Kindness to Animals Badge

The school year has ended and we are officially into summer over here.  All through May and the first part of June, I kept longing for the days of summer . . . and I am pretty sure summer has been even more busier and stressful than the school year was.

First, the girls were in school a bit longer than the rest of us.  So the first part of summer break was helping them study for finals.  We are exciting like that.

Here is a picture of Daisy Mae and I commemorating our last night in, what we fondly call every weeknight, “Homework Jail.”

They took their finals and they ended the year on the honor roll and with high GPAs.  They are going to a charter school that is a bit more demanding than other schools, and I was proud of how well they handled it.

After school ended, we rolled right into summer schedule.  In summer, apparently, we enjoy spending all of our moneys in food and gas.

My children are 100% starving at all hours of all days.  They are also bored and feel like every day should be beach day/park day/movie day and whathaveyou.

With cleaning our rental (Remember, long time readers?!  We have a vacation rental that we keep up!  Because we are insane!) and three kids in baseball, we are in town almost daily.

I pull out a GIANT cooler and load it full of food for my starving darlings.  And off we go all about town, spending a fortune in gas and spilling chips and sandwich crumbs all over the car.  My car is full of sandwich baggies, half-full water bottles, baseball gloves, library books, and socks.  As if we could be any cooler.

When we are not in town, we are busy trying to keep up ye olde homestead.

Today, I was checking out the sitch in our garden.  Our garden is one to be envied and our main crop is weeds.  The garden is a loathesome subject for me.  It is just so large and weedy and we have maybe 8 plants growing in it and I JUST CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY WE DON’T JUST BUY PRODUCE AT THE GROCERY STORE AND CALL IT GOOD.  If you calculate our man-hours, one ear of corn is worth about $20.  But, I digress.

As I was looking at the weeds  garden, I noticed something amiss over yonder in one of the pig pens.

Yes.  I said ONE OF the pig pens.  For we have several.

Do you see that really ugly, large black and pink pig?

That is our boar.

Yes!  We have a boar.  And we have 30 pigs altogether.  We did have 39 pigs last week, but David had to “take care of business” with 9 of them last weekend.  As pig farmers are wont to do.

Anyways, our boar was acting all aggressive-like and biting the other pig through the fence.  He was jumping up and trying to knock the fence down.

Now.  I didn’t want pigs.  I still don’t want pigs.  David is at work and I could just walk away and pretend I didn’t see anything. But the boar keeps biting the other pig and I felt badly and, so, I texted David.  (Bleeding hearts of the world unite!) (Name that movie!)  And yes.  My pig farmer is off in town 45 minutes away being an electrician.  Which is his actual trade.  Not farming.

I texted him the very picture you are seeing along with something like:

So, the boar is attacking this pig through the fence.  I do not know what his deal is.  He might be wanting to have “special times” with him/her.  He is biting the pig.  The pig won’t move and I don’t know why.  It could move and it is definitely not trapped.  Also the boar might break the fence soon because he keeps jumping on it and biting the fence.  So . . . . let me know if you want me to do anything.

He replies:  “Can you move the pig?”

Can I move the pig?  Oh, bother.  So I call the girls, because pig wrasslin’ is not a one-woman show, and tell them we all need mud boots on.

Daisy Mae refuses and wears flip flops.  I argue, she argues back, and I decide I cannot care because I have a pig to save, goshdarnit.

So we get in there and we are using shovels to prod pigs along and the boar is just being all sorts of nasty and mean.  We discover that not only is there the bitten pig, but there are two pigs who are limping.  So we decide to move the three pigs to an empty pig pen, which is no easy task mind you and requires all of us to yell at each other with shovels in our hands.

Daisy Mae’s toes are squishing in the pig poo mud and making smoke  come out of my ears.

BECAUSE I JUST CAN’T MAKE SENSE OF WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT PIG POO SQUISHING BETWEEN THEIR TOES, BUT THAT’S JUST ME.

We decide the reason the pigs are going near the boar is because there is mud there from the garden water.  So we decide to start making mud elsewhere for the pigs so they won’t go by the meanie-pants boar.

Dear readers!  Did you know that pigs NEED mud?  They cannot sweat, so it is how they cool down.

Be impressed with my swine knowledge.

We finally get all the pigs settled  and I send the girls inside (and instruct Little Miss Flip Flops to head straight to the shower), then I text David:

The boar is being super mean and I don’t know what his deal is.  He needs a timeout.  3 injured pigs are in an empty pen and I am now filling their water.

I am feeling like I am currently a pig farmer’s wife who is worthy of praise and much accolades.  Maybe even flowers or chocolate would be necessary for the ordeal I have just endured.  I am sure he will be pleased with me and I eagerly wait his thankful text, as I stand there filling the water.

Oh, and it is disgusting out there, mind you.  He has a giant tub that he soaks lentils in and there is poo and mud and flies.  It’s like you are standing in a cess pool.

His text reply?

Ok.

OK?

I was expecting a bit more fanfare.  Oh, well.  At least to the pigs, I was the hero of the day.  Well, maybe not the boar.  I think I thwarted his plans.  If you know what I mean.

So, since I was already being so wonderful to the animal kingdom, I decided to give ALL the pigs in ALL the pigpens some more mud.  They were happy little piggies.

Did you know pigs shake off when they are wet, just like dogs?

Yes.  Disgusting.

Then I happened upon the chickens and ducks and decided to make their day as well, since I was being so kind to animals and all, and I decided to make them a river.

Feathered fowl owners!  If you have chickens, you should make them a river!  I do it often and find it most enjoyable.

It is hands-down my favorite thing to do outside.  Is that sad?

Maybe.

But, oh they love it!  They get all excited and splash around and peck the mud for bugs.  I enjoy it thorougly.

And I feel like I have earned my Kindness to Animals Badge Today.

I rock.