The Electric Fence and Flying Kidneys

Let’s talk about pigs!  For they delight us so.

David bought pigs #8, 9, and 10 this weekend.

Why, you ask?  Well.  I don’t know.  But he did and that is that.  On this same day he bought them, he also butchered three pigs.

I have a confession to make.  I saw pig guts.  It was all very disturbing.  I could have done without it.  David had invited a friend from work to join in on the butchering fun, and he brought along his wife.  His wife was thrilled beyond words to be able to play spectator to this sort of thing.

?

We have a lot in common, her and I.

So, naturally, I felt kind of rude to stay barricaded inside, which was my original plan.  I made an effort to be friendly, all while trying to not see the horrors going on inside the garage.

This may surprise you, but David, who thinks he is hilarious, tossed not one, but two kidneys our way.

He is so romantic.

Kidneys look just like kidney beans.  Just confirming any suspicion you may have had about how kidney beans got their name.

So, for those of you keeping track of such things, we had seven pigs originally, butchered two, bought three more, then butchered three more.

Did you keep up with all that nonsense?  We have five currently residing at our homestead.  On Sunday, I was feeding the blessed creatures while David was fixing the electric fence.

Stand down, Readers!  If we do not have the electric fence, the pigs dig out and run amok down the road.

It hath happened twice.  True story.

So, he got the fence all wired up.  He is good at these sorts of things since he is, in fact, an electrician.  The poor pigs could not figure out what was going on.  Two pigs kept running from end to end, would hit the fence, squeal in horror, then hit the fence again.  It was a vicious cycle, the poor dears.  Finally, the two pigs just stood in the middle of the pig pen, not moving.

They stood there for hours, I kid you not.  They were probably talking amongst themselves.  As pigs do.

“Harriet, do not move a muscle.”

And, yes.  I decided one of the pigs should be named Harriet.  It suits her.  Or him.  I did not investigate the gender.

For those of you just dying to know, no.  We are not eating ten pigs.  We are selling them off to innocent bystanders.  Out of all ten of them pigs, David thinks we will only keep 0 to 1/2 of a pig for our freezer.

One might wonder what the point of all this pig care-taking is, wouldn’t one?

One would.

***

Announcement:  the children have finally saved up the required money to get a horse.

Therefore and henceforth, come spring, we will be building a barn and a fence.

This concludes the announcement.

***

I hate building fences.

***

We are getting low on firewood, so David decided we should look around the property for dead trees that we can use to burn.  The kids went “scouting” and Handsome Dude was certain he had found the perfect, dead tree.

David and I were suspicious.  Can you blame us?  The boy can’t even aim properly into a toilet bowl.  How, pray tell, can he scout for wood?

Well, not only did he find a dead tree, but it was a red fir.  And red firs, dear readers, are my Lumberjack’s second favorite type of wood-burning tree.  The first, of course, being Tamarack, for those of you who care.

He was quite proud of himself.  And rightfully so.  Also, the tree was already “felled.”

And is not “felled” a ridiculous thing to say?  But that is how people talk around here.

Seriously.

They do.

Later, dudes.