Here piggy, piggy, piggy…

I don’t know how many of you have ever spent time on a farm. I know that part of my education had been lacking for the first  – well, let’s just skip the age number. We will just say a LONG time. One of the areas that had been taken care of was my knowledge of pigs. We visited my Grandparents and then my Aunt and Uncle on the farm. Mom always told us to stay away from the pigs. Because basically, they will eat anything. By that, I mean anything. I know that she probably made up the story of the little girl who fell into the pen with the mother pig and all they found was a couple of fingers and a wool coat. – yes, not even pigs like wool. The stories abound with tales of the farmers who would hire men and when they were due to be paid, would feed them to the pigs. I am hoping that that one is an urban legend. Now that we have laid the premise for my tale, let me begin.

We had gone to the farm for a vacation. This trip there were sows in the “birthing barn”. Which means they go to give birth to a litter (maybe the wrong word) but they had a little window that you could look in and see the little darlings (heavy sarcasm there). The sows had to be removed quickly, other wise the sow once recovered from birthing would get the munchies and eat their own kids. I must admit that after having a teenager, this doesn’t have such a bad ring to it!! Just kidding, but after the sow would give birth they were turned out to a muddy field. In the same field, there was an old wagon with what was left of the winter corn cobs. Uncle Donnie would go out and spread some of it around for the pigs.

This is the point that I let you know that I was a slow child. Not mentally but physically. We cousins decided that we were not afraid of any old pigs. Being brave was easier when we were on the outside of the field. My cousins dared (TRIPLE dog dared) us to get out to the old wagon. Well. of course we city kids couldn’t handle being called a sissy by our country cousins. Me, my two older brothers and my cousins all sloshed out to the wagon and climbed in. Great, no sissies here. Then my older cousin started throwing the corn cobs at the pigs. What do pigs do when they know the direction that the food is coming from? Right the first time, they followed the flying corn cobs to the wagon. The boys got down and ran to the gate. Laughing. Remember when I said I was a slow child? Of course, you know what happened? Don’t you?  I didn’t make it out of the wagon with the boys. By the time I had crawled out onto the wheel of the wagon, the pigs surrounded the wagon. The stories still buzzing in my head about the little girl (DID it have to be a girl?!?!) eaten by the pigs. I started screaming and the boys just took off.Thanks, guys!! I could just see those pigs crawling all the way up to the wagon and eating me. At least I didn’t have a wool coat on. It was summer and everything I had on was cotton. They would eat that too and no one would know what happened to me! I screamed for who else? My Dad! Uncle Donnie heard me and got a board and started swatting the pigs. He got to the wagon and started throwing corn as far as he could – which seemed like a mile to me but the pigs followed the flung corn. Uncle Donnie picked me up and carried me to the other side of the fence. I was crying and the boys were nowhere to be seen. I tried to tell the story, but it came out as garbled as can be. He told me never to go in there. I tried to tell him that the boys made me. At 7 I thought it made sense. At dinner (Noon Meal) the boys looked like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. All they would say was “I thought she was right behind us!” No explanation of why they didn’t wait or at least get help.

That is the day that I STARTED loving sausage, bacon, pork chops…. here piggy, piggy, piggy!!!

Here piggy, here piggy, piggy, piggy!!