So after we made our decision the other day to return the pigs to the guy we’d gotten them from, Fred started posting online at the forums where he hangs out, and to my dismay people started giving him suggestions on how to solve the hernia problem. The most popular suggestion was to slap duct tape over the hernias for a few days.
You can imagine how thrilled I was.
Fred waffled about it for a few days, then called me on Friday when I was on my way to the post office.
“Would you be WILLING to try getting the hernias to stay in before we return them? I think that we could wrap some of that tape that sticks to itself around them, and then use duct tape on the ends to make sure it stays in place.”
Well. Really. What kind of an unreasonable bitch wouldn’t be WILLING to maybe fix the hernias so we could keep them? That little one really has an appealingly bossy personality.
“I SUPPOSE,” I grumbled.
On his way home from work, Fred stopped and picked up the supplies, and after we made a quick run to Hartselle to pick up something for his tractor, we headed out to the pig yard to what had to be done.
Thanks to fabulous reader Maureen, I now knew that holding a pig by its back legs was a better idea than trying to hold it by its ears, so when Fred went into the shelter and the pigs grunted in alarm and tried to run out and he pinned Big Pig down, I grabbed one of Big Pig’s back legs and then the other. He flailed and grunted and squealed (and the pig had a lot to say about it too HAR HAR HAR), but he was a lot calmer than when I had him by his ears the other day.
Fred worked as quickly as possible, but as I feared, we weren’t in position very long before the little bastard’s fear worked its way out of his body in a most fearsome and foul-smelling manner.
“IF I GET PIG SHIT ON ME, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!” I bellowed at Fred, who didn’t hear me, because we were both wearing ear protection to protect our hearing from the loud-ass pigs.
I never did get any of the foul-smelling stuff on me, thank god. Fred wound the tape around the pig’s hernia and then around each leg and when he was done it looked, in essence, like a thong that needed to be pulled up.
It’s to my everlasting dismay that I didn’t bring the camera out with me.
When Fred was done, he told me to let the pig’s legs go. I did, and the pig? Couldn’t walk. Apparently the way the tape was wound around him was preventing him from walking, and he kind of flopped around for a few seconds before Fred told me to grab the pig’s legs again, and he cut the tape off.
As we walked back to the house, he said “At least I can take them back on Sunday knowing that I tried it and it didn’t work!”
And then all day today he waffled back and forth. The little pig, as mentioned, is a sassy little thing and has quite a personality. He said “We could just let it go, and if the hernias get to be a problem, I’ll shoot them and we can eat them!”
He said “I sure do like those little pigs.”
He said “I sure don’t want to have to deal with the guy we bought the pigs from, and I’m sure he thinks I’m an idiot now.”
He said “You know he’s going to just put them in a tiny cage and feed them and never let them run around, and now that they’ve tasted nirvana, they’ll think they’ve gone to hell!”
He said “We could just see what happens!”
So who the fuck knows? At this point, I have no idea whether we’ll be returning the pigs tomorrow or not. I’d say the odds are about 60/40 FOR returning them, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part.
“GIMME the Fig Newton!”
“I WANTS the Fig Newton!”
“I has the Fig Newton!”
Piggies in the sun.
Not to be gross, but those bulgy things behind their legs? Not balls. Those are the hernias. If you’ve ever wondered what pigs with hernias look like, wonder no more!
The eggs we put in the incubator almost three weeks ago have started to hatch! Number one came early this morning. Then for a long time, nothing. Finally we got numbers two and three pretty close together, and recently got number four.
Fred’s got a webcam up over on his site for the time being – probably once the eggs are through hatching, it’ll be a chickcam (in the brooder) for a while longer.
Number one is the reddish one in the back. Number two’s over there on the left – the chick born of an egg that Sassy (the chicken who leaves the chicken yard and travels to her childhood coop to lay her eggs) laid. Number three came out of a Polish-laid egg. I don’t know if it was a Featherhead who laid the egg, or the Rock Star, but it was one of the three. No idea who the father is.
Number two (Sassy’s baby) and four (from a flea market egg).
Number two, Sassy’s baby. I think s/he is going to be gorgeous.
Sassy’s baby (before s/he was born, obviously), getting ready to get the hell out of there.
Baby number four is a cutie. (Well, they all are, obviously.)
Edited to add:
Number five! This one’s from a Polish mother (either a Featherhead or the Rock Star) and an unknown father.
Number one snuggles up to the newborn.
Edited to add:
Babies number 7 (the fluffyish yellow chick on the right), 8 (the black one in the back) and 9 (the reddish one in the front). We have four more eggs, but none of them are showing any signs of life. We’re going to let them go until tomorrow, but I don’t expect we’ll get anything from them.
“Updating on the weekend? Is that allowed?”
Previously
2008: Please don’t tell me she’s a flighty mess in real life.
2007: She became entirely liquid somehow, and flowed through my fingers and across the room, ending up under the bed.
2006: I think that the next thing Apple should create is a cell phone/ iPod player.
2005: Yes, I use the same kind of lotion as my CAT.
2004: No entry.
2003: Anyway. Enough about my underwear.
2002: You’ve been warned, skank hos out there who would swoop down upon my husband in his grief and get him to marry you.
2001: Yeah, that’s me, not giving a shit if they can see me or not…
2000: Really, what other journaller will thrill you with pictures from the litter box?