Some Pig

May 13, 2008–Some Pig

      Every couple of days I head to the grocery store to pick up bins of old produce; apples, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, watermelon.  The animals feast on these treats and I always enjoying hanging out with the staff who work in the back of the store–they’re alot of fun.  Yesterday morning I was telling one of the girls how Rusty the piglet and I used to nap together, how we’d take wonderful walks.  “It’s like Charlotte’s Web,” she said.  “He thinks you’re his Mama.”

     I confess that I miss those days with Rusty.  Now that he weighs about 150 lbs and has moved in with the large sows, we don’t have our bonding time anymore.  He does still love attention. I put the pigs outside at lunch time, and although I’d only planned on scratching their heads through the fence, Rusty was nearly tipping with joy, seeking a belly rub.  I scaled the fence, gave him his rub, and he flopped down, closed his eyes and enjoyed every second.  We’re still pals.  I was thinking to meself, just how much I trust this pig.

     Tuesdays are exceptionally busy days for me.  I rush around with a million errands, chores, feed my children an early supper, and then must run to the city at the dinner hour as my husband and I are taking training with the Children’s Aid Society, in order to adopt.  It is a hectic day!

     At 3:00 in the afternoon I was heading to the barn when I heard my son yelling. Rusty was loose and over at the neighbours, running around, playing with their dog!  (He had pried open the doors to the outside pen  and squeezed through, into the barn, and then out a door for the ducks.)  My heart stopped!  We would not have known he was there had my son not had a temporary bus driver who accidently let him off at the wrong driveway.  How fortuitous! 

     Rusty was edging closer to the road and I was terrified he’d be hit by a car.  I ran over there, having no idea how I was going to catch him.  I always hear horror stories of pigs who are impossible to catch, and now that Rusty is the size of a large dog, I simply wouldn’t be able to force him anywhere.  Rusty’s days of walking on a leash or being loose in the yard are well behind us–sheer terror engulfed me that I wouldn’t be able to get him back.  With cars approaching there was no time to get food as  a lure.

     But I guess Rusty was just having some fun and had no wish to leave me or his barn.  I told him it was time to eat, and ran behind him, pushing his bum and he galloped the entire length of my neighbours’ property until we reached the fenceline.  I opened the gate and he ran into the paddock, ignoring the pot bellied pigs who were out there and ran into the barn to have his dinner.  What a pig.  Crisis averted, I headed to the house, dishevelled and dusty, and tried to clean myself up enough that it didn’t look  like I’d been chasing a pig that afternoon.