You may have met Goldie-Arf in yesterday’s post. Well, Goldie likes to bark: at cars passing, at the cats, for no good reason other than she’s a dog, and so on. But what I heard around 5pm last night was not a bark. It was a growl—and despite never having heard such a snarl from her, I knew it was Goldie. Goldie doesn’t growl unless something is awry.
So, I looked outside, and there they were. In all their splendor, rooting about near the door of the house the pigs chortled with the cry of freedom.
Here they are, the glib porkers:
I sighed with relief; Goldie wasn’t caviling with a coyote or exchanging words with a wolf. I called Tony and after giving me clear directions about what to do, I wound up doing something entirely different.
To help explain you’ll need to know two things:
- Pigs do not like snow
- The layout of the farm. And what better to show that than a photo or two?
Except, during winter, it looks like this:
On the phone, Tony told me to lure the pigs with their food pail (the pink path) to the Northern pasture door, shown in red below.
The pigs weren’t having it! In the Summer, the pigs pasture West of the machine shed, and North of their stable area; they are free to come and go inside and out, whenever they please. Leading them back inside their pasture area isn’t a big deal during any other season but Winter – then again, I can’t imagine that they have ever left the stable when there was snow high on the ground. I needed a new plan, and fast.
After luring them back into the stable pathway (yellow), I took down the pig pen fence (they must’ve pushed the holding gate over, and hopped over the fence). I made sure the mother was watching – and when she followed me, I led her and her piglets into the pen (green). I nailed the fence back up and secured the gate so they couldn’t push it open again. End of story.
Anyone want some bacon?