Picking Up Piggies — Janet Szabo

With everything that has been happening this spring, I have been very worried about being able to get piglets. We took last year off because our previous supplier flaked out on us. He had a tendency to overpromise—and require deposits for all the piglets he promised—and then scramble at the last minute to find enough stock. He would promise us piglets on at the beginning of June, then call me a few days before they were supposed to be delivered and ask if we could take some in August, instead. We don’t have the infrastructure for late pigs. Ours have to be out of here before the water line freezes. We got tired of dealing with his nonsense.

Cathy knew someone here in the valley who had pigs and gave me her number. I called Carol and we talked about what we were looking for. She has some of her own breeding stock but also buys bred sows from the Hutterite colonies on the east side of the mountains. Her early piglets are reserved for the 4-H kids as they have to have their animals finished by the fair in August. She said she would reserve six piglets for us for the beginning of June.

When I called her last week, she said the piglets would be ready to pick up this weekend, so yesterday morning, the husband and I headed to her farm to get them. She lives north of the airport in a surprisingly undeveloped part of the county. Her barn has quite the setup. The pregnant sows are in one area and the weaned piglets in another. If I remember correctly, she told me she had gotten eight bred sows from the Hutterites. With an average of 10-12 piglets per sow, she had quite the little pig nursery.

The husband stayed out by the truck and I went into the barn with her to get the piglets. One of her boys got into the enclosure with the piglets and picked each one up. Pigs get very upset when their feet are not on the ground and they squeal loudly, which of course upsets the other piglets. She took each piglet from her son, handed it to me, and I walked it out to the truck and put it in the large dog crate we had brought to transport them home. When we had all six loaded up and had paid her, we headed for home:

We went down back roads as much as possible just to avoid stressing the piglets.

Back home, the husband and I moved the dog crate into the pig shelter, then opened it up. A couple of the piglets were reluctant to come out, but eventually we got everyone sorted.

They were very curious about their new home and immediately started rooting around. We will keep them inside the shelter for a few days before letting them out into the pasture. The grass in the pasture is taller than they are.

I forgot to ask what cross these were—Carol had told us they would be either Duroc/Landrace or Duroc/York crosses, but a friend of ours who stopped over in the afternoon and is familiar with pigs said he thought they were Duroc/York crosses. We have done Duroc/Berkshire crosses the last couple of years.

I feel much better now that we have our stock for this year.

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We have had some good soaking rains over the past 36 hours. I am glad I got my beans planted when I did. We have Zoom church this morning. After lunch, I’m either going to sew or move some sewing machines out to the garage. I’d like to start tinkering with them again now that I have a good place to work.

One of the congregations in our denominational conference is a Congolese congregation in Portland. They have a sewing program that employs refugee women. When I was at our meeting in Portland at the beginning of February, I talked to the head of the program about donating some of my machines to their group. And then this virus stuff started. I’d still like to pursue that.

DD#1 and her fiancé are heading back to their apartment in Seattle today after staying with his parents for the last two months. She will be going to work at her office two days a week and working from home the rest of the time. Her fiancé has been through the wringer attempting to graduate from dental school and get licensed. His graduation ceremony was supposed to be yesterday. Had this pandemic not happened, we all would have been in Seattle to celebrate. The class has graduated—we can call him Doctor now—but they are still sorting out issues with the licensing exams.