Really, I'm Not a Pig

Farming has been good for me.  It has taken me out of my comfort zone numerous times, and I’ve learned over the years that a shake up every now and then is a good thing.  Think about a tremor or a tree-toppling, power-outaging storm: once the dust settles, don’t you look around and ask, “Everything o.k.?”  When you discover it is, great, and when you see there’s work to do, then that’s what comes next, no questions asked.

It's easy to be zen-like when the animals are plastic, 1/64 your size, safely behind solid wooden barricades, and polite enough to let you finish your cup of tea

Every once in awhile I’m left in charge of the farm, and let’s just say, I pretty much count the days until I’m not ranchero-numero-uno anymore.  The work is good, don’t get me wrong, but the responsibility can be daunting.  Once, while sitting comfortably reading a book and enjoying a nice hot cup of tea, my oldest, then 8, ran in yelling, “The pigs got out!”  Not taking my eyes from the book, I replied, “Honey, daddy’s out of town...”  His eyes widened as he replied, “That’s why I’m telling you.”

Slowly, I felt the gears grinding to a halt, and it registered.

Is it so wrong for a mother to cry out, “CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!”?  I know the foot stomping probably set a bad example, but it’s not like he hadn’t already behaved that way himself many years before.

Just like in the storm analogy, I started looking around, wondering what to do.  I could call the neighbor, but then that would mean I can’t even handle my own farm, and why should a woman have to call a man for help?  That’s what that would be, right?  I could send my boy out to catch them, but he actually came to me for help, so scratch that.  Plus, back to reason number one...well, you get it.

There was no choice but to deal with it, and in the true inconvenience we call farming, the need was immediate.



Not a pig, and I am oh, so grateful



I recall the day my younger son was born.  My reaction when my older one ran into the room wasn’t, “Hey sweetie, come meet your little brother,” but rather, “Good God, you’re enormous!”  Well, I felt the same way about the pigs looking at them roaming outside their gateless pen.  I won’t bore you with the details of the capture which included my fearless dog, but will take you to the punch line…theirs, not mine.

In fact, I’d be lying if I attempted to give you the lowdown, because truth be told, I can’t remember the details.  Sort of like getting teeth pulled, falling from a tree house, or spinning off the road across oncoming traffic, the numbing haze of post traumatic stress has erased the sequence of events from my brain.  Only the highlights of my anxiety remain.

Which is why you find me screaming, holding a pig semi-aloft as the writhing muscular porcine vessel of testosterone attempts to devour my ear, knowing I have to do this one more time so BOTH of them will be back where they belong.  I vaguely remember screaming at my son for advice, which I’m sure I didn’t hear or listen to due to either the squealing pig, the crashing white noise in my head, or the cacophony of the two.  As I hurtled the beast back into his enclosure I caught the stunned expression on my son’s face.  A thought bubble would most likely have revealed, “So that graceless being is the one I refer to as ‘mother.’  Is it possible to make an exchange?”



A nice diet of sweet potato vines to whittle away their waistlines



As I caught my breath, he offered a bit of advice.  “You shouldn’t throw animals.”  Thank god my penchant for biting sarcasm didn’t emerge to attack a person half my size.  I was able to lower beast number two closer to the ground for his final descent, which was more palatable for all of us, despite the fact that the squealing screech-fest could have rivaled the war cries of opposing cheering sections led by Robert Plant and Ozzy Osbourne at a tension-filled girls’ volleyball game. 

Breathing hard, hair disheveled, and wearing an expression that was, let’s just say, nowhere near runway ready, I thought of the Talking Heads as I wondered, “Well, how did I get here?”  Now with things a bit calmer as my two dogs maintained order, circling the pen while I sutured it up, I could sense my son’s strange wonder about the woman he just saw man-handling the pigs.  Could I possibly be the same person who baked bread that morning, nursed his ailing teddy bear back to health, and cheered his every effort to make a “real” video about prehistoric beasts?  Let’s face it: a kid wants to know his mommy has her shit together.  When pigs gone AWOL pull her off center, it can be alarming, to say the least.

So farming has done that for me.  I can go where I’d never have imagined, and quickly run back to sanity once escaping it.  I still have an ear, and my son has been formally introduced to my limits, and at an impressionable age at that.  To think it took me until the stately age of 11 to discover my mother wasn’t perfect.  What can I say?  My boy is advanced.

Aye En!

I could encapsulate all the differences between my two kids by their early attitudes towards books.  One, if he could speak at 9 months, would have said, “These treasures open up fascinating new worlds to me.  Now that I don’t teeter over anymore, go about your business, mother dear, while I respectfully handle these precious objects whilst gazing upon them for hours.”  The other would say something more like, “Yeeeee-ha!  AVALANCHE!”  His actions quickly introduced me to the caustic glare of the librarian, who for some reason no longer held me in high esteem.

It was the second kid who later coined the term used as the title of this post.  Forget about the story and the pictures; the best part came when the final page was turned and he could yell out, “Aye En!” His brother and I had to sneak off for secret book readings where the words “Just wait!  Not yet!” weren’t appended to every third sentence.

Aye en’s enthusiasm for the predictability of endings came from someplace other than my psyche.  I tend to dread them, preferring the unknowns carefully placed safely within the pages of a book, rather than those uncovered when the volume is closed. 

At one time, my gardening seasons came to an end in November.  Here on the farm, final harvests around Thanksgiving made way for the sheep to enter my haven and graze on some new delights, followed by a good tilling from the pigs.  As I watched one annual gate opening in which the sheep were led into the garden, older and wiser Aye En stroked my arm and asked as we looked into the drizzly grayness from the porch, “This is a hard day for you, isn’t it?”

 Now, though, I have too much in the way of perennials, and too little in the way of time, to build cross fencing which would allow the animals to move about in sections.  So, now, the garden is off limits to them.  I kinda like it that way.

But sometimes I wonder.

The stirring up by the pigs, following some of the best fertilizer that I don’t have to scoop up and tow in myself is a good thing.  Endings are a part of living in a dynamic cycle.  Yesterday I ran into a friend who does his own version of stirring and digging as he thinks about life experiences.  He posed the question that if challenge brings us to a place where we learn and grow, expanding our understanding of this experience called life, encountering new thoughts and ideas that broaden us, why do so many want to avoid it, staying sheltered in what’s safe?

Good question, I thought.  Change is hard, there’s no denying that.  But avoiding change, when it presents itself as part of the natural rhythm, is stepping away from living.  For some, like me, predictability is important, but I have to also remember that like the storybooks which take us safely to “Aye En!” predictability isn’t the same as reality.