The Problem with Pigs

We have pigs. Two very large sows that may or may not be pregnant. Acting on the "may be pregnant" possibility we decided to separate them. This involved leaving Miss Piggy in her current pen and pig house and moving Porkchop over to a stall in the barn well stocked with straw. Porkchop was perfectly happy to follow the feed bucket out of the pen. Once outside she lost her piggy train of thought and started down the road to the neighbours. Les yelled at me to get the car and see if I could pass her...which brought to mind a cartoon of some sort. I went inside and called the neighbor at the end of the road and asked if he would run to the bottom of our driveway and stop our big pig before she arrived at the main road. He agreed...through much hooting and hollering (you gotta know our neighbor). Meanwhile Porkchop has got her nose the the ground, her ears over her eyes and she's trotting down our drive with pig like determination. Neighbor to the rescue comes out onto the bottom of the drive waving his...that sure looks like a hockey stick?? Oh, it's a rake he grabbed from their yard as he ran by. He waves the rake, she eventually takes notice, leaves skid marks down the driveway as she turns around and RUNS screaming home. It would have been "wee, wee, wee all the way home" except a pig of that size sounds more like someone suffering from a life ending injury.

After much more dancing about trying to convince her to get around the tractor (we reaffirmed the fact that pigs don't like deep snow) she was locked in the barnyard. Now just get her into that stall and pen behind the barn. She is still more interested in exploring than eating out of her bucket so she discovers the core of the straw bail and sets into rooting...about 2 feet from the open and so inviting stall. Pigs have good steering (just touch behind one ear or the other) and good brakes (just touch behind both ears at the same time...and you'll even get reverse)...but where is the forward button? After Michael dances about cutting her off, and I just about lose my boots and have visions of running around through the snow in my bare feet, she eventually wanders into the stall. We told Michael he needed to tell his basketball coach he was practicing his one on one skills with a 300 pound pig.





I'm wondering if she was being obstinate because her brother was in the oven. Literally. She avenged his misfortune by making us eat him over cooked. Perhaps she considered that pig justice.





In other news we recently attended a 50's dance and I made poodle skirts for Emma and Ami. Ami and Les didn't get to go to the dance because Ami was sick but Michael, Emma and I went. Here are a few pictures.



I'm not a very creative person but Emma really wanted to go poodle so this was my creation from fabric that never got turned into curtains, and $3 of supplies from the dollar store. I didn't have a pattern so I just kind of pretended I did and it was wearable. Michael was well Brylcreem-ed but feeling a little "serious" here -- it looks scarely like the "bad boy" look. Please don't ever let that happen for real!

They had piles of fun dancing. I thought Emma was going to blow a sock. Since Les wasn't there and I was the music lady I didn't dance once. How it THAT possible????

Michael and Ami spent a couple of days home from school this week with colds and what not so this is them chilling out one afternoon.

Right now they are all into hour two of a serious game of Life...but that can't possible be more interesting than the real thing.