stuck between two parallel fences, running back and forth. Not at all clear how they got there, or how they were going to get out. The police told us to bring them some grain and they would try to lure them out to get them into a truck. We thought that was really unlikely. I couldn't figure out how they got into that no-man's-land alley. There were three parallel fences: our deer fence, a chain link dog fence three feet away, and then a four foot woven wire fence that was in crumpled condition. The pigs were stuck between the dog fence and the woven wire fence, trying to figure out how to get back home.
It seemed like the only way to get them back into their pen was to cut a hole in this fancy, secure old dog fence and get them closer to the deer fence and then coax them back underneath the deer fence. Rebecca had to go find a bolt cutter in the barn and hand it to me through the fence and across the gap through the next fence, Helen had to climb the poison ivy covered deer fence to pass a small bucket of grain to me, which I grabbed from them with the bolt cutter. I cut a pig-sized hole and then it took a while to convince them to go through there, with grain and pig-talk. Then Helen and Rebecca put a lot of grain on the ground where the wiggle-hole was, and lifted the fence with some cinder blocks. Eventually the pigs ate their way back home. Getting back out of that forest tangle (reminded me of a fairy tale where a prince forces his way through the brambles and blinds himself) was harder than getting in. Jon blocked the hole with pallets, tying everything down with baler twine, flashlight held in his teeth.
We all went home to take showers. There was a lot of poison ivy involved. We all missed Peio.
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