This little piggy learns a lesson

Two weeks ago the boss and Liz made a trip down to Medusa wherein resides the wonderful family from whom we purchase pigs. These folks breed really good pigs, long and lean, and they grow like crazy. The end result of growing a pig for your freezer depends in part on how well you care for it, but the quality of the pig you start out with also makes a huge difference. They have never sold us a poor one.

This year the guys decided to raise three pigs as we made a lot more sausage from the last pair and they didn't last long. Nichols does our meat processing for us and they made our sausage to our exact specifications (very mild). We loved it.


Anyhow, these three little fellows were part of a huge litter and were kind of on the wild side when they came home. However, they soon discovered that when the door to the 4-horse trailer that we use for a pig pen opened, someone on the other side had a pail of milk. Or a dozen ears of field corn. A zucchini. Apples. Tomatoes. Grain. They soon really liked to see the door open.


In fact when the boss opened the door the other night one jumped right out. Oops! Because they are a little wilder than our usual pigs he was frightened and immediately bolted away in a panic. The trailer is in the barn yard. The cows were also in the barnyard waiting to be milked. Instead of heading for the high country like any sensible piggy, this one ran right into the center of the herd, much to the chagrin of the bovine bunch. A forty-pound squealing, bristly, thing racing among their feet was unprecedented and just plain unnatural. They did what cows do in such circumstances. They kicked the heck out of him. He somehow struggled back up to the trailer and the boss herded him inside, where he flopped down in the straw on his side.

When the gang and I came over to milk a few minutes later the boss greeted us, "I guess one of my little piggies is going to die."

He recounted Lewy's tale of woe. We all trooped up to the trailer, where a few minutes earlier the pig had been slumped in the straw panting and quivering and looking not long for this world. When that wonderful door opened however, he somehow dragged himself up out of his death bed and limped over to the food dish where he looked up expectantly. He was noticeably lame in the rear trotter, but he still had his priorities straight. Maybe things weren't so bad after all. A few days passed with no further porky excitement.

Just now I asked the boss, "How is your little piggie?"

He replied, "I can't even tell which one he is any more."

However, when the door opens for pigs to be given their many and various gustatory delights, nobody jumps out of the trailer.