Dr. Kathy's Couch, the Reprise: Chapter 5 ~ The Pig in the Kitchen

(part 2)

Carmon wasn’t sentimental when it came to the livestock. Arnold had became a real pet, which made it very difficult when it came butchering time. I don’t even remember how he handled it (I’m sure there is something Freudian in my wanting to forget it) but I do know that he never allowed the children to name any of the pigs again. He named them instead, giving them functional names like Ham, Pork Chop, and Bacon. My sister, Janae, refused to eat any meat at my house after that because Carmon could tell her who, not just what we were eating!

My mother, Hazel, likewise had a difficult time dealing with the fact that what was on the table today had been roaming around the backyard just a few days before. One time my parents’ visit happened to coincide with our acquiring a new baby pig. Carmon, who loved to tease my mother, asked her if she would like to name the new piglet. My mother said no, she wouldn’t like to name something that in a few months would grace the dinner table. So Carmon asked her what she thought he should name the pig. “I don’t care,” she replied. “You can name her anything but Hazel.”

That became the pig’s name: Anything-but-Hazel!

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Having never grown up on a farm, I knew about greased pig races only from what I’d read in books. That was to change. By the time we acquired Anything-but and her siblings, we were living on a 3-acre mini-farm. Our neighbors were worried about our keeping pigs due to the odor. Carmon assured them that pigs only stunk when they were kept in small, enclosed places with no way to keep cool other than to lie in hog wallows. He insisted that he could pasture the pigs just as one might a horse, and that if they had room to move and clean water in which to keep wet and cool, they would not stink. He was right, but getting there was far from easy. The piglets had to be taught how to graze in a pasture.

Our property was surrounded on one long side by a concrete irrigation ditch. Every six feet or so, there was a round porthole in the concrete which opened onto a small hollowed-out area. The ports allowed irrigation water to flood the fields when the ditch was damned up on one end. All of the holes had slide-on tin covers that locked into place when they were not in use. That way, you could flood only the parts of the field you wanted to water.

The pigs loved to get down into the ditch whenever it was our turn for irrigation, and let the cool water flood over them. When they had grown, that was great. When they were little, that posed a problem. For one little piggy, the problem was almost Carmon’s undoing.

We had just acquired three new piglets. For the first few weeks of their sojourn with us, Carmon kept them short-penned until they got used to the fact that this was home. When they were a few weeks old, he would let them out for short periods of time while he watched to make sure they stayed within the fence. After that, he could turn them loose onto the pasture with the cows and they would not leave. At least, that was the theory.

The theory had worked for all the piglets but one. This little piggy may have had an inkling of what was to come, for we could not keep him in the pen. I’ll never forget the first afternoon he got out. It was like the circus had come to town. My children and several of the neighbor kids ran through the fields trying to catch that little pig. The pig was squealing and so were the children! I soon became winded and had to consign myself to watching.

The kids’ strategy was to trap the little fellow in the empty irrigation ditch, then come at him from both ends of the ditch. The sides were steep and fairly smooth, so the piggy couldn’t get a hoof-hold. The idea probably would have worked had it not been for the fact that our neighbors to the north had left their ports open. In less time than it takes to tell, that piglet was through the port and running full-tilt across the alfalfa. When the children did get hold of the piglet, he was so small and so quick that he’d slip right through their hands. It made me wonder why greased pig races even need bother with grease. This little fellow was slippery enough without it!

All things must come to an end and this chase was no exception. One of the older children caught the little pig by one leg, taking him back to the pen and his fate. The pig did not, however, go quietly. Like a baby’s smallest toe, this was the little piggy that went “Wee, wee, wee!” all the way home.