Merry Pig-mas!

So yesterday, the kids got an invite to a friend’s house for a few hours in the afternoon.  I dropped them off around two and that gave me three hours to wrap presents and finish up Christmas stuff, since I’d been sick all week with an unidentified flu-like illness.  The friend lives just around the corner, so I drove down the side of our pasture on my way to drop them off.  The horses were over by the fence and I noticed Sugar and Lucky were by the horses.  Lucky was supposed to be in his pen, so I wondered how he got out, but there was another dog there too, wasn’t there? 

I got home, put Lucky up and commenced to wrapping presents and watching HGTV upstairs in my bedroom.  After about an hour, my back could take no more, so I went downstairs and had a little break checking Facebook. 

My neighbor wrote: Just finished the big neighborhood pig roundup.  My Christmas present to you Mickie.  :)  

To which I replied: Are you freaking kidding me?

Lucy, the WonderPig, had apparently had enough of the confined life and decided to take a tour around the neighborhood.  She ended up in Sugar’s backyard and thank goodness my neighbor saw her.  He and his family rounded her up and brought her back home to her pen behind the barn.  She’d apparently worked on the cattle panels that make up the fence on the west side of the barn and pushed them so that they looked more like a teepee propped up on the telephone poles that are the infrastructure of the barn. 

This just after Wednesday, when she decided to heck with the chain link gate and shoved her way right out of it.  We now have chains on everything around here.  It’s like Alcatraz for animals. 

On Wednesday, she stayed in the backyard, while I ran around her in circles screaming at the kids to “get the dogs”, “come help me”, “NO!”, “get out of the WAY!!”  Nothing puts me in a panicked, screaming mood like a loose animal.  I’m surprised someone didn’t call the cops, thinking someone was being murdered over here.   

What we learned on Wednesday was to always hook the chain on the gate, and that I run about as fast as a 3 ½ month old pig. 

Anyway, my neighbor must have been quieter in his escapades, or I had the TV turned up way too loud, because I was totally oblivious to the whole situation! 

I wrapped up my wrapping and covered my tracks and then headed out to check on the barn situation.  The entire 20 ft. or so made up of cattle panels was leaning precariously.  There was a foot wide gap at one end that I thought the pig could have surely fit easily through, so I thought she was out again! 

Please God, don’t let the pig be out again!

“Luuuccccyyyy…” I called.

And out steps a very sleepy pig from the chicken house where she sleeps.  She’d been taking a nap!  Too much excitement, I guess. 

So I corral her back in the chicken house and lock her in so she won’t be doing any escaping before I get the fence put back up and wired in place.  Sounds easier than it really was…

By this time, I had to go pick up the kids.  I told the mom over there about the pig escape.  Her older daughter and the dad had gone to Wal-Mart earlier and the daughter said, “I saw a pig on our way to the store!  I said, ‘Dad, look, it’s a REAL LIVE pig!’”

Great.

Lucy the pig. 

Neighborhood celebrity.

I don’t know how long she was out, or where her travels took her, but it was exciting nonetheless. 

And embarrassing.

Stupid pig. 

My 9YO and I worked until dark wiring the panels back in place.  I should say we worked until my helper’s hands got too cold and until mine hurt from bending wire in place.  I was feeling like a farmer last night!

This morning, we go out to inspect our pig-proofing.  We also took Lucy an old bowling ball to play with at the advice of another Facebook friend who has raised pigs for years.  Said she might be bored.    

Lucy and Lucky immediately started playing.  Lucy kept head butting Lucky and was trying to bite his tail.  It was funny to watch.  She didn’t think a whole lot of the bowling ball, but gave it a couple of shoves with her nose.

I also had her eat dog food out of my hand and this time she let me pat her back.  I think her whole trip around the neighborhood made her a little friendlier to us.  They say pigs are smart.  Smart as a dog, I’ve heard.  Maybe, just maybe, she had some escaper’s remorse yesterday while she was off gallivanting with the dogs.  Maybe there was a bit of panic in her heart that she was truly lost.  Maybe there was no tussling with the neighbor because she was relieved that someone knew where she belonged.  Maybe she thought “There’s no place like home.”

Maybe we should have named her Dorothy.

Dorothy Houdini.