Wisconsin Snapshots: The mystery project

Still no clue? Come on, you can get this...and it's not Dobby the House Elf, no matter what the ears say.

Well, if you've been paying attention, you'll remember that Than's choice of farm animal project is PIGS. Or Hogs, to be more politically mid-western farm correct.

(Congratulations,Linda! You were the only successful entrant. The ONLY entrant. We'd send you a ham, if postage weren't so prohibitive. Maybe a couple slices of bacon....?)

Than and his dad picked up these three feeder pigs from a farm down the road (-and you know, if you've been paying attention, that can be anywhere from a half mile to 20 miles in farm country...).
Picked up is rather euphemistic - the report came back, it was a porcine rodeo, right in the middle of a cow barn. I can't begin to tell it the way the guys do, besides I'd wet my pants laughing again, can't have that on your conscience. One of those "you had to be there to appreciate it" stories.

At any rate, they got them home. In one piece. Also the dog crates they were loaded in, AND the pickup, suffered no long lasting damage. Brent, on the other hand...well, he called on every pork catching trick he knew from his youth, and thank goodness it all worked. You wouldn't think catching three pigs out of a pen of five would be too complicated - but that was before they burst through the panel into the OTHER pen of five siblings, then combined efforts to take out the side of that pen and initiated the Cow Barn Rodeo. Oh my, I'm starting to chuckle.

The piggies had apparently been in pretty muddy pens (smelly, too, judging by Brent's eau de porcine aroma). Finding themselves in a spiffy new home, in a very large pen filled with soft straw, they were in - well, excuse me, but they were in hog heaven. When the last barn check was made that night, they almost caused a heart attack. Looked like an empty pen (that was a true story, about a week later...another farm animal anecdote), but upon closer exam, it turned out they had completely burrowed under their fluffy new bedding. If it hadn't been for that ear sticking out, it would have been a resounding success of scaring the pig keeper half to death.

So, meet Stew...
...and Frank (as in Frank-furter). Stew and Frank are, obviously, guys. Guys who won't be reproducing. Known as barrows, in hogland. Stew weighed in around 120 pounds, while Frank was a substantial 150 pounds. Yep, they just "picked them up."

And here's Patty (as in Sausage-Patty). Patty is a gilt. An elegant word for a girl pig. Patty weighed in at a svelte 100 pounds. She has some growing to do.

They have become much cleaner since these photos were taken, now that they are living in straw in a clean pen. Umm -except for that one afternoon of freedom. They did a magnificent job of rototilling a portion of pasture. Too bad it wasn't the garden. Black noses were the give-away. And the totally ecstactic expressions, grunts, and snorts. Good thing they like whey as much as dirt, they weren't too hard to coax back into the barn. Now the latch, which clever Frank figured out how to open, is WIRED SHUT.