The Pigs

Yesterday we sent off the pigs. After a year of enjoying their time here, they were sent to the butcher to be made into chorizo, italian sausage, canadian bacon, loin roast, pork chops, tail, snout, jowls, feet. The whole shebang. I was told not to name any of the animals that were going to be slaughtered. However, two achieved names. One was Chester:



Chester wasn't named by me. He was named by the farmers when he was a piglet. Chester was the dominant pig in the bunch. This means that he was the most aggressive when the pigs were fed. He would be the first to get milk from us. He would guard the feeder until he was satisfied, roaring like a lion and biting into pigs' ears when they were in his way. He was a terrific brute. A real son of a bitch pig.

To feed the pigs, we carry over the milk-water mixture that is used as runoff when the milking machines are cleaned. This happens after bi-daily milkings. The pigs absolutely love this milk.



When the pigs come to get the milk, we have to be quick. Largely it's a competition between us and them. It's a wonderful thing; to see the pig's ears perk up when the sound of maggie's collar jingles in the not-so-far distance and they realize the greatest period of their day is about to arrive: breakfast.


Here is a photo of the new pigs running after me.


And then enjoying their breakfast, madly.

The pigs run like nothing you would think a pig would run like. Their whole body lifted in a heave. You think an animal that fat couldn't run the way it does.

I don't think pigs are the smartest creatures, but that's why i like them. They're simplicity is something to be adored. In a way, i think, it surpasses our intelligence, subsiding anxious neuroses and complications for the sake of what's empirically there. A pig has no reservations other than the now, and in that, is completely terrified or ecstatic.





people use this expression, that "pigs could fly," to somehow render an impossibility possible. In dubious conceit, they assure themselves of a security within our world. Pigs can't fly. they are too fat. too dumb. too pink. whatever. I have seen a pig fly though. And it happened on a particularly crazy day last month.



This is the only picture i have of the scene. One of the pigs, who we'll call Sally, kept escaping the pen. The pen is held by an electric fence, which isn't much, but usually good enough because pigs, like bears, test things with the most sensitive part of their body, their nose.

But this pig kept escaping, kept leaving her pen. It made this day particularly awkward because the farmer i work for was being interviewed by the Portland Press Herald about a petition she had signed. (You can click on the link to see a picture of the runaway pig & read an article somewhat about the farm!).

We were able to coax the pig back into her pen, but between the end of the day and the start of the next day, she escaped four more times. The farmers thought that it was because she was in heat. Oftentimes, when pigs are in heat, other pigs will pick on her. A pig in heat is a sow, and even though most of the pigs we have are female, they don't shy away from mounting one another.





They are female, but it's largely prison rules. I can't quite explain it.

So the next morning, quite coincidentally, we were going to pick up a new set of piglets. Sally was huffing and puffing, and even though we put up a good line of sheep fencing, which is a pretty heavy-duty grate of electric wire meant to keep sheep from jumping over it; the pig did not care a bit. She just ran right through it. So it was decided. There was going to be a pig slaughtered on tuesday. It was Saturday. If we could only keep her penned up until then, things would be okay.

It was a hell of a time baiting her. I don't have any pictures of it, unfortunately; so, sorry. I can assure you it was ridiculous. We took big metal fence sections, and three people stood as walls to guide her towards a sheep pen. I tried to lead the way, by dropping peanuts in front of her. She was mildly interested, but mainly she was crossed between a terror and an anger that i can't quite explain other than a woman, excited preternaturally by a instigant longing in her loins, finding herself shuffled through a crowded area by strangers, as if on a subway and being careened towards the back car. And while this is happening, a nervous looking man is dropping peanuts on the car floor so she will be enticed to follow him. And smiling the whole time, a nervous, half-click smile, trying to entertain the easy fracas of the day: "free peanuts! free peanuts!" he exclaims. And she's just getting mad, upset, confused. Bewildered by the combination of her own crazed animal instinct coming in contact with an imperatively sleazy baiting.

Finally, we get her caged. In a sheep pen. And we put a bucket of barley in there. Some water. Some peanuts. We tied the metal gates up with twine and thought, okay, if she can make it till tuesday then no problem. and we ambled over to the piglets' pen and started to think about the future.

Sally was circling her cage, her huffs becoming more and more audible, obstinate, engaged in a sort of frantic paranoia. She was realizing that it was a cage and that she was penned. And as hell hath no fury as a woman scorned, farms hath no fury like a pig in heat encaged. So the next moment, when all of us, having our backs turned to the pen, turned suddenly when we caught sight. The pig, lifting herself up on her hind legs (and keep in mind she's a 200 lb. animal), made her way, half-stilted by the fence grate meant to hold her in, leaps, and like nothing I, nor any of the farmers had ever seen: the pig flew.

She flew over the fence and into a sheep feeder, and with a loud harumph!, she hesitated a moment, stunned at her triumph. Just as the farmers, mechanically gravitating towards her, uncertain, leaped over the same sheep feeder and contained her movement. Mesmerized, but at the same time working against her will. They grabbed her legs, and with a pig screech that sounds like a train stopping, she was lifted and put back into the pen.

"I've never seen a pig do that before," said Lee. He's been a farmer for more than 30 years. It was said that when a pig learns to jump as a piglet, they never forget how. But we put plywood up, against the sheep feeder, weighed them down with cinder blocks and thought, this ought to hold her.

Oh, huberis. Always getting in the way, beckoning conditionals of when pigs can fly after pigs have flown. And not more than two minutes later, she flew again. Against the plywood, she knocked it down. The cinder block came tumbling and Lee, jumping up to stop her, was ransacked by a pig kicking up like a wild horse. He was thrown back and he landed on a 4x6. The look on his face. a look so penetrating none of us moved, even the pig. We all stood back uncertain of what just happened, as if time froze on his face. We thought he was impaled.

He broke a rib. His air was knocked out. That really didn't matter, because his adrenaline was so engaged that his body was an airplane on auto-pilot. Damn a downed engine, the pigs not escaping again. So she was put back into her pen.

We called the man with a trailer who was going to take her to slaughter on tuesday. He said he could be down in half an hour. And for that next half an hour, it was like the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper." The pig ravenously tore around the pen, searching for her way out, while Lee and me knocked her snout away. Each time, a contemptuous yelp then huff, then the search began again. Trying to upend anything with that mighty snout.

Then finally the trailer came. "Guess she's going to have to enjoy a couple days on the countryside." So the farmer broke a rib. And she was made into kielbasa and pepperoni.

If there's a moral to that story, you'll know it when pigs fly.

***

The pigs are mighty creatures, not to be messed with. I think their power is something to uphold. The wild pigs in Hawaii are the biggest pest, eating any and every crop. It's said that a pack of hungry pigs could devour a human being in eight minutes. Actually, I learned that from the movie Snatch. It could easily not be true.

The new pigs though are called linebackers. They are called that because they are mighty, like Ray Nitschke, Dick Butkus, Lawrence Taylor, Mike Singletary, Ray Lewis & Chester. They are funny little guys, sheepishly sneaking up to the edge of their cage when you near, a ponderous look on their faces. They wonder in some way, 'What is this giant doing! Why is he here!' I think of them as the stereotypical tribe of savages in an old movie. Transfixed on this strange new creature. then approaching:



and approaching...



Then Ah shit! They're cannibals!



These pigs will leap over one another, squeal excitedly and tackle like a healthy group of young brothers clamboring for the last piece of a candy bar. When we enter their pen, they inspect us the way a group of savages would inspect a dr. livingston, having known no social mores, and believing you can eat and dominate anything, they try to lift me from my boots and bite into my feet like candy. And i am trying to give them milk or day old bread or barley, but they are insanely curious, the way a fire spreads insanely curiously.







But even after all that, all that mad toughness and deep rooted genetic power; they are still my favorite animal on the farm. They are sun-lovers, who are bathed to be pink by solar warmness. They sit all day in the sun, eating and tanning. They are very clean for an animal accused of sitting its own filth. Occasionally on hot days, they roll around in mud. But they don't shit where they eat and they manage to only get two things in the dirt, their feet and their snouts. They uproot sod like it's a buried salad bar and they sleep huddled like camaraderous soldiers. It just seems so fraternal, relaxed and clean: a whole life on vacation.

Here is my favorite pig, Everest:



She was the last pig that got a name. She was just a fat beast, with huge jowls. And she never tried to push me out of the way when i gave her milk. She would waddle up, sometimes fast, as fast as pigs can fly, and smilingly, sink her head into the feeder and gulp until heart's content. Then she would waddle off, caring about nothing, being fat as the day, and simply loving it. My heart goes out to you, pig. You've lived a good life.