A Pig Adventure

As I was feeding the pigs last evening, I thought, "I am so pleased that I will never again be a first-time pig owner. We've kept these pigs contained, and they are content, and I like them so much."

Michelle Besette stopped by today, on her way to an appointment. "Your pigs are running down our drive!"

We didn't believe at first that they could be ours. Our little piglets wouldn't go a mile and a half away. But as we searched through the brush in their pen, their usual hiding spot that obscures them completely, all we found was Buttercup. She had been foiled in her escape attempt by the ear tag, which was, again, entangled in the mesh fencing.

We took the younger boys, and drove off to find our two piglets.

Forty-five minutes later, both were again captured and returned to their pen.

It was indeed a mercy: the one person on our four mile road who reads our blog and knew we had piglets, happened to leave her house at the time the piglets reached her driveway. And then, rather than the piglets continuing on across fields and through forest, they stayed on the long Bessette driveway, so we spent no frustrating time searching (though the catching was a challenge). The pigs know us, at least a bit, so they came near our food. That's how Phil caught the first. The second, more shrewd, led us on a wild chase around and around the car, but we finally cornered him and Phil snatched him by the back legs.

At a mile and a half away, those pigs were not coming back. We would have been two pigs the less, and none the wiser, had it not been for our good neighbor.

The funniest part of this story, to me, is that Michelle was on her way to see neighbor Butch. She called right before she left and said, "I'll only be ten minutes, unless a cow got out."

Because she came to tell us, she was longer than ten minutes, but Butch didn't mind. He was happy to hear what the two black "dogs" he had seen run across his yard actually were.

Phil stayed out late last night, helping our church provide the entertainment for the carnival and fireworks in Charlottesville.

This is certainly in keeping with his character. Eleven years ago, when we were just friends, the 4th of July also fell on a Sunday. At 4:30am on Monday the 5th, he and I got up to take a friend of mine to the airport (I delayed getting my driver's license, so I couldn't take her on my own). As we dropped her off, well before 6am, I said, "Thank you so much for helping me bring little Lindsey to the airport. I'm sure you had something better to do on your day off."

He said, "Better than serve someone in the name of Christ? I don't think so."

That was the minute I fell in love, and pretty much expected we'd get married from that point on.

Good story, I think!