A very good word to define me would be the word pig. The definitions for pig on Definitions.com are: “a young swine of either sex, especially a domestic hog, Sus scrofa, weighing less than 120 pounds, any wild or domestic swine. The flesh of swine; pork, or a person of piggish character, behavior, or habits, as one who is gluttonous, very fat, greedy, selfish, or filthy.”  Some synonyms for pig are swine, greedy or dirty. There are many negative meanings for the word pig. I see pigs as much more glamorous than most of the definitions are. I ended up working hard to get pigs because of Dads stories. Dad had all kinds of stories about when he was a kid and how he had a blast with his pigs. After I finally got my pigs and I had a chance to spent time with them, I found that they had their own personalities and were not very different from me. Pigs are messy, tough, and eat everything, like me.

It took hard work and weeks to prepare for the pigs. Thud, thud, thud.  I was outside in the summer heat, pounding the final metal fence post down. It was tough work, but getting the pigs would be worth it. I got the post set and started to string out the barbed wire.  Everything was very quiet after the thundering sound of me slamming the post into the ground. Dad and I wanted plenty of space for my pigs, so we fenced off a large area. I was fighting against time to get the fence done because the pigs could be bought at any time, and would need a place to live. I set up to start stringing out the barbed wire. I was getting better at it! I had just gotten done with the first strand when Dad yelled for me. I ran over, and found that he was on the phone talking with Dave, my uncle, who was a livestock auctioneer. We asked him weeks ago to start looking out for two sows to buy in our name. Dad hung up and looked at me, whispering, “Of course two pigs would be too easy.”  He cleared his throat and speaks louder to me, “We have five sows waiting, do you have the fence finished?” The blood drained from my face. I had days of work left to do to finish it. I told Dad this, and in response he grabbed a pliers and walked out the door towards the fence. After a moment's hesitation, I followed.

Pigs are not clean or organized animals. From what I've seen of  pigs they can be messy!  Like me, however, I don't think they want to be. They try to root around and make places to sleep in the dirt, but then it rains and the dirt turns to mud. Everything just gets messy! We gave them enough room to spread out, in cool summer evenings they would come out of the fenced woods to eat, and be completely clean, even after being a complete mess just hours before in the hot afternoon sun. I am not a very organized person. My locker always is a mess, with loose papers everywhere. I have trouble finding things most of the time. I try to fight it. To keep organized, I get a planner and a binder to hold all of the papers for my classes. For a couple of weeks it's great, but soon I stop writing in my planner and my binder becomes a mess. It just happens, I don't even think about it.

Pigs are tough. After the livestock auction, we took the back roads home. We were several miles from their new home,  and the pigs seemed to be getting restless. I could see them poking at the tarp covering the trailer. I saw one of their heads peek out the side. She seemed to just want some fresh air, but all of sudden she jumped right out! Pigs are not jumping creatures, but Porkchop (as she would later come to be affectionately called) was always goofy, so maybe she wanted to fly. And fly she did, for about a second, until she hit the ground and started rolling. Porkchop going forty miles an hour hit the ground and then just rolled for a good 50 feet. When we finally got the trailer turned around, we got back to her and  saw that Porkchop was happily rooting in the ditch. She didn't look stunned at all. Maybe it was her plan all along, to get some food on the side of the road. Even though the pigs were tough, I felt like I held my own. When we had to get into the pen to grab some of the younger ones to sell, the mothers would get very ornery. Dad and I had boards and movable gates to try to corral and control the them, At times, it would get hairy. Even so, by  the end of the day they would be where we wanted them.

Pigs often do extreme things to get food. Sometimes they lift something extremely heavy just to find the tiniest morsel of food. After a few months, we had a drove of about twenty five pigs. One day, I filled a wheelbarrow with food and brought it out to them. Porkchop must have been especially hungry that day, because as soon as I was inside the fence, she got under my legs, picked me up, lodged her snout under the wheelbarrow, launched it into the air, and started eating, carrying me on her back, all the while! I also go to extreme measures to get food. Unfortunately People find it rude if I head butt them out of the way to get a better spot in line, so I have to be crafty. From budging to full out sprinting I usually end up one of the first to get food.

Pigs are omnivores. They can and will eat just about anything. For fun I'd give them the nastiest things I could find, just to see if they would eat it. Eggshells make an interesting crunch when they bite into them. Rotten potatoes (which makes me gag just thinking of the smell) would be eaten no problem. The funniest thing though, is that they don't like to eat things with a low amount of calories. Lettuce, celery, and orange peelings were usually left behind to be eaten last. Unfortunately like the pigs I have been fed some awful kinds of food.  I stared at a bowl of pork liver and onions. Liver and onions are like bile and puke on a plate. I took one bite, and could hardly keep it down. The rule around my house is to eat what's on your plate, no matter what, and no matter how long it takes. I sat at the table for more than an hour before I was able to choke down the last piece of liver. Being forced to eat things I didn't like is the reason that I can now eat anything. I had to before, and now I do it out of habit.
After having pigs for some time I had many great pig stories to match my Dads. The piglets are all nestled together in a pile against their mom. It's late, and I've been trying to help the birthing process for the piglets all morning, afternoon, and now into the night. I’m pitching hay, checking the electric fence, and repairing parts of the barbed wire fence as it gets increasingly dark. I finally get a chance to take a moment to watch the piglets for awhile. They squirmed around and played all day, and now they are just pooped. It's been a long day for them and me. But now that it’s all done, and I can just be with them for an hour. That makes it all worth it.

Works Cited

"Pig." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 06 Nov. 2015. Web      
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