"Here piggy piggy piggy"

We were washing eggs by the kitchen window when the guys pulled in to do some more work under the barn. One man stepped out of the car and looked down the hill. He was holding a coffee cup that I later found lying on the ground. He lit a cigarette, took a drag, called “Heeeere piggy piggy piggy,” and chuckled to himself.
 
Diantha and I looked at each other and scrambled into action. He was calling in a different direction than any of our pigs should be. I was first out of the house, “get the gun” I called over my shoulder as I ran off the side porch.
 
These pigs are big now, it can be hard for me to see having watched them grow incrementally over the last 6 months. Part of me still sees the piglets I was able to easily lift from the truck. Now two weeks from their scheduled slaughter date, they weigh around twice what I do. Pigs are not creatures that like to be herded and less than an hour since being fed they weren’t very keen on being coaxed with food either. Attempting containment vs an early slaughter were our obvious choices and we were each leaning in separate directions. They were ready to be butchered but I was not planning on that project on a late Sunday morning and certainly not on doing both pigs at the same time. I ran back inside and loaded the rifle as Turtle made her way up the logging road and Mrytle began rooting up one of our few remaining sheep pastures.
 
When I got back outside to my amazement Diantha (always level headed and captain of team containment) was leading Turtle down the logging road like a well trained dog. I grabbed an old section of electronet and we managed to get it up around them and electrified in the new pasture.
 
As we walked back to the house the man with the cigarette looked over at us, “Must be getting close to time on them pigs eh?” he said, “Yep” I responded.
 
In retrospect I am glad they moved themselves to a nicer place to spend their last few weeks and I am glad I married a patient woman whose instinct it contain even if mine is to shoot.  

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