That’s right, ANOTHER POST! It’s my intention to post once a week (or more if I have something exciting to share, but don’t hold your breath). Hopefully I can keep up that breakneck pace, but we shall seeeeee.
As always, I post Monday through Friday at Love & Hisses, and once a week or so at Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza.
So, the pigs went off to Freezer Camp at the end of October. As part of his preparations for the transport to Freezer Camp, about a week before the bus leaves Fred drives the trailer out to the back forty and backs it into a space where he can remove the fence. Then he begins feeding the pigs on the trailer. The idea is that they’ll become accustomed to being fed on the trailer, and immediately go there the morning that they’re scheduled to leave, and Fred can close the end of the trailer and they’ll be confined.
Yes, that is correct. He uses their love (of food) against them. Very cruel, and I’m sure he’ll end up in Hell for making the pigs think “Hey, maybe he’s taking us to a donut factory where we can eat ALL the donuts we want to!”, and then they go to another factory entirely.
In the past, it’s taken only a mealtime or two before the pigs get the idea. This time, black pig would not set one single hoof on that trailer, no way, no how. We kept saying “Well, when he gets hungry enough, he’ll go where the food is!”, secure that that would surely happen, since that’s how it had always happened before.
When it had been two days since black pig had gotten a decent meal, Fred was at work and I happened to glance out the window and see the black pig, at the end of the coop, surrounded by chickens. It took a minute before my brain kicked in and I realized that that pig? Not supposed to be there. The pig yard is a yard in itself and does not include the coop.
I called Fred. “Hey, I’m looking at the end of the coop. The black pig is standing there, eating scratch. I’m NOT going out there to corral him back into the pig yard.”
Last year, when we had three pigs (which we won’t do again) I had to walk across the pig yard to feed them on the trailer because Fred had to work late. One of them knocked me down, another bit me lightly on the leg (“I wonder how humans taste? I hear they have a nasty aftertaste, but I gotta try for myself!”), I reacted as if I’d been hit with a jolt of electricity, ran back across the yard to the gate without touching the ground, and have declared myself a non-pig-yard-entering entity ever since.
Fortunately it was almost time for Fred to leave work, so I just went out and took pictures and didn’t worry about getting the pig back where he belonged.
“What?”
“We LIKE this guy!”
Dragged the dog feeder across the yard. Ate all the dog food.
Helping the chickens eat the scratch.
Still helping.
The garbage can, over by the trailer, laying on its side? That was full of pig feed. Black pig helped himself to some of that, as well.
Pink pig was like “HOW did he get out there?!”
Black pig was clearly a fan of chicken scratch.
Note George, staring off into the distance, all “Pig? What pig? I see no pig out of the back forty!”
I think it’s safe to say that black pig ate a ton of scratch while he was out. Brat.
When Fred got home, he lured black pig – who should NOT have been in the slightest bit hungry, yet somehow WAS – into the pig yard using a donut. Took him about 2 minutes to get the pig back where he belonged.
The pigs always dig a wallow near the fence, near where their water dish is kept. Apparently the ground there is easier to dig, since it stays damp most of the time. It ends up being big enough for two fully grown pigs to wallow in, and what we hadn’t realized is that the fuckers were digging ever closer to the fence line, and then dug UNDER the fence, and finally black pig was all “Fuck THIS, I’m going to find food!” and crawled out.
Fred filled in the part of the wallow that went under the fence, and then black pig decided the trailer wasn’t so bad, and so on Monday morning, Fred was able to lure the pigs into the trailer with no problem at all. And off the pigs went, to freezer camp.
We usually like to send the pigs off to freezer camp when they’re around 350 pounds. This year, by the time Fred called to make the camp reservation, they were scheduled out so far that we took them about a month later than we’d originally wanted to.
Our pig, the pink pig, weighed in at nearly 500 pounds.
That, my friends, is a LOT of pork. Our freezer is chock-full of pork, and I’m not complaining.
Previously
2012: No entry.
2011: “Well, because I have abnormally small hands.”
2010: So, random pictures. For you. Try not to be too excited.
2009: George and Gracie are home from the spaying and the neutering.
2008: Negative. Good news or sad news, I wonder?
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Y’all rock.
2004: So many books, so little time.
2003: Ah, good times.
2002: So, you know what I hate?
2001: No entry.
2000: I was a tad peeved.