Pig soup

I have decided. When I am actually in one place in life, I want to own chickens. I want them if only for the pennies of their upkeep, delicious eggs, and fun sounds. I am, however, leery and debating the merits of pigs. Our four are barely a few months old and already they are––and naturally so––a picture of some serious pork. One must ask: do I like pork enough? Can I eat what pokes its scrunchy face through the gaps in the fence as I come with food, and what makes the most fun noises on the farm? Am I willing to shell out the feeding fees, the collecting of old vegetables and bread, the dirtier pen, the abattoir fees, the butcher fees? That is, unless you're Phil, the old hand, who sets up a tent and table outside the cottage and butchers them himself.

The four oinky quarries wander in the thick, brown broth that is wrought through poo, dirt, and historic rainfall. At one point the driest spot on the acre, stepping into it now is like an ocean dropoff, up to mid-ankle on my Wellies in gross suction. Stepping in properly for the first time, coming through the gate instead of over the upright wooden pallets, I'm armed with a cabinet door. Ryan has one too, and Kate a stick. The billygoats watch us curiously and Monty cries "Ladies!" [in Goat]. It's a pig drive, and it's about to go down.

Ideally, one pig emerges and I get my cabinet door in its face. Two other cabinet doors will close in on either side, acting as overly big, protective blinders. Kate will then prod it along with a stick as it barrels on into the unknown (and its new stall). Ben warns us they're strong.

The moment. The gate opens and... they're all scared and don't want to come out. So Chris, all five-odd foot of her, wades in and scares one out, at which time we fall apart. It runs across the green. It squirts through the gaps of our formation. It runs behind the pen in the back corner of the acre and we fear it'll up-and-over the ditch and be gone.

Ingenuity begins. The food bowl comes out. Phil trumps our cabinet doors with the batten for the pigs' gate, about ten feet long. I call out, "Does anybody have a lasso?" and remember how many times Lee the veterinarian/cowboy thought it was funny to lasso me while talking to someone (a.k.a. being distracted) at the Wesley House. Ben has a blue rope with a slipknot, and it'll do.

When we finally get it moving, it's with Ben's rope around his neck, the food bowl in front of him, us in a "V" behind, and the billygoats still watching and Monty crying "Ladies!" We pressure it into the barn and learn quickly what a cornered animal looks like. Its eyes go red and it thrashes and squeals with the violence of an Irish revolutionary. I yank the door open and we shove the creature into the pen as it goes for Ben's legs like delicious, murderous old vegetables.

Chris suggests we let all the pigs out in one fell swoop. We go from thinking such a thing daft, then a good idea, to finding it daft again. Turns out is is a good idea, and the pigherds form a "V" with minimal running and few cabinet doors, walking the pigs to their new pen. When they see their friend languishing in the fresh straw, there's no thrashing, only a "hey dude, what's up?" At least I think that's how it went.

Even though their pointy feet cut through the mud like toothpicks (whereas we struggled to step without losing our boots), we're glad to have them out of the pigsty, which the winter rains quickly turned to a cesspool. They seem to approve, their pink/black bodies scraped clean by the straw and curled together in their own piglike version of spooning.