Growing up, Mom always wanted us to participate with our local 4-H group and take animals to the county fair. If you have never experienced this, it’s not simply a matter of loading the animals on the day the fair starts and taking them to the fairgrounds. It involves a lot of time and effort with working with the animals ahead of time, measuring feed, calculating overall costs of raising the animal, etc… It’s a blog post for another day.
My mom wanted her grandchildren to be a part of 4-H, as well. She strongly believed that the organization taught children valuable life lessons that they would need in the future. While I happen to agree with her, taking animals to the fair was not really something I enjoyed. We did, however, have the boys and Khloe take pigs a couple of years in a row so that Mom could have that experience with them.
My thoughts with this blog post circle around one specific time when my own children were raising pigs.
The boys would have been either 9 or 10 years old at the time of this memory. We were raising 6 pigs in a pen back in the barnyard behind our house. This would have been the same pen my sister and I used when we were growing up.
If you don’t know anything about pigs, they are notorious for escaping enclosures. There’s an old saying about fences. They should be ‘horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong.’ Evidently our fence at the time was not ‘pig-tight.’
Crazy Chaos
One summer day, I happened to glance in the backyard and saw a pig running across the yard, jumping around, reveling in his freedom. My hope at the time was that it was just one. Well, that was short-lived. I saw the others scattering every which way, almost as if they were determined to not go in the same direction.
“Pigs are out!” I yelled to whoever could hear me. I raced to the door, corralling Khloe along the way to come help me. Brian was following right behind us. We raced out to the backyard, but I could see it was going to take more than us three. I quickly sent Khloe back inside for her brothers and asked Brian to call my Mom and Dad. It was going to take all of us.
The cute little escape artists are not small. These are 200+ pound animals that plow their way through anything. Let’s just get that fact out there right now.
Mom and Dad only lived a few minutes away. While they were driving over, the kids and I kept our eyes on as many as we could while Brian opened a section of the pen. We wanted to be ready to get them back in once we gathered them back up.
The First Wave of Reinforcements
As soon as Mom and Dad arrived, I could tell that Mom was excited. It’s almost as if she lived for this type of thing to happen. There was this joy on her face that just created a glow around her. Dad, on the other hand, appeared annoyed that his afternoon had so rudely been interrupted.
Once they stepped out of the truck, we split up into groups. Dad and Brian went towards the woods directly behind our house. We were sure that one had went in that direction. The boys took off in the woods east of the house, while Khloe and I went towards the swamp on the west side of the house. My mom hopped in the driver’s side of the truck and drove down the road to see if she could spot any from the vehicle.
It’s important to note that, while on the way over to our house, Mom and Dad called my brother, David, and his wife to let them know we may need their help. It was reassuring to know that more help may be on it’s way. (I know what you’re thinking…. It’s just a few pigs. How hard could it be to walk them back to their pen? Well, you are wrong.)
Khloe and I went in the direction of the swamp and we found our first pig. After trying to walk a circle to get behind him, then walk him back in the direction of the pen, we lost him again. He ran off, squealing for the woods behind our house. Maybe Dad and Brian would have more luck with him.
This went on for what seemed like a century, but was probably more like 30-40 minutes. We had all seen different pigs and tried to get them to head in the direction of the backyard, but none of us were successful. We were hot, sweaty, and tired. It was then that someone realized we hadn’t seen Mom come back with the truck. I decided to walk down the road to see if I could spot her.
As soon as I made it to the end of the driveway, I looked down the road and spotted her about a 1/4 of a mile away. She was parked in a neighbor’s driveway. As soon as she saw me, she pointed to where I could clearly see 6 happy, pain-in-the-butt pigs, slowly making their way back to the swamp. I rolled my eyes and yelled for the others. Mom had found them. Somehow they had all managed to get back together as if they were having a party.
The Professional Arrives (Sarcasm)
It was at this time that my brother showed up with his wife. He climbs out of the vehicle and says, “What are you doing? Mom has them all gathered together right by the swamp. Why don’t you walk them into the pen?”
I blew the hair out of my face and glared at him. I may or may not have said a bad word.
David and I carefully walked in Mom’s direction, trying to get behind the pigs. He grabbed a couple of sticks off the ground about 3 feet in length, and used them to tap on the shoulders of the first two that he came across. Of course the pigs walked just as calmly as they could for him, almost in a direct line to where Brian and my Dad were waiting at the pen.
Now, we did try the sticks before David arrived. Pig sticks are used to train pigs to guide them in a certain direction. Before David showed up, the pigs were running around squealing and we couldn’t even get close enough to ‘guide’ them with a stick.
David put the first two in the pen, with snarky directions for Brian and my dad to not let them get back out, and then proceeded to come back to the swamp to get two more.
The remaining pigs walked beautifully for him, and the whole ordeal was over about an hour after it had started. It was a long hour, though.
The pen was fixed while the pigs laid around in their mud pit. I guess they were tired.
The family left and we all headed in to take showers. Everything was as it should be once again.
A Strong Memory
There are many days I drive past the swamp to or from work and smile at the memory of the pigs, splashing around in the water.
I think of my mom’s joy with the excitement of the whole thing, and her, pointing at the group of pigs standing between us, as if I can’t see them.
I think of my brother, riding in to save the day, the pigs walking in front of him as if they were the best behaved animals in the barnyard.
It’s a good, strong memory for our family to have.
Goals for Today:
- Place Halloween Decorations Around the House
- Work on My Vision Board
- Write