Some weeks offer more excitement than others for most of us. I mean, there are probably those folks out there who live a life full of barely restrained existential chaos, a veritable cornucopia of fantastical experiences that would make a script writer squeal with adjective overload, but I think that most of us probably get our exciting events in bursts.
At least that's my theory today. Ask me again next week, perhaps I'll have had another animal kingdom interaction melee and have to revise my existential hypothesis.
So, after that Kat's been reading high fantasy and thinking upon philosophical things a bit too much lately intro, I will move on to the meat of this post. Something in the ether must have been a bit off this past week because the local wildlife and livestock decided to pay me visits that frankly were outside the realm of normal.
In my last post I mentioned my moose visitor. She has now been christened Maisie because she is a fixture around the house. Saturday, we decided to fire up the outdoor pizza oven for a party with some friends and while the hubs and I were working on our respective fires, he was on oven fire, I was on toe warming fire, Maisie popped out of the woods and plopped her carcass on the ground not fifty feet from where I was building my little campfire.
I have to say, as far as company goes, she was a treat! Not only did she sit amiably with me for a spell, we didn't say a single word to each other, but boy, does Maisie ever have a larger than life presence.
Every so often when I was adding a chunk of stove wood to my little blaze, I would call over to Maisie and inquire as to how she was fairing. She would always flick her large and fuzzy ears at me and I swear the moose had a contented smile on her face. My daughter wandered out before long and sat in the camp chair next to me, Snapchatting and Tik Toking away. The scene was one of domestic nature bliss. You know, with a moose lying in the scene.
Maisie eventually got up and moved back into the trees, but I know she is lurking about, and we all have bets on whether or not she will stay on the farm all winter and calve her little mooseling here in the spring.
Thursday brought an encounter of another kind. It was 1:30 in the afternoon, I had just emerged from the shower, and was sitting down to enjoy a lovely bowl of homemade shrimp lo mein for breakfast after a vigorous morning of labor.
Then my German Shepherd Hound dog lost her marbles.
Anyone who owns dogs knows they have different types of barks. The particular utterance that Lani exploded with was the OMG there's something so foreign in the yard that I must come so unhinged that mom almost throws her lo mein on the cat variety.
The lo mein retained bowl sanctity, but only barely.
As I ran to the dining room window to see what my dog was spazzing about, I wondered for a second if it was Maisie, but no, it was these:
I had some super trendy with the nouveau homesteader crowd, Kune Kune pigs in my yard!
By the time I got my boots on and outside, the fat little porcine waddlers were no where to be seen. Suddenly thankful for the super wet conditions we had, I tracked the protuberant porkbellies down to my neighbor's yard. Sure enough they were indeed the sacred to homesteader forums everywhere Kune Kunes, a sow and a little barrow to be exact.
Now, Kune Kunes are small foraging lard pigs, not made to travel long distances in a speedy gait. The poor little pork rinds were stressed. I was pretty sure I knew who they belonged to, but it was also a half a mile walk, and the two lard logs were already laboring a bit in the breathing department.
I grunted hello and put a slight amount of pressure on the two to get them going in the direction I wanted them to stroll. As we walked down the north pasture road I had more than one good giggle at the chonky butt swaying of the two rotund little animals.
The sow, who was a couple months post farrow, had teats that almost dragged the ground, and halfway down the driveway she swung around, grunted at me, and almost laid down in the road. I grunted back, applied a little more pressure, and we resumed our hog march. Right before we got to their home driveway the little barrow decided I was an acceptable presence and ran right up to sniff and then lick my hand and my pants.
I told him I was fond of wine colored polyester bellbottoms too and that he had good taste.
Now, my neighbors who own the pigs also have a very large Armenian Livestock Guardian Dog, and I was a touch concerned on just how I was going to get the pigs home without a bit of my flintlocks getting chomped on. Thankfully the gate to my neighbor's place was wide open and the LGD was nowhere to be found. I have as much respect for LGD's as I do moose.
I strode ahead of my new pig friends and grunted at them to follow along, they did so without hesitation, and as we got down the driveway they realized where they were and picked up speed. Mama stopped and rubbed her cute little upturned snout on my other leg and I gave her an amiable pat on her wiry haired head. She grunted a couple times and took off at a trot towards the raised deck that surrounds my neighbor's Shouse (shop house). Chickens, turkeys, and a couple of donkeys all ran to greet us, which was pretty awesome. I saw a tv the size of a Buick and ablaze with cable news hanging on the wall inside the house part of the shop and I figured that meant there was someone in residence, so I walked up the steps and pounded on the door.
These particular neighbors are new in our part of the country, so I had only ever met the wife and adult son, but I had waved at the husband as I drove by, and boy howdy was he ever shocked when he answered the door and I said,
"I brought your pigs home."
He kept thanking me and we walked together to close the main gate. Apparently his wife had ran to town and didn't shut the gate when she left, but what was weird is that the pigs had never tried to leave before. I told him that it was no problem, I enjoyed my pork pile stroll and as I walked back to my lo mein in the rain, I had to admit to myself that I now saw why people get their feels all kerfluffled over Kune Kune's. They were very amiable, and for a short person like myself, I had to admit that I enjoyed having some walking partners who were, for once, much slower than myself. It was nice not having to jog when walking just to keep up.
As we start a new week with a spectacular windstorm about to hit us and a massive temperature drop right after that, I wonder if perhaps my peculiar animal encounters are over for the time being or just beginning. I suppose time will tell.
I just hope I get to eat my breakfast while it's hot next time.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's sorta wishing it had recorded audio of that oinking and grunting conversation the other day iPhone.