The Tale of Two Piggies

Monday's rain ushered in a cold front and yesterday felt quite wintry.  The wind whistled outside the house as I sat by the fire 

knitting a hat for our Carolina Wren.  I had made another hat, but it was a little too large for her newborn head, so this one should fit until she grows into the first.

Across from me:

Behind me:  

Beside me:

I am never alone.

I spent a part of yesterday working on a batch of bread and filming the preparation.  I will turn that into a video in the coming days and post on YouTube and here, on the blog.

And for your reading pleasure (I hope)... here is another installment.  Today's chapter is about the day that Ginger and MaryAnn came to live on the farm.

Chapter #?

“Hi Bev… I wanted to let you know that we had a beautiful litter of 6 piglets arrive [born] this morning. We have 4 gilts [girls]  and 2 boars [boys].  They are all double “wattled” and so cute. If you all are considering adding piggies---this is a great breed!"

 

It was an email from my blog friend, Amy.  She had read on my farm blog that we had made a decision to add Kunekune pigs to our farm family.  A little research had taught me that Kunekunes (making a recovery from near extinction in the 1980’s) are a small breed of pig, originally from New Zealand, known for their gentle, friendly personality.  

“Ooooh, Amy… can you please send photos?” was my reply.

Amy was the mistress of Verde Farm and the keeper of miniature donkeys, Kunekune pigs, and an assortment of other critters.  We had been visiting each other’s farm blogs long enough that we felt as though we were nextdoor neighbors… being kindred spirits had a way of erasing the 400 plus miles between us.

The photographs were adorable.  These piglets, not pink and naked as I had imagined, were covered with black and white, or brown and white hair.   They had chubby bodies on short legs… big ears and smushed-in, turned-up noses.  Their delightful personalities twinkled in their bright eyes.  A unique feature, wattles, hung like fleshy, hair-covered tassels from the sides of their jowls.  They were almost too cute to be real.

We had decided that we would take two of the females.  We had made it a practice to never have just one of any animal.  Animals, like people, are social creatures and are prone to loneliness, so we always made it a practice to have at least two of every animal that we brought to live on the farm.  Two girls would get along nicely (thanks to the absence of testosterone).  We had no plans to breed them.

I looked over the photographs of the four girls and immediately knew which two I wanted.  These two stood out from the litter.  They were precious, adorable - irresistible.  I was smitten. 

One was black and white.  We’d name her MaryAnn.  The other, brown and white, would be Ginger.  

They would be weaned in two months; at which time we could make the journey to West Virginia to pick them up and bring them home.

 

                                                        MaryAnn, 2011

                                                         Ginger, 2011

Nervous excitement fluttered in my chest, that day as I drove through our long, beautiful valley.  It was mid-morning, the last Friday in October…  a perfect autumn day… and we were headed to West Virginia to pick up Ginger and MaryAnn.  The sun was shining.  The windows were down.  

The day ahead was going to be so much fun!  My stepdaughter, Amanda was my co-pilot and equally excited about the prospect of bringing home two adorable piglets.

There is nothing more spectacular than driving down the two-lane highway, which cuts our valley in half in the autumn.  Wispy ribbons of translucent clouds hung suspended in a hazy blue sky above the car, while hills of scarlet and gold rose from the patchwork farmland on either side of us.  The sun had risen above the mountains on the left of us and illuminated the spectacular colors of the mountains to our right. Fall foliage had peaked just a week before in our area; and most of the color remained.  It was the perfect day for the seven-hour drive that we had in front of us.  As I drove, Amanda leaned out of the passenger window snapping pictures of the countryside.

Driving past the farms that dot our valley, I thought back to another day, so very long ago.  I couldn’t have been much older than five when I was introduced to my first litter of pink, squirmy piglets at the farm of my Pap-Pap’s friend.   Could Pap-Pap have had any idea what an impression that day would make upon me?  While my friends longed for puppies, or kittens, or horses… I dreamed of piglets.

In the years to follow I would implore my parents to take me for a drive in the country so that I could see the pigs at a particular farm not too far from my childhood home.  The anticipation of finding a new litter of piglets made the trip doubly exciting.  I would hang over the brick wall that enclosed this small family of farm hogs, searching for tiny, pink babies in the shadows of the barn… and nearly explode with excitement when I spied them.  Each trip to that farm only served to fuel my dreams of one day having my own pigs. 

I smiled at those memories as I headed down our highway toward the south and west.   Here I was -  heading down yet another country road, on a quest to fulfill my dream.

The trip to West Virginia was, in itself, an adventure.  Our MapQuest directions took us down highways and bi-ways we had never before driven.  The scenery was beautiful as we drove through the ridges and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains.   We loved rural America and that trip gave us seven solid hours of it… our progress slowed only occasionally by a horse-drawn Amish buggy.

Our final destination was an idyllic hobby farm in West Virginia… Amy’s Verde Farm.  This was to be the first time we had met in person.  It would be easy, though, as we had spoken online and shared farm stories so many times over the years.

We arrived at Verde Farm after a brief stop in a nearby town for supper.  Amy had invited us to stay the night in her cozy Verde Cottage.  After a good night’s sleep, we would load up the piglets and start the seven-hour trek back home again in the morning.  

Her farm was beautifully draped across a hillside overlooking the Ohio River.  A long driveway wound it’s way up the side of the hill to a large manor house… her farmhouse.  Formal gardens were the focal point at the back of the house.  Further up the hill on the left was a barn and acres of pasture.  A thick deciduous forest rose up from behind the barn.

We parked the car in a small parking area at the top of the driveway, and were greeted by a large white Great Pyrenees, Amy’s farm dog and livestock protector.  Within a minute, Amy emerged from the house with outstretched arms.  We hugged as though we had known each other for years and easily fell into relaxed conversation.  

We grabbed our overnight bags and followed as Amy led us, chatting like old friends, through her beautiful gardens and across a meadow toward the edge of the woods.  Here, nestled between a stand of oak, birch and hickory in the back and an English country garden in front, was the most adorable cottage I had ever seen.  It was a single story, white, wood-sided bungalow.  Five steps led up to the front porch… the kind of porch made for porch swings and lemonade on a hot summer night as soft, sweet melodies float through the front window from a hand-cranked Victrola in the front room… competing only with the rhythmic chirping of crickets in the woods next door.

A wooden Victorian screen door held a welcoming autumn wreath.  We removed our shoes, soaked from walking through damp grass, before crossing the threshold of the most feminine four-room cottage.  We tiptoed in bare feet through what could have been a magazine layout on cottage decorating.  Everything was perfect. 

“Can we meet the girls?”  I said as I dropped my overnight bag on the floor of the cottage, surveying its contents.  On any other day I would have paused to drink in the decor of the cottage.  But after eight weeks of looking at piglet photos, I was a little impatient.   I could hardly wait to meet my girls in person.

We walked and chatted - sharing the most recent happenings on our farms - back through her perfectly manicured gardens to a small barn on the side of the hill.  In the pasture next to the barn was her herd of miniature donkeys.  They were a captivating troupe of friendly, Sicilian donkeys whose antics I had enjoyed, over the years, through Amy’s farm blog.

She opened the door to her barn.  As we stepped inside and closed the door behind us, a few hens clucked a greeting as a rooster went scampering outside.   On one end of the barn, three of the miniature donkeys poked their curious noses through the top of a Dutch door… competing for a look at these unfamiliar guests.

We turned a corner and entered a stall filled with straw bedding.  There, in one corner, were 6 spotted, sleeping piglets all in a pile.  I spied the two that we would be taking home with us.  Amanda squealed with delight.  After looking at their pictures as often as we had, we would have recognized them anywhere.  Our precious piglets… Ginger and MaryAnn!!   A large black and white sow rested just a few feet away. 

We sat in the straw and picked up our two wriggling piglets.  They quickly settled into our arms and allowed us to caress them.  I am pretty sure that neither Amanda nor myself had known a happier moment than that particular one.  Sitting there with a soft, warm piglet in my arms filled my heart to bursting!  We lingered there for a while, contented to just hold our tiny charges… allowing them to feel our hearts beating against their bodies.

I am pretty sure that we would have both been happy to spend the night there in the straw with our piglets.

Not wanting to take up too much of Amy’s time, we followed her back out of the barn and headed to our adorable cottage accommodations.

On any other evening, our excitement would have kept us from sleeping, however, this night found us both exhausted from the day’s travels.  We set our alarms for 7AM, brushed our teeth and settled into our respective rooms with magazines to read.  Morning could not come soon enough!

I awoke early, without the help of my phone’s alarm.  I was no stranger to rising early and this morning was no different.  I lay there listening, as the sunrise filtered through the sheer curtains of the cottage bedroom giving the contents of the room a rosy glow.  The sounds of Amy’s farm coming to life floated through the screen window. Crows were hollering in the nearby woods as a rooster offered his morning greeting.  Amy’s donkeys brayed, demanding their breakfast.  I looked out of the window to see dark clouds on the horizon above the Ohio river.  An autumn wind lifted and tumbled dry leaves as it ushered in a new weather pattern.  It looked as though the morning sunshine would be short-lived. 

“You up?”  I called to Amanda.

“You bet… I am soooooo excited!” was the answer.

I quickly showered and dressed… readying myself for the day’s adventure.   Amanda broke land-speed records for getting herself ready as well.

Pastries and tea awaited us in the cottage kitchen, and we quickly consumed them… eager to load up our girls and begin the trip back to our own farm.

We had brought a dog crate with us and it was secured on the floor between the raised back seats of the car.  With Amy’s help, we loaded sweet Ginger and MaryAnn into the crate, said our goodbyes, and hugged.  As the last bit of the morning sun slipped behind the foreboding clouds, we set off on our homeward adventure.

The beautiful autumn weather of the previous day was gone.    The journey home was going to be much different than the journey to West Virginia had been.  Amazingly, autumn had turned to winter overnight.  Snowflakes began falling as we drove alongside the Ohio River.  It was too early in the season for a big snow… but we were in a higher elevation, so flurries were not out of the realm of possibility in late October.  We had no idea that those flurries were only a harbinger of what was to come.

An hour into the trip, we reached the highest peaks of the Appalachians.  This region had already exchanged yesterday’s autumn finery for the monochromatic robe of winter.  Clouds hung low in the valleys between the mountain peaks and the trees were beginning to slump from the weight of wet snow sticking to their branches.  It was lovely, but the perils of highway driving in this weather detracted from the beauty.  The roads were slick, visibility was poor, and traffic had slowed considerably.  

To make matters worse, MaryAnn was carsick. 

With two hands on the wheel, traveling slowly on the interstate that crossed the mountainous section between West Virginia and Pennsylvania, I struggled to see through a windshield that was crusted with wet snow.  Meanwhile, behind me in the dog crate, MaryAnn retched.  A pathetic, high-pitched, squeaking sound bubbled up from her throat as well as a dollop of digested food and bile.  Having to drive through a late autumn snowstorm on an unfamiliar highway was, in itself, distressing.  Add to that the sound of a sick piglet and you have the perfect recipe for a panic attack.

Worried, Amanda kept an eye on the dog crate in the back seat while I drove.  MaryAnn had only vomited a small volume, but she seemed to be uncomfortable.  Tiny grunts accompanied each exhale…telling me that she still felt sick.  Relieved that at least our little pig was not in danger of dehydrating, I relaxed a little.  Meanwhile, Ginger peacefully slept. 

Our trip home continued slowly, with the snow continuing to fall.  From time to time I heard MaryAnn, behind me, with dry heaves.  Our poor piglet.  If only we could hold her and comfort her… but something told me that a piglet loose in the car, while driving through a snowstorm, might be an even worse situation than the one in which we currently found ourselves.  And so, we continued on… painstakingly slowly.

By mid afternoon, we reached the first peak of the Tuscarora Mountains.  On any normal day, climbing this particular mountain meant that home was only an hour away. This was not a normal day.  This final leg of our journey was on back roads.  Other vehicles were few and far between.  The roads had not been plowed, so navigation (with poor visibility) meant staying in the tire tracks of the cars and trucks that had preceded us.  

To the “thump, squeak, swipe” of the windshield wipers, I slowly climbed the mountain road.  Ahead of us a car was stopped.  I hated to have to stop on this incline, but I had no choice.  A tree had fallen across the road.  Both sides of the road were impassable.  Unfortunately, this mountain road was the only direct route to home.   I could turn around and head back down the mountain to an alternative route, but in this snow, that route would take much longer.

I pulled up to the stopped car and assessed the situation.  A pick-up truck approached from behind and  parked.  The passenger, a woman, walked up and I rolled down my window.

“We’ve got a chainsaw in the back of our truck.  We’ll get the road open,” she said as her mate, a burly, bearded fellow trudged past with chainsaw in hand. 

There was one thing I had learned about rural folk… they were usually always prepared for the worst.  “You might be a Redneck if… you carry a chainsaw in the back of your pickup truck” were words I had heard used disparagingly in the past.  So often the brunt of jokes, these people, my people, had the last laugh that day.

Within minutes a path, wide enough for a vehicle to pass, was cleared.  We were once again on our way, slowly climbing the steep mountain road, following in each other’s tire tracks…with six inches of snow on the ground.  It struck me a little funny that no vehicles had come over the mountain from the opposite direction while we were stopped at that fallen tree.

At the top of the mountain, the road veered sharply to the left and the steep decline began.  I crept down the four hundred yards to the next hairpin turn to the right, following the car in front of me.  As I rounded that next turn, I realized why no traffic had come from the opposite direction.  Ahead of us, a tractor-trailer had been traveling in the same direction and had jack-knifed on the slippery descent… blocking both lanes of traffic.

Good Lord - we were stuck.  Ahead of us the tractor-trailer blocked both sides of the road from guardrail to guardrail.  More and more vehicles were stuck heading down the mountain behind me.  Turning around, at this point, was impossible.

A chainsaw was not going to fix this situation.  No, this would not be an easy fix.  We were stuck on the side of a mountain and we weren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future.  Freezing to death was not outside the realm of possibility… at least in my overactive imagination.

My mind raced.  We were ill prepared for this situation.  We had packed for a sunny fall weekend.  We had no blankets.  Staying in the car with the heater running was essential.  I checked the gas gauge… 1/2 tank… which, in a Honda Element was about 7 gallons.

Thankfully, the pigs were quiet.  The vomiting had ceased.  Still, I worried.  I was sure they were getting hungry and thirsty.  I knew I was.  I also knew that, at their age, staying warm was important.

I put my car in park, set the emergency brake, and turned off the motor.  I would leave it off until one of us felt a chill… trying to conserve gas.  At that point I would start it back up and heat up the interior for another few minutes.

Minutes passed this way… my anxiety level rising with each passing minute.  "What-ifs” kept creeping into my consciousness.  “What if MaryAnn got sick again?” “What if we are stuck here for hours?” “What if I run out of gas?” and so on.  I could tell by the look on Amanda’s face she was feeling the same apprehension.

I tried calling home, but there was no cell phone service on the mountain.  We sat there intermittently running the car motor for another hour as the snow continued falling.  By this time, about a dozen people had gathered on the road, ahead, presumably discussing the situation.  I could tell by their hand motions that they were intent on solving this problem.  With no wisdom to add, we decided to remain in the warmth of our car.

Suddenly, I saw movement on the road further down the mountain.  A large snowplow appeared from the below the marooned truck.  Following it were several State Police vehicles and a towing rig.  

We breathed a sigh of relief.  Our “what-ifs” were inconsequential now.  Rescue was imminent.  Within a half hour, the tractor-trailer was freed from its snowy imprisonment and was once again on its journey down the mountainside…followed by a long line of relieved drivers.  The rest of the ride home would be easy… slow, but easy!

Driving that last leg of our trip through Amish country, I was amazed to see a few horses and buggies out in the snowstorm.  We slowly kept our distance behind a horse and buggy, afraid to pass it with the icy road conditions.

Coming home is always as sweet as a piece of homegrown, homemade apple pie.  But, that afternoon, it was the whole pie a-la-mode!

Upon reaching the farm, we went immediately to the barn and the stall that we had readied for our tiny newcomers.  We lifted our precious piglets from the dog crate and introduced them to their temporary home.  Water was offered, and the girls drank enthusiastically.  As soon as I was sure that MaryAnn’s stomach was settled, dinner was served.  And of course, true to form, it was devoured with great gusto.

Their journey to the farm was quickly forgotten as the piglets settled in to their forever home.  The rest of their day was filled with visits from barn kitties and our farm dogs.  Everyone was quite excited to meet these new curious beings.  

By the time evening arrived, the piglets had nestled into a corner of their stall together and had fallen asleep on top of each other beneath a heat lamp, with our barn kitten, Leo, snuggled in beside them.  The day had been long and difficult, but the ending was perfect.

The snow had melted by the time the sun rose the next morning.  Ginger and MaryAnn awoke to the first of what would be a lifetime of days filled with fun and adventure… for both them and us as well.  

Addendum:  As our piggie girls grew, they became quite accustomed to the other animals on the farm.  Perhaps, due to the fact that Maddie, our Newfie, mothered them so carefully in those early days.  She spent many hours rounding them up and keeping them close.