Yesterday it poured rain and was really cold. Not the best weather, but suitably gloomy for saying goodbye to Spamela Anderson and Hammy Faye Bakker.
Herb had a bag of apple and orange quarters along with some acorns. The girls followed him readily into the trailer. In fact, I don't think he would have even needed the bag of food--they'd follow him anywhere. And they had already adopted the trailer; he found them sheltering in it that morning. At least it felt comfortable to them.
I asked him why he'd dumped a pile of hay under Ping's awning. Guess what? He didn't. Well, somebody did--or somebodies. I'm going out on a limb here and saying it wasn't Ping. It would have taken her a month to carry that much hay waddling back and forth from the trailer. So it must have been Spammy and Hammy. Our minds were quite boggled as we wondered, "Why?"
Ping came out to say goodbye. I feel sorry for her living in solitary splendor in the Home Pasture now. I really do believe she'll miss her piggy friends--and she'll definitely miss picking through their food!
The space at Triple H Farms & Meat Co. is a bit tricky for backing a trailer, especially a horse trailer with a tack room in front, but Herb did a great job.
You can see the pelting rain in this photo. I was pretty sick, but I wanted to come along to say goodbye to the girls and be sure they were okay.
When Herb opened the trailer, there they were, curiously looking out with their ears perked up. THAT was an answer to prayer!
While Herb and Cory (Jeff's employee who was manning the shop that day) blocked the gaps at the side of the ramp, I enticed the girls off the trailer. There was just a tiny gap which they jumped easily to follow me through the chute.
Cory warned me about the "crazy" steer in the next pen, and he was right. As I came through the gate, the steer careened all over its pen with a wild expression on its face. Hammy, the braver pig, wanted to touch noses with it, and amazingly, the steer calmed down and responded. I hope some of the girls' calmness and happy nature was able to reassure him.
They moved right into the pen, happily investigating the food, including the last few acorns Herb had been able to find as a treat for them.
Cory pointed out, "Look at that one--her tail's curling. That's a sign she's content." Herb and I patted them goodbye and shut the gate behind us. By that time both of their tails were curling up and they were making friends with the steer next door. Nice piggies! We're going to miss you! We'll miss your happy grunting as you come trotting to see anyone who walks by your pasture. We'll miss the flat-out way you relax in the sun. We'll miss the way you sleep with your heads pillowed on each other. We'll miss your happy personalities.
And Misty will miss you, too. Her charges are gradually disappearing despite her faithful guarding, but that's what a farm is all about. Maybe she understands that it doesn't matter because she's done her job and the rest is up to us.
Cory warned me about the "crazy" steer in the next pen, and he was right. As I came through the gate, the steer careened all over its pen with a wild expression on its face. Hammy, the braver pig, wanted to touch noses with it, and amazingly, the steer calmed down and responded. I hope some of the girls' calmness and happy nature was able to reassure him.
Good job. Talk about a stress-free journey!
ReplyDeleteThere are some tasty looking hams there.
The captcha letters in your verification process are fun. The first few are computer generated and have to be right but the photo of the number looks like something off Google street view.
ReplyDeleteI think they're using the captcha system to get us commenters to identify the numbers for them. You can put in a wrong number and the comment still goes through.
Glad you enjoy the captcha, Brent! I, of course, never get to see what form they take on my own blog. Some are more obnoxious than others.
ReplyDeleteYes, we were very thankful at how well the girls traveled. There was another pig there that Cory said was a year old, and it was way smaller and skinnier than ours. I think there's some good breeding there that we profited from. Wish we could share some ham and bacon with you! Next up is our first grass-fed Dexter beef. I'll sure be doing a post on that!
Very good post Susan, I enjoyed reading it very much. Glad to see you treat your animals so well and give them such a good life. I am sure they will reward you with some of the best tasting pork you will ever have.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement, Gordon. You'll be doing this before too long! If our last two pigs were any indication, we should have some delicious pork.
ReplyDeleteI raise piggies and have about 10 sows. If they stayed as cute as they are as babies there would be no way that I could eat mine...;O(
ReplyDeleteI know, like all baby animals, they are adorable! Lucky for our plates they get less so as they get older, but pigs still have delightful personalities.
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