Heard of Such a Herd????

A person need only go through a single move to realize that moving is both a bit of an adventure and a bit of a pain. 

With ten moves behind us, Jo-Ann and I are well versed in the surprises and adjustments that come when relocating from one home or area to another.

Even with more than our fair share of experience, though, nothing truly prepared us for the move from New England to our 1865 Country Victorian farmhouse in Ohio. 

We looked at a great many homes prior to the move, many of which were newer and move-in ready.  Still, there was just something about that old house that called to me.  I have, for the most part, learned to ignore those crazy voices inside my head but, when it came to that farmhouse, I listened.

So, a house that was built at the conclusion of the Civil War, which had weathered the windswept plains of the Midwest for over 140 years, and had, for a little more than a decade before our purchase, been unoccupied by any residents, would now be the place that we called home.

Anxious to take up the task of country living, immediately upon returning to Massachusetts to prepare for the move, I started searching the internet for livestock which I could raise on my little farm.

As a vegetarian, I had no heart for raising animals that were meant primarily for food.  This criteria alone eliminated almost every legitimate farm animal.

I was also having a difficult time convincing Jo-Ann, who is less than enthusiastic about even filling a bird feeder in the winter, of the merits of having animals, at all.  

The idea of predawn wakeups and trudging through blowing snow in freezing temps to feed and water the livestock, of an obligation that would require a 24/7/365 commitment, of being up at 2am for critter births and of warding off late night predators that howled worse than the winds across the flat lands seemed, for whatever reason, altogether unappealing to her. 

I take no pleasure in admitting that Jo-Ann was right but, in this one, single, solitary instance, I do rather wish that I had listened.

As I searched for a profitable, non-meat producing animal, I happened upon a rather odd creature known as an alpaca.  Alpacas had been imported from South America by a bunch of crazy people who dared to dream that an animal Ponzi scheme would be a success.  They were, oddly, right.

Alpacas do produce a wool that can be spun and made into very itchy blankets which people high in the Andes, who have no other option, have been known to sleep beneath, or fashioned into primitive dolls that are reminiscent of the souvenirs one might find sold by children on the streets of Bolivia. 





Beyond those two possible uses, though, they serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than being too cute to put into words.

In its lifetime, an alpaca might produce a sufficient amount of wool to make enough skin irritating blankets and useless dolls to profit an alpaca farmer enough money to almost cover the cost of a single veterinary visit.  A veterinarian making house calls in the country is not unheard of but a veterinarian who even knows what an alpaca is, much less who is willing to treat one, is a rare find, indeed.

The calls in search of such a vet generally went along the lines of:

“Do we treat what?”

“Alpacas.”

“Sir, are you asking if we treat alopecia?  Is your dog losing its fur?  Are you certain it’s not just mange?”

“Not alopecia. Alpacas. You know, like llamas but smaller.”

“Sir, we are in Ohio.  Were you trying to call Peru? If so, please hang up and try again.  If not, please….. just hang up.”

In spite of the fact that an alpaca would never be profitable for its wool, the Great Alpaca Ponzi Scheme artificially inflated the value of the cute little things to a price that would leave anyone, other than a convert to the alpaca farming dream, absolutely slack jawed.  

The profit came from the breeding and selling of useless baby alpacas, or cria as they are known, for thousands of dollars to another alpaca farming dreaming dolt which, as it turns out, were not in short supply.

Not unlike the house that nobody else had been crazy enough to buy for the previous decade, something about starting a farm where useless animals were raised also called out to me.

Investing every last cent of profit that we made from the sale of our Massachusetts home during the artificially inflated Housing Market Ponzi Scheme, I bought myself a whole herd of the adorable critters and then, and only then, told Jo-Ann the great news.

I had printed off copies of each adorable alpaca face from our new herd and waved them, one by one, before Jo-Ann’s eyes, which were too glazed over by shock to fully appreciate the cuteness of Precious, Petunia, Lily, Bitsy and the young herdsire, Clem, the base stock of our very own Alpaca Pyramid.

That I, upon discovering that the insanity of alpaca rearing was not limited to our National borders, had gotten a better deal than the average alpaca farming doofus, by purchasing my alpacas from Canada where the US dollar was stronger, did little to sway Jo-Ann to  the brilliance of spending a small fortune to be on the cutting edge of raising adorable, worthless animals.

While I will spare the details of her full reaction, suffice it to say that I am quite certain that she would have much rather had alopecia than alpacas.

Upon  the advice from the Canadian farmer, I also bought a life insurance policy for the herd.  One must guard such a helpless investment, as it seems that a single coyote could wipe out our entire investment in minutes.  Fortunately, if not coincidentally, the Canadian farmer's cousin owned a company that insured alpaca investments.  I was thankful for the lead as I imagine that calls to insurance companies seeking a policy rider for alpacas would be even more frustrating than the calls to vets.  "Sir, do we ride what...."

Once the important matters of the investing in and the insuring of alpacas was complete, I began to take care of the more menial tasks such as finding Home Owners Insurance for our farm itself.

When I called my insurance company, I was asked for the location of the nearest fire hydrant.  As I had no idea where a hydrant was positioned, I was told to call the local fire department and to then give the agent a return call.

Fires are, evidently, to homes what coyotes are to alpaca herds.

I looked up the number of the local Ohio Fire Station for my new address and gave them a call.

I was more than a little surprised when an answering machine picked up.  I was instructed to leave a message and informed that my call would be returned when and if a member of the volunteer force happened to saunter in and take a look at messages.  Alternatively, I could call 911.

Before that event, I honestly thought that the moment the phone rang at a fire station, firemen, who had anxiously been standing by awaiting someone's call, would be sliding down poles from the top floor to the base of the building, pulling on boots while simultaneously running for the big red fire engine, hopping inside, strapping on helmets and activating the sirens even before the phone was answered.

To have received, instead, a message on an answering machine both crushed my image of what it is that firemen do and left me wondering as to just what kind of place it was to which I was moving.

Two days later, I received a response from the local fire chief who had finally gotten around to going to the station, since he had nothing more pressing to do for the day than to see if anyone had reported their home in flames or called to check on fire hydrant locations.

“You’re looking for a fire hydrant, are ya?” he asked.

“Well, the location of the one nearest to the home I am purchasing," I explained after giving him my address.

"You bought the old Gilfillen place, did ya?" he asked then chuckled before continuing on, "None of us thought anybody would ever buy that old place again."

Before I could ask why the chuckle or why the doubt as to the habitability of the home, he informed me, "Mrs. Hofacker, who was originally a Gilfillen and born in that house, went to school with my Mom and was my third grade teacher."

"Small world," I said, even though I was actually thinking, "Ugh, small towns." 

Before he could launch into more genealogy or reminiscing, I asked if he happened to know the closest location of a fire hydrant to the Gilfillen Place, which was, evidently, how the home would continue to be known even though my name was now on the mortgage and no Gilfillens were chipping in on the payments.

“That,” he explained, “would be somewhere in town, I reckon. So, a good four or five miles away, I’d say.”

“In town?” I asked, “But what if my house catches on fire out in the countryside?”

“We got water in the trucks,” he explained, as if the answer was obvious, “and there are ponds around where we can refill if needed.”

What he didn’t say, but I understood, was that it was highly unlikely that they would have to ever find a pond from which to refill the truck as the house would most certainly be burned to the ground before the all-volunteer force was even assembled at the station after the 911 dispatcher, to whom the answering machine refers the caller, got ahold of all the local boys to let them know that the Gilfillen Place was ablaze.

Not surprisingly, the insurance company was even less impressed by that answer than was I.  They, and the next four major carriers I called, all refused to issue coverage.

Insuring alpacas against predators, it turned out, was far easier than insuring a country home against fire.

A high risk company was finally located and a policy issued and I was then able to get back to such important matters as preparing my acres for alpacas.

I found a fencing company, picked at random among the many farm fencers listed in the small country phone book, and arranged to have the field  readied for the alpacas, which were now costing me room and board fees from the Canadian farmer who had been caring for them for free up until the moment he had my signature on the buyer form.

When the pasture was, at last, fenced, I began to consider the ever so slight dilemma of having no way to transport the alpaca herd from Quebec to Ohio as I did not own a livestock trailer.  My transport worries, though, soon became a moot point.

Only days after the fences were up, an Angus in Montana came down with Mad Cow Disease.

The tracking process for the bovine infirmity began and, as luck would have it, the bull had been born, bred and transported from Canada. 

Swiftly, the USDA closed the border to all Canadian livestock. 

I was left wishing that I had bought insurance FOR a coyote, of the illegal smuggling variety, to sneak my herd across the border.   The Northern border is, evidently, far more protected by the USDA than is the Southern border by the Dept of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, on the home front, the 140 year old house in which we were attempting to live (more on that in an upcoming blog) was in dire need of maintenance. 

I suppose I should have anticipated that would be the case when the home inspector checked off “Needs Repair” on every single line item of the inspection form and concluded his remarks with “Much work is needed to restore this home to its former grandeur.”

Jo-Ann, even less on board with the alpaca purchase than she had been in the beginning, was constantly making such nonsensical and irrelevant comments as:

“I could have a roof on this house that didn’t leak if ‘we’ hadn’t bought alpacas.”

“Those broken windows that are letting in the wind and rain could have been replaced if ‘we’ hadn’t bought alpacas.”

“We could afford to put food on our own table if ‘we’ weren’t paying some Canadian to feed those alpacas.”

With no end to the border closing in sight and the prospects of my alpacas being granted a visa looking doubtful, I, as is often the case on my projects, conceded defeat to my alpaca farming dreams.

I listed my herd for sale on the Internet and, since one evidently is born every minute, a buyer from South Carolina, who was either unaware of or unconcerned with the border ban, was soon the owner of Precious, Petunia, Lily, Bitsy and Clem and was the one paying room and board fees to the Canadian, ay.  

Jo-Ann got new window panes and new shingles which made our home somewhat suitable during the inspection in the days ahead when we applied, as recounted in posts past, to become potbellied pig parents and thus took in critters even less useful than alpacas.

Perhaps, alpacas, though, weren’t so much a Ponzi Scheme as a virtual reality scheme.

I bought and sold alpacas, creatures which may or may not even truly exist, from, Canada, a far away land that, likewise, may or may not even be real, all via the Internet, all sight unseen and, in reality, never seen.

It occurs to me that if Farmville had existed twenty years ago, I could have been spared much turmoil.

In A Pig's Eye!

As a precursor to this story, please read "This Little Piggy" and "Huffed and Puffed" from the June archives.
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Who would have thought it?!  Our pigs actually enjoyed living outdoors and even seemed to prefer the old barn and two acre field to the confines of life in our living room.

As they settled nicely into their outdoor space, where they relished having old barn boards to rip from the walls, grape vines to pull from the arbors and grassy acres to convert into mud holes, I went about preparing the place to make it a suitable winter residence.

Thinking that they would be far more comfortable in a cozy little hut, all cuddled up in a piggy pile, I built them a piggy house, such as my building skills allowed. 

My building skills, as you may have come to realize by this point, leave much to be desired.

It, thus, came as no surprise when I couldn’t quite figure out how to determine the measurements necessary to construct an “A Frame” roof for their building, which was little more than a really large dog house.

I had been altogether unsure whether to utilize the Pythagorean Theorem, some concept of the Pi equation, the theory of relativity, the big bang theory or the good ol’ A2+B2=C2 formula so I simply took a poorly educated guess and, not surprisingly, fell short on my calculations.

When the roof was placed on top, in spite of what I had thought were extremely accurate guess angle measurements, not only was there not an eave overhang but the entire roof stopped short of the edge by 2” on either side.
 

Ever resourceful, I draped plastic sheeting over the top, stapled it down tightly then added a heat lamp inside.  Next came a nice bed of fresh straw and blankets galore from the Goodwill store for the gals to sleep beneath.

The next task, the difficulty of which I underestimated even more than I had the roof dimensions, was to convince the pigs to move in.

Pigs, not unlike pigheaded men, do not ever, under any circumstances, like to be told what to do.  They will, even to their own detriment, oppose a much better idea rather than submit to another's recommendation. 

Amidst the loudest, most protesting screams and most menacing grunts that they could muster, I marched, herded and corralled the trio over to their new house and then attempted to shove them, one by one, inside where I threw the covers over them so that they could discover what a wonderful place I had made them.

As one was pushed in and covered, though, another ran out.  The process repeated until I was exhausted and frustrated and exhausted at being frustrated by those ding dang pigs! 

After far more effort than one should ever expend trying to stuff pigs in a blanket, I gave up and, once again, conceded failure.

At no time in the process did the pig screams ever stop or even so much as pause.  I was sweaty, dirty, the straw and blankets were scattered about and the truth of the old saying, "Never wrestle with a pig.  You'll both end up muddy but the pig will enjoy it," rang true.

Before my hog house construction even began, the pigs, one and all, had opted for an unsuitable old horse stall, which was completely barren of a door to shut out the winter wind, as their new home and they were not about to be evicted and relocated by the likes of me.

The only time they stepped hoof into my little pig house again was to drag out the blankets which they carried to the horse house that they now called home.

Utilizing the strategy which I harshly, if privately, have judged many a bratty child’s parents for using, I decided it was far easier to just give in to the pigs’ demands and allow them to do whatever it was they wished to do.

In my enablement of hoggish behavior, I measured the horse stall opening and headed to the local hardware store to buy the building materials necessary to construct a door.  It was the least I could do.

Our local hardware store was staffed by retired farmers, contractors and tradesmen who welcomed nothing more than a project that was to be completed by a novice like me. 

Unlike the big chain hardware stores that are often staffed by workers who know no more about building than do I (surprisingly, such persons do exist!), the fellas at the small town store, when I described my needs to them, would gather together in a huddle, discuss the situation, sketch diagrams, reach a consensus, gather the supplies for me and describe to me exactly what needed to be done. 

The result was that I returned home with all the necessary supplies but the “know how” on my part remained sorely lacking.  Those detailed directions provided me, which included sophisticated construction terminology such as “miter cuts”, “socket sets” and ”hanging plumb” were so foreign to me that, had the instructions been spoken in Macedonian or, worse, provided in IKEA stick figure fashion, I would have been no less prepared to complete the task.

Fortunately, the moment I walked into the hardware store for the pig stall project, I happened upon a clearance aisle where I found, in exactly the width I needed, a beautiful set of 15 panel French Doors!

Being that they were cheap and already built, I quickly bought them, loaded them into the back of my new truck which, even if forbidden by the Pot Bellied Pig Rescue Society of Ohio for swine transport, was quite the handy vehicle now that I was a "farmer".

With the sting of the Pig House failure so fresh, though, I opted to call a local handy man to install the door. 

The handy man arrived, looked at the doors, looked around as he took in the realization that it was a barnyard in which he was being tasked with installing French doors, looked at the stall, looked at the pigs, looked absolutely bewildered at me as I explained that the doors were, indeed, for the hog house, scratched his head, rubbed his chin and, without a word, got to work.

In less time than it would have taken me to find my hammer, which was more likely to have been in a nest box in the hen house than in the toolbox, he had the door completely installed. 

He took a picture, as I’m sure he was certain that his buddies at “The Handy Man Bar and Grill” would never believe what he had been tasked to do, wished me luck and left me to marvel at what we dubbed “The Pig Parlor”.

We hung some curtains and gave the pigs our Sealy posturpedic mattress which was unusable in the house as it, like so much of our furniture, would not fit around the corner of the narrow, fully enclosed farm house staircase and, therefore, could not be moved upstairs.  We then made up their bed with fitted sheets added the blankets and rehung the heat lamp with an infrared night light so as not to disturb the piggy slumber. 

The Pig Parlor was, in a word, spectacular! 

 

They loved their place and for the first time in our coexistence both the pigs and we were happy with the arrangements.

Things went uneventfully for nearly a week after which Jo-Ann came rushing into the house to tell me that Misty, the nicest of the pigs (which is to say the least likely to go into a teeth chomping, hair raised, full attack mode at the drop of a hat), had lost her eye.

“Lost her eye?!” I exclaimed and went running to the field to find Misty eating grass and worms as if nothing at all was wrong.  As I knelt to look at her, though, it was very obvious that she had only a fold of fat covering the sunken socket where her eyeball should have been.

Not knowing what else to do, I quickly called Little Bit’s Mom, our Pig Mentor, and she came over moments later with a full veterinary kit which, evidently, real farmers keep right on their nightstand for just such an eye loss emergency.

After a thorough examination by Little Bit's Mom and determining that the pig was, indeed, sans an eyeball, she decided that the best course of action was to flip Misty onto her haunches and hold her tightly in a sitting position while she applied antibiotic ointment to the eyeball socket.

Why the pig could not be held while on all fours to this day remains a mystery to me.  Since it was I who would obviously be doing the pig flipping and hog holding, I was less than enthusiastic with the plan but, as Little Bit’s Mom was the pig expert, a flip onto her haunches (Misty's, not Little Bit's Mom) it would be.

Completely nonplussed at the attention which she was suddenly being shown and sensing that we were not taking the situation as well as was she, Misty took off like a greased pig at a country fair.

I chased her through weeds and mud and, at last, into a corner of the field.  Her screaming at being pursued reached a level more intense than I had ever heard previously though I had been hearing intense pig screams, over one matter or another, on a regular basis for weeks. 

The other sows quickly came running over, not so much because they gave a hoot about Misty, but because a pig, in my experience, never misses an opportunity to join into a crescendo of hog hollerin’.

Amidst the deafening raucous from the trio, I leaned over Misty, wrapped my arms around her sizeable girth, lifted and simultaneously fell backwards, pulling her with me as I toppled.

I landed in the weeds with quite a thud and with a pig in my lap.

At that moment, in quite an unfortunate, uncomfortable and vulnerable position for us both, Misty threw her head back, let out the loudest scream in her existence and, as she bellowed loudly enough for anyone within a country mile to hear, both of her eye sockets popped fully open, revealing not one but two eye balls staring wildly but in exactly the spots where the two eyes ought to be.

Standing there with a tube of ointment in hand, Little Bit’s Mom seemed almost disappointed at the loss of opportunity to put her pig doctoring skills to use while Jo-Ann joined in with squeals of her own, while clapping her hands and jumping for joy, “Her eye is back!  Her eye is back!”

Jo-Ann, rejoicing at the turn of events, and Little Bit’s Mom, pouting at the anticlimactic treatment opportunity but insisting that I continue to hold the hog while she went to get hoof trimmers so that she could at least get her hands dirty doing something farmer related, headed from the field and back to the barn.

As I sat, with the pig in my lap, enduring the continued hog howls, a truck slowed on the road and the man behind the wheel glared at me.

It was then that I, completely mortified, realized what that man was seeing; I was sitting alone in a field, in knee high grass with a screaming sow squirming on my lap, my arms wrapped tightly around her.

I could simply shake my head “no” as he slowly drove away.

If there is a bright side, at least it wasn't a sheep which I was holding?  Those wouldn't come until the following Spring.  

Huffed and Puffed As They Tore the House Down

As recently told in “This Little Pig Went Poo Poo Poo All the Way Home” (June 7, 2015), Jo-Ann and I found ourselves transplanted from the quaint little city of New Bedford, MA, the former Whaling Capital of New England, with cobblestone streets, corner coffee shops and jacket and reservations required restaurants to a small farm amidst the corn fields of rural New Madison, OH where Vint’s Family Diner not only did not require jackets nor reservations but lacked even a requirment that the coveralls and Carharts, favored by many of its patrons, be particularly clean after a day of working the fields.

Embracing the idea of becoming hobby farmers ourselves, we decided, with very little thought as to the consequences of such an action, to fill our lives with farm animals. 

Pigs, as it turns out, truly are not the animal with which the novice “farmer” should begin their trek into country living but Jo-Ann and I seldom have the good sense to do things in anything even remotely resembling a logical order.

So, after passing the adoption approval process of The Potbellied Pig Rescue Association of Ohio (PPRAO), by the hair of my chinny chin chin, and attending intensive hands-on, down in the mud training at The Potbellied Pig Sanctuary of Virginia, we found ourselves sharing our home with three old sows, Hannah, Misty and Minnie.

We were under strict orders, by the aforementioned PPRAO, to house our piggies indoors, under threat of repossession of our little darlings if we failed to adhere to that or any of the other requirements of the binding document that I had signed, which numbered somewhere between 10 and 942 pages.  As the contractual agreement spans back more than a decade, time has dulled my memory as to the exact number of sheets in the agreement but it does seem that I put my John Hancock on an amount far closer to the latter than to the former.

I had been duly warned that the scallywag sows that now graced our lives and inhabited our home maintained a strict pecking order and that they would regularly test my authority and position within the herd.

Dogs, of course, do the same but on a much less grand scale.  With enough self-awareness to accept that I could easily be toppled from the Alpha spot, I have, therefore, opted for Chihuahuas and Chinese Cresteds so that I might have a fighting chance.    

Further, while dogs welcome us into their packs, those three pigs, it seemed, did not so much view themselves as guests in our home as they regarded Jo-Ann and me as interlopers within their herd.

In exchange for begrudgingly enduring our presence, the hogs extended to us the privilege of feeding them, and doing so often, as well as rubbing their bellies upon their demand.  Failure to do either in a timely manner resulted in high pitched pig screams more ominous than the wailing of a banshee.

When one pig began her vocal protests at having been slighted in some perceived manner, the others suddenly seemed to realize that they, too, were hungry or in need of a belly rub and joined in the deafening cacophony. 

Remaining inside a house with screeching hogs while maintaining one’s sanity is not an easy task, so we either had to flee the confines of our home or submit to the pigs’ unified will.

Alas, with barns on every corner rather than trendy coffee shops, we had no place to flee.

In spite of giving in to their demands more often than not, I did attempt, with limited success, to exert my dominance as Boss Hog, as I had been trained to do during my days at The Pig Academy. 

I was instructed, as one method to gain dominance, to regularly shove them away from their food and challenge them as they tried to return so that they would respect my authority and learn to submit to my will. 

I think the same is true in prison chow halls, where, I suspect, my best efforts would prove equally unsuccessful.

I did attempt the shoving technique, but those pig headed little porkers refused to accept that I actually outranked even the lowest member of the herd.  

In spite of my pushes, grimacing face and chest thumping, those pigs would begin barking at me, start chomping their teeth in what I had been told at Pig School was a sign of aggression and imminent attack and, with hair standing up all down the crest of their back, charge at me.

I, with a natural tendency to avoid conflict and with my own hair standing up in fear, would quickly move aside and allow them to return to their troughs, inconvenienced but unconvinced by my domineering efforts. 

In addition to the turmoil brought upon me by continually fighting for rank with my chubby little housemates, Jo-Ann was reaching her own limit with the messiness and chaos that the pigs were creating inside our home.

I had been assured by Newton’s Mom and other converts to a Pig Parent Identity that pigs were smarter than dogs.  Those same folks also told me that pig poop was odorless. 

Likewise, Farmer Brown, the commercial hog farmer from next door, also informed us that his pigs' poop did not stink, as if saying it made it so, when he came over on his first scouting visit to ensure that we were not going to be the type of city folks who move to the country and then file a lawsuit against the farming community because they contributed to the country smelling like the country.

I am neither an animal behaviorist nor an olfactory expert but my entire life has been shared with dogs and I do possess a sense of smell so can, therefore, raise my right hand and do so solemnly swear that I found neither of those claims to be even remotely true.

The pig’s natural love for cleanliness, as declared by the minions at the Pig Sanctuary, also rang far less true than the fact that a sty is synonymous with both horrifically messy abodes and pig pens.

In the vein of "Even a broken clock is right twice per day", I do concede that pigs will, in fact, use a litter box, as we had been promised by the same pig folks who had lead us astray in so many other areas. 

Hogs actually do seem to prefer to keep their bodily discharges confined to one area and they willingly accepted that the litter box provided was the appropriate area for their business- and their business was booming.

There is really no excuse for my not having grasped the obvious fact that a pig litter box would need to be much, MUCH larger than one for a spry little kitten; nevertheless the large size of the pan still caught me off guard.

Such a specifically made, and enormous, pig litter box was provided as an integral part of my pig parenting kit (survival gear) from The Sanctuary.  The thing was, literally, larger than our kitchen table. 

In order to accommodate the Pig Privy, we had to place our “extra” furniture into the garage. 

Who, though, truly needs a sofa in their living room?

When it came to potty time, the girls were a cohesive herd; if one had to pee, all had to pee.  It seemed there was always a line waiting to go, not unlike human females in that regard.

The problem, however, was not so much their willingness to use the box as their mostly unsuccessful aim at hitting the mark, not unlike human males in that regard.

The piggies would center themselves in that box and, with gusto, shoot somewhere between one gallon and 50 gallons, again time has dulled my reality but my memory leans towards the latter, of urine straight behind them with such force that it easily cleared the box’s edge by several inches before hitting and running down the wall. 

Immediately upon finishing her gushing bladder blast, piggy one would then squat, fill the box with piggy poo and leap, such as a pig is able to leap, out to make room for the next  pig in the hierarchy to hop in, stand squarely in the poo of Pig One, shoot her stream onto the wall and leap out to track the poo across the rug and make room for piggy three to jump in and repeat the process.

Any effort to halt or interrupt the ritual was met with such protests from the screeching sows that I found it far easier to simply sink down onto what was left of the space that once held our couch and retreat to my happy place, which most definitely did not include swine, where I waited for them to finish so that the clean up could begin.

Jo-Ann, meanwhile, had grown weary of having what had once been a couch's space filled, instead, with a litter box, a mop and pail and me, sitting cross legged, rocking in place while humming in monotone with my eyes and mind closed to the reality that was life with pigs. 

Barely beyond the first week of human and pig communal living, she was empty of any further toleration for such a mess and constant chaos inside the house. 

Reminding her of The Contract, which carried her signature of agreement on not a single page of the lengthy legal obligation that threatened me with everything short of reopening Alcatraz for my personal incarceration if the demands were not met, was about as successful as was my assertion to the pig herd that I was in charge.

In an attempt to show my dominance, I rose from the floor and attempted to shove aside her demands that those pigs be moved, immediately if not sooner, to the barn. 

As seemed to be the response of every female in my house to my attempts to take charge, she began barking, chomping her teeth and her hair raised in true razorback fashion.  I feared her imminent charge even more than that of the three hogs combined.

I determined if The Potbellied Pig Rescue Association of Ohio, in general, and Newton’s Mom, in particular, wanted to challenge Jo-Ann on the breach of contract, they could do so at their own peril. 

So it was that, amidst the huffing and the puffing that nearly tore our house down, those Three Little Pigs found themselves in a pig house built of wood and filled with straw so that I could continue to live in the one made of bricks.
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Coming Next Week:

“In A Pig’s Eye!”

Up and At It

This morning, I got a late start on my run and it was quite hot and humid out by the time I did so.

About a mile into it, I felt that it was just too uncomfortable to be out for as long as I had planned and decided to take a short cut home.

Shortly thereafter, I passed an elderly lady going the other direction.  She was out for her morning exercise.... in her wheelchair.

 

It instantly dawned on me;  How dare I grumble and complain because conditions weren’t perfect, to take my ability to run for granted and to even consider cutting short my goal because everything wasn’t ideal.

She, simply doing what she was doing, inspired me.

Once my decision was made to finish the run completely, thoughts of quitting never even entered my mind again.

At mile four, I passed a man who was thinning out his bromeliads, my favorite landscape plant for Florida.  When I paused to compliment his, he gave me one to bring home. 

A mile later, I passed a lady who had placed a free standing tp holder out to be taken away.  Having just redone the bathroom and in need of just such an item, I asked her if I could have it and she gladly gave it to me.  Whether Jo-Ann will allow me to keep it, once she finds that it came from curbside, is yet to be determined.

In any event, because an elderly lady, suffering from some condition that makes her unable to walk, got up and got at it, I was encouraged.  I finished my run completely and returned home “burdened” with prizes rather than returning home empty handed and disappointed, as would have happened but for her passing me by.

 

She was a great and wonderful blessing to me without having any idea herself that she had been so.

Few of my stories have even a point much less a moral but this one does, at least for me.

In our daily run through life, we never know who may take notice and be inspired in their own life simply because we got up and got at it.

Particularly with, but even in the absence of, a personal burden to bear, no matter how mundane, trivial or just a part of the daily grind we may think our actions and routine, we may very well bless someone else in a similar situation to keep on keeping on.

It doesn’t always require great things or an extreme sacrifice to be a blessing. 

We don’t have to necessarily be standing on the sideline clapping and cheering. 

Sometimes a simple smile in passing, a kind word uttered or just our own perseverance in whatever situation we may find ourselves is all that someone may need to take heart.

It is my great hope and prayer that, on more days than not, I may encourage someone else to run the race with gladness and, certainly, that I may ever be mindful to do so myself.

++++++++++Update+++++++++
This morning I passed Stella, the lady in the wheelchair, again and stopped to chat for a moment. 

I shared with her that she had inspired me and she smiled and said that knowing she had done so truly encourages her. 

We made a pact to cheer each other on.  It's a small thing but it makes me happy.   :)
 

This Little Piggy went "Poo, Poo, Poo" All the Way Home

A friend from Dayton, Ohio, recently shared a news story concerning a pig that had to be taken into custody by police for spreading mayhem on the streets of Detroit and which, subsequently, made a complete and total mess of the police cruiser.

From my personal experiences, I would have expected absolutely no other outcome.

Personal experiences from travels with a pig?  Oh, yeah, I've got 'em.  

Additionally, that a pig would need to be arrested comes as absolutely no surprise to me. Pigs seem to take great delight in looking for trouble. Pigs have little respect for rules, acknowledge no authority other than that which exists within the hog herd and those pugnacious, pug-nosed porcines are ever ready to tussle to challenge even that authority.

Wreaking absolute havoc is the only thing that pigs seem to enjoy more than the clichéd, but accurate, roll in the mud or feeding at the trough.

I came upon my anecdotal evidence of life with pigs shortly after moving to Ohio from Massachusetts.

Jo-Ann and I tend to start a different way of living with each of our many moves.

We have lived in a beach condo, a city townhouse, a Maryland cottage, a New England Gambrel, a shack on Cape Cod, a Mid-Western bungalow and a suburban Mid-Century Modern in addition to the Civil War Era, Country Victorian farm house that we called home when we relocated to the Buckeye State.

Such an assortment of houses has helped to add a bit of variety to our lives as we attempted to morph, oft times with absolutely no success, to fit in with the various home styles and very different communities.

With Adirondack chairs and neighbors who were so close that we could speak from window to window left behind, we made our way onto that Ohio hobby farm with a 140 year old house a barn and 5 acres of land that simply demanded the addition of livestock and farming of some variety.

That we knew nothing of either livestock nor farming of any kind would deter us not at.

Pigs first gained our attention as we drove down a country road during our first Ohio Spring.

Momma sows roamed the off season corn fields with the cutest, most animated, frolicking little piglets running literal circles around them and each other.

Not surprisingly, after but a moment's notice of those adorable little critters, Jo-Ann declared with much enthusiasm, “I want a pig!”

We had no sooner arrived home than I was on the phone calling our neighbors, Farmer and Mrs. Brown, who were commercial hog farmers.

While Farmer Brown and wife were nearing retirement, they still maintained several hundred hogs, or so it smelled whenever the wind blew from their homestead to ours.

When Mrs. Brown answered her phone, perhaps one of the last rotary dial types left in the country, I expressed our desire to purchase two piglets.

After hearing my request, she assured me that a single hog would provide all the meat that Jo-Ann and I would need for the year and that we could save a lot of trouble by just purchasing one when it was ready for slaughter.

I braced myself against the countertop to prevent the fall that nearly resulted from the light headedness that overtook me at the very idea of eating one of those sweet little piggies.

When I regained my composure and told Mrs. Farmer Brown that we had no intention of eating the pigs but, rather, of making them our pets, the line went silent.

I am convinced the pause was the result of Mrs. Farmer Brown also having to brace herself against the ensuing lightheadedness that must have overtaken her as she came to fully realize that idiotic city slickers had just moved next door. 

Just as I began to think that she had hung up on me, she said, in an tone that was as barely recovered from absolute shock as was my own, “You don’t want our hogs for pets. Maybe you should look for one of those potbellied kind.”

I then heard the phone click as she truly did hang up and, I'm quite certain, immediately went in search of Mr. Farmer Brown to warn him about the new neighbors with which they would now be contending.

It was just as well that the call ended quickly because, in such a rural area where Wi-Fi was as equally unheard of as a "jacket required" restaurant, I needed my phone line free so that I could plug in my computer modem and begin my search for a potbellied pig.

I learned that Vietnamese Potbellied Pigs, which had sold for thousands of dollars each only a decade before, when people were foolish enough to believe that a pig would be a suitable pet, were now often surrendered to rescues and were in abundant supply at pig adoption facilities.

Jo-Ann and I, while absolutely no less foolish in our pet pig pursuit than those who had paid dearly to be on the cutting edge of pig parenting, were fortunate in that we began our search after those previous folks had realized that pigs behave like, well, pigs.

Discarded pigs were spared roaming the countryside and suburban streets, having been kicked to the curb like unwanted strays, only because, when they were considered valuable and in high demand, most of the little squealers had been micro-chipped and, therefore, traceable to their owners in order to prevent pignapping.

My online search revealed that each State actually had a pig coordinator, designated by The Potbellied Pig Rescue Association of the United States, to oversee adoptions.

I quickly logged off, unplugged the modem, reconnected the phone line and called the Ohio branch of The Potbellied Pig Rescue to arrange delivery of our chubby little bundle of joy.

While I would have expected equal enthusiasm on the part of the coordinator, who was being given an opportunity to place one of the hundreds of little piggies from the vast rescue piggy network in a home, my call was actually met with much skepticism.

I found myself actually having to justify why we wanted a pig and answering questions of just how we planned to care for the little porker IF and when we were allowed to bring one home.

I also learned that referring to a pet pig as a ”porker” was taboo and not at all acceptable by the Pig Rescue crowd (cult).

Pet Pig People and Regular Pig People have a very different viewpoint on the purpose of those critters.

After the call, I had the feeling that I had less than impressed the lady, who simply referred to herself as Newton’s Mom.

Indeed, I ended that lengthy and quite tense conversation with the full realization that she had, in fact, transformed her entire identity into being Newton’s Mom.

Newton was, of course, a pig.

During the conversation, Newton’s Mom did, somewhat reluctantly, agree to contact the closest Pig Mentor to my location to arrange a face to face interview (interrogation) and an inspection and evaluation to make certain that our property was sufficiently suitable for a pig to call its home.

I volunteered that my barns were old but that I would gladly do some renovations to accommodate the little hog (in, what seemed, the unlikely event that I would actually be approved at some point during the pig adoption process).

Newton’s Mom, even less impressed than she had been during the earlier part of my call, informed me that while a pig could very well enjoy some outdoor time during the day; scampering about the barnyard under close supervision, it was fully expected that it would actually be living inside the house and not (audible gasp from Newton’s Mom) inside of a barn.

Jo-Ann really, really wanted that pig so I agreed to do all in my power to make our actual house pig worthy, whatever that meant.

It occurred to me that I should probably be offended, although never let such be known, that our abode could potentially be labeled by someone like Newton's Mom as not quite good enough to house a hog.

When the pig mentor arrived a few days later, she introduced herself as Little Bit’s Mom.

Little Bit’s Mom, much more pleasant and encouraging than Newton's Mom, explained that all new pig parents needed someone to help guide them through the process of becoming a truly suitable pig parent and that, should Newton’s Mom and The Pig Powers That Be grant us the privilege of adopting a pig, she would be there for us every step of the way.

Little Bit’s Mom looked our house over and gave us several "helpful" recommendations.

To assist in our successful cohabitation with a hog, she suggested pulling up all the carpet and replacing it with wood flooring as pigs love to root down, pull up the carpet from the room corners and shred the rugs. Her chuckle indicated that having rugs in her home was but a distant memory.

Next, she recommended removing the wall paper and painting the interior as pigs love to grab ahold of wall paper, rip it from the walls, and tear it to smithereens.  She chuckled again as if to suggest, "How precious!"

As an absolute minimum towards pig preparation, the garbage cans simply had to be placed behind a locked cabinet door.  Those sweet little scallywag swine do so love to overturn garbage cans and spread trash from one end of the house to the other! 

"Oh, the memories," said the smile of one has crossed over from sanity and into an alternate world where crazy seems sane.

Additionally, she told us that placing any object that was currently less three feet from the floor onto a shelf higher than three feet from the floor was highly recommended as those little piggy scoundrels simply love to reduce to rubble anything which they can reach. 

We would not, it seemed, ever again be able to have nice things, or even un-nice things which ended up within the possible clutches of those dear, demolishing little imps.

Jo-Ann, learning of the messy and destructive habits of pigs, was becoming less enthusiastic about pig parenthood by the moment while I, now feeling directly challenged by the multitude of insinuations that I was altogether unworthy to own a pig, was becoming completely committed to the pig adoption approval process.

Little Bit’s Mom, after a thorough interrogation of Jo-Ann and me, both together and separately, announced that we should get to work on the recommended pig proofing of our home and that she would begin checking our references.

Pending favorable recommendations and accolades from our parents, friends, neighbors, veterinarian, former pastors, teachers at every level from Pre-K onward and our high school prom dates as to our potential suitability for the receiving of a pig into our home, she would forward our packet upward to Newton’s Mom.

We waited, nervously, as the background checks, far more thorough than the screening for the Top Secret Security Clearance Jo-Ann received while in Washington, DC’s Army Command post, were completed.

Then, following the fact finding and suitability phase of our application, we continued to wait as our case sat pending before the judgement of Newton’s Mom and the Pig Committee of Ohio branch of The Pot Bellied Pig Rescue Association of the United States.

As days turned into weeks, I assured Jo-Ann that if the Ohio adoption efforts failed there was always the potential to travel to Vietnam, where the potbellied pig originated, to get a piglet.

Adoptions from Asia were, after all, becoming commonplace.

At long last, just days before getting our passports and vaccinations updated for the trip to Hanoi, we received a call from Newton’s Mom and were told that we had been granted a "very conditional" approved for a pig adoption.

In order to gain full approval, being that we were recent country transplants with little in the way of pig rearing experience, I would have to travel to my home state of Virginia and spend a week at a large Pig Rescue facility where I would receive intensive hands-on training in vaccinations, hoof trimming, tusk tweaking, pig nutrition (slop was not an approved staple among pet pigs) and overall care of a hog from piglet to geriatric stages.

IF I successfully completed my time at The Pig Training Academy, which Newton’s Mom’s tone indicated was quite unlikely in her estimation, I would be allowed to return home with a pig to call our very own.

Calling it our very own, however, would be a bit misleading as the Sanctuary would retain rights to the pig for the remainder of its life and contractually would have the authority to repossess our little adoptee for any reason deemed appropriate by Newton’s Mom and/or The Pot Bellied Pig Committee of Ohio.

Newton’s Mom then asked how I planned to transport the baby home (in the unlikely event that I passed the final phase of the stringent adoption training).

I told her that I had secured a large dog crate and would be driving in my Ford F-150 which I, on the cusp of becoming a farmer, had recently purchased under the assumption that the first step to becoming a farmer was to own a truck.

She hesitated a moment, in which I am quite certain that I heard the smack and rub of her hand to her forehead and down her face, before asking about a camper top. When I told her that I did not have a camper on my truck, the line went as dead as it had when Mrs. Farmer Brown learned that I was looking for a pet pig rather than a pork dinner.

Apparently, Pig People of any variety have to pause to fully take in and digest the things that I tell them on the telephone.

After requiring more than a moment to compose herself, Newton’s Mom informed me, through what sounded like clenched teeth, that a pig simply could not be, WOULD NOT BE transported in the back of a truck exposed to the elements: raging sun, potential rain, high pollen counts and possible coal dust in the air as I passed through West Virginia.

I would, if I had even the slightest hope of returning home with a pig, have to bring a van in which the pig could ride in the comfort of air conditioning, complete with an air filtration system and, presumably, able to listen to classical music to soothe its nerves during the long ride home.

Catching our first break in the potential pig parent process, Little Bit’s Dad, who worked for a car rental company, agreed to rent me a pig-ready van.  He, a Pig Parent and veteran of many a drive with hogs, understood exactly what was needed.

So it was that, on a June morning, having given up our previous vacation plans so that I could, instead, spend my break from work at The Hog Academy of Virginia, I found myself on the road from Dayton, OH to the Blue Ridge Mountains at the helm of a rented Dodge Caravan, seats having been removed and lots of room made for a little piggy to cry “Wee, Wee, Wee” all the way home (in the unlikely event that I should be granted a “pig worthy” certification).

As a teen, I had considered going to school in Charlottesville. I, at long last, had my opportunity to do so, although I would leave as an alumni of Potbellied Pig U rather than UVA.

I spent the next several days in mud and muck, trimming the hooves of screaming hogs in the midst of a thunderstorm, mixing feeds, giving vaccinations, worming piglets, rubbing bellies and learning more about hogs than I ever knew that there was to know.

I noted that Sanctuary pigs lived in barns rather than in homes, as was required of adoptive pig parents, but I was too concerned with making a good impression to point out the hypocrisy.

I traveled to an elementary school along with a young pig on a leash as part of Potbellied Pig U’s community outreach and pig education program.

I met and worked alongside volunteers at the Sanctuary, all of which were vegetarian, most vegan, and each one a bit more odd than the last.

I met Big Earl, a 500lb Yorkie (Hog) who had the Sanctuary’s phone number painted on his side beneath his name and who roamed the countryside freely although, having just returned to the Sanctuary following a very expensive operation to remove a bowel impaction, Big Earl hung around the barn most days during my stay there.

When at last my intensive training came to a close, I was, much to my surprise and to my considerable relief, deemed acceptable to adopt a pig!

I truly had no idea, up until the announcement of my successful completion of all required criteria on graduation day, if I was going to pass the scrutiny of the Sanctuary manager, survive the whispered and unkind gossip of several of the volunteers who had witnessed me intentionally ignoring a pig that had rolled over for a belly rub during a particularly heavy downpour in a particularly muddy area of the pen and, especially, after failing miserably at protecting the leashed piglet from the legion of swarming elementary school children who wanted to touch our Show and Tell star.

Miss Piggy, my hog on a rope, suffered none at all from the experience, fortunately.  Rather, she quickly rolled over as the throng approached and relished the belly rubs from the multitude of tiny, clammy, kiddie hands.

Quite truthfully, I was far too busy warding off those rug rats from touching me that I was altogether unable to offer much in the way of guarding the pig, especially since she, unflinching in the presence of dirt, grime and slobber, welcomed the touches of those children while I, most certainly, did not.

Even though a Pig School Graduate, I was, quite naturally, still in only the internship phase and would be under the close supervision of Little Bit’s Mom.

I was, as warned, required to sign a lengthy contract that spelled out the terms of the adoption, including the fact that the pig was able to be repossessed by the Sanctuary at any time that we were considered less than perfect pig parents or were ever, from that day onward, heard referring to ourselves in any way other than as “Hannah’s Mom" or "Hannah's Dad”.

Hannah, it was determined through a suitability process not unlike that employed by Match.com, was the pig with which I was to be paired.

Hannah, I should also mention, was not a baby piglet at all but an old, grouchy sow on the far side of advanced age.

I was not even certain that she would survive the trip home and feared the liability and lawsuits I would suffer at her demise which were, without doubt, outlined and agreed to by me during one of my many signatures on the multiple pages of the pig adoption contract.

Hannah was also part of a family band of three pigs which simply could not be, would not be, separated and how dare I even ask to not take all three and be thankful to do so was unspoken very loudly.

I had spent months wondering if I would be approved for a single little pig only to find myself ambushed into becoming, arguably, the Alpha Male of a herd of old sows.

With my freshly signed graduation certificate, adoption contract and pig caretaker status paperwork in hand, I loaded the three protesting hogs into the Caravan and started my trip home.

Truly, at that moment, the important thing was not that I was returning home with a little pig but that I had successfully completed the adoption process!  Come what may, I had succeeded in obtaining my approval letter from The Potbellied Pig Rescue Society of the United States, suitable for framing.

I pulled slowly out of the drive, amidst tears from the Sanctuary owner and waves from the volunteers, directed, I shall always believe, at the pigs rather than to me as I am quite certain they were still whispering disapproving comments about me to one another.

In a prelude of what was to come, I had not yet even shifted into second gear when all three pigs simultaneously evacuated their bowels.

The stench was, instantly, overwhelming so I pulled over at the end of the driveway.

Unfortunately, I had rounded a bend and was out of sight of the Sanctuary volunteers who may have, possibly, elevated my reputation ever so slightly in their very critical minds had they seem me remove a t-shirt from my luggage, pick up and throw out an impressively large pile of fresh pig biscuits.

Pulling away from the first stop sign I came to, which was less than a mile away from the spot where I had cleaned my first round of piggy poo, all three managed to drop another load.

I cleaned that up, as well, but by the time I reached the Interstate, the piles of poo had been replenished several times over. Realizing the futility of cleaning up what seemed to be a never ending source of pig poop, I accepted that the eight hour ride home would be less than pleasant.

Little Bit’s Dad had, thankfully, put down a plastic tarp covered with blankets upon which the pigs could ride and which protected the carpet, if not my senses, from the onslaught of pig excrement.

Other than the frequent potty episodes, the pigs travelled surprisingly well so long as the van was moving. Whenever stopped, though, they began to raise a deafening raucous. I received more than a few stares as all three pigs voiced their displeasure at every traffic light and/or stop sign that caused me to pause between Charlottesville and Dayton.

By journey’s end, my ears were ringing, my clothes and hair reeked of pig fumes and the victorious feeling that had accompanied the hard won approval for pig adoption was being replaced by the realization that I was now a "Proud Pig Parent"; a fact which was boldly stated on the bumper sticker given to me by Big Earl’s Dad as part of my graduation ceremony.

Jo-Ann, expecting to be handed a swaddled little mass of adorable pink piglet, gave me a slack jawed, "What have you done?" stare as three hogs paraded into the house grunting, grouching and looking for something to eat or to destroy which, other than pooping or napping, is pretty much how a pig fills its days.

Once I got the pigs settled in, I left Jo-Ann, who was altogether untrained in proper pig care, but fiercely protective of our rugs, wall paper, garbage cans and what-nots, to watch over our herd of swine as I did the best I could to clean the Caravan.

While the tarp had prevented any stains to the carpet, the smell, a presence unto itself, was a different story altogether.

I bought and used an entire bottle of Febreeze, then bought and used an entire second bottle which proved no more able to rid the Caravan of the odor that had permeated every fiber of the van’s interior, than had the first.

With little in the way of options and with my nerves shattered and patience worn from the last several hours on the road with pigs, I returned the Dodge Piggyvan to Little Bit’s Dad’s rental company.

When asked by the rental agent if everything had gone okay with the vehicle, I replied, “The van ran great but it really, really stinks inside!”

The agent offered his sincere apologies for any unpleasantness that I had endured and asked me to describe the odor. He seemed particularly concerned that someone had dared to smoke inside.

I assured him that there was no evidence that smoking had taken place inside the van and then said, “To be honest, it smells like someone hauled a herd of pigs in it!”

Noticeably relieved that cigarettes were not the source of the stench, he chuckled a bit and said, “I wouldn’t even know what a herd of pigs smells like.”

As I walked away, I said, “You will, Sir. You will.”

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Ultimately, your readership is what I hope for and, therefore, I need to know what I am doing right or wrong in obtaining that.

Thanks!
Shawn

PS  Ken Vallie, I honestly do not know whether to thank you or to loathe you for bringing back these memories from the pig arrest article which you sent!   ;)