Pig Trauma

The trauma started last week when we were trying to figure out how to get the pig to the butcher. We didn't know anyone with an enclosed trailer and hiring the guy who was going to haul our cows in his HUGE trailer seemed like overkill. Brian tried to get him to jump into our well tarpped back seat but that didn't work so we put off killing him for a week. (The butcher only does hogs on Tuesday.)

Meanwhile, we got our cows dropped off with relative ease - but then the pig was sad and lonely. She wandered off and was gone for a day and a half before one of our neighbors spotted her with another herd of cows a quarter mile down the road. The next day Brian walked over with Colleen and called for Little Pig. She came running and trotted on home after him. She stuck around but was still lonely. So she started coming up to the house. I didn't have a problem with that until I fixed up our flower beds and she started rooting them up! You can't see the damage very well in the pictures but let's just say that most of the 9 six-packs of annuals will not make it.

We kept on saying, "I'm going to kill that pig!" Saturday she went "hog wild" and dug up the rhododendron I had just planted and knocked over Brian's can of paint. Brian really wanted to shoot her and just butcher her himself. He was REALLY serious.

Napping in the flowerbed.

Today we still didn't have a good idea of how we were going to get the pig to the butcher. Then I had an epiphany. We could just rent an enclosed trailer from U-Haul. It wouldn't be a stock trailer but it would work just fine. I really don't know why we didn't think of it before. I called the place closest to us and in passing mentioned that it would just be a quick rental because I just had to drop our pig at the butcher. It turns out that one of the guys who worked there grew up on a pig farm and offered to take the pig to the butcher (for a fee). I figured this would save me time and hauling and what-if-the-trailer-idea-didn't-work. He assured me that the pig would not jump out of his truck and it would work just fine. I said, "great!"

It was anything but great. Long story short they ended up roping the pig and pulling her screaming (not as loud as she could because she was half choked) across the yard and hog tying her in the back of the truck. NOT what I had imagined. I waited until they were gone to really breakdown and cry. It is not a pleasant thought to think of her butchered but I like to think of it as a fast dying process after a nice spoiled life. A half hour of screaming roping followed by being tied down on the bed of the truck for the half hour ride into town is not what I wanted for our really nice - if very naughty - pig. Oh well, she is at the butcher now in the holding pen - not tied - until tomorrow morning when she is butchered. I am just glad Emily was not here. Killing is one thing - this was another.