THIS LITTLE PIGGIE SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME

THIS LITTLE PIGGIE SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME

About 1010 words

As a city girl that married into a ranching family, I had to adjust to a different life style most of it revolving around some kind of farm animal. Spring in Montana comes at different times based on the altitude where you lived. My in-laws lived in a canyon outside Bozeman, Montana. In the winter, their place can only be accessed by snowmobile or truck with chains. We lived in Billings whose lower altitude made spring come a month earlier.

My mother- in -law’s cow gave birth to a calf. The cow mama provided too much milk and cream. Rather than throw away the good rich liquid, she wanted it to feed a baby pig called weaner pigs meaning they were weaned from their mother. The pigs in their area still were not available yet. She wanted us to buy some weaners in Billings and bring them to her to raise on the extra cow’s milk. The deal was, we transported baby pigs to their place and received ham and bacon back. That sounded easy enough.

We had five young children and a two-door sedan. No troubles. Right? We loaded up the squirmy kids into the car and headed to the pig farm. The owner pointed to the pig barn. What do they call that? A piggery? Anyway, I never thought about how we’d transport piglets

in a car. The farmer gave us burlap bags. My husband put the piglets in their own bag and tied it shut. Watching him chase and wrestle those piggies into the bag made WWE wrestling events pale in comparison. Just watching him catch the piggies that should be an Olympic sport. I thought he’d be better at this sport. Turns out he’d never done that before. They raised cows not pigs.

We packed the five kids into the car and put the bagged piggies on the floor by my feet under the heating vent. We merrily took off the 200 miles to grandma’s. We had to take the Interstate and it was smooth going. The baby piggies slept quietly until we turned off the Interstate onto the gravel roads. It was very bumpy and bouncy on that road and suddenly the bagged piggies woke up.

If you’ve never been to a pig farm, you’ve never had your nose assaulted that obscenely. These baby piggies rolled around on the floor and pungently perfumed the car. The hear vents transported the smell all around the interior. It was already small with seven people. The piggies made it oppressive.

It was below zero outside and quickly the perfume became too much. The heat spread the smell around the piggies. We had to open the windows. Then they began to squeal. A rock band makes less noise.

The louder they squealed the more pungent they became. The children in the car started to complain. “Make them stop!” “It stinks!” “Make them stop!” “Are we there yet?” I noticed my husband’s hands on the steering wheel turned white.

My friend who passed us on the highway said we looked like a traveling circus with windows down, kids arms waving out and pigs squealing!

Matters got worse. There was a spot where the family brought snowmobiles to meet us since the car couldn’t make it all the way in. The kids got released and scattered like buckshot the minute the car stopped.Being at a higher altitude meant there was lots of snow. The snowmobile also brought sleds to pull the kids on. One person would ride the snowmobile and put kids on the sled to transport them home.

Roger pulled out the piggies and put them on a sled. They immediately wiggled off and began to roll down the hill still in their bag. [Please know that no pigs were hurt in the making of this story until they became bacon.] Even these intrepid Montana piggies were startled and stopped squealing. Thankfully, the smell was mixed with piney scented subzero air. Life became instantly better until I had to round up our piggies.

Five months later or thereabout; I was raised in Phoenix and had no idea how long it took to go from squeal to bacon. We did enjoy the fruits of our labor. Grandma also raised chickens so there was ham and eggs for breakfast.

Many years later the youngest kid that squealed “Make them stop!” had a gaggle of geese that needed to be butchered. I looked up gaggle. It’s any number in a flock. She had thirty of them. She booked them into the Cluck and Pluck twenty miles away. We were taking them there to be ready for Thanksgiving dinner. Our husbands were out of town with the trucks, so we took a small SUV to the butcher.

Catching and crating geese was a sport all of its own but we got them into the dog crates and took off. Wow! Feathers flew; the stink was insane. Geese poop got flung all around the SUV through the vents on the crates. Who knew that would happen?

Feathers were twirling in the arctic blast from the windows that we opened for fresh air. That didn’t work and every time were turned around a corner it sounded like a Rockettes line. Clicketty Clicketty left. Clickety clackety right. Geese had very big feet. Do they have feet? There was no traction in the crates. Poo was flung everywhere. While pigs squealed geese honked…very loudly; and there was a gaggle of them!

After delivering the geese we took our stinky poopy SUV home. There was no grocery store near the Cluck and Pluck. There was a gas station. We bought what cleaning supplies they had which wasn’t much. We’d have to wait until we got home to clean.

We had to pass one of the local dairies. My daughter poked her head out the window and took a big sniff. “AAAHHDerriere!” [Dairy air]. If you’ve ever been to a dairy, you know that it took a lot to be a smell reliever for geese air.

I never ate a bite of those geese. I was too traumatized

r ate a bite of those geese. I was too traumatized.