I often reflect on the events of the days past…the moments where perhaps I could have made a different decision. Hind sight is 20/20 right? You can do everything right and it can still go wrong.

As a child growing up on a small farm in North Idaho I was accustomed to the raising and the butchering of animals. It was a way of life. We loved them. We raised them. We ate them. We have taken the lessons we learned as children and let it guide us on our own farm. Which doesn’t always seem to matter. Sometimes life throws new lessons your way. And as any experienced farmer knows things do go wrong….more often than they go right. You can have the most amazing fencing, the best feed, the perfect timing and yet things still seem to go wrong. This is what makes farmers so tough and resilient. My mom likes to call it building character… well lets just say the past 24 hours have build a lot of character.

It all started last night when we made a plan to get our four full grown hogs into a horse trailer to take them to the butcher… now I already know what you are thinking - What? Why? Don’t you know how to do that yourselves? …why yes we do, however we are at the end of a successful elk and deer season for us and our families and as we expected we’d be exhausted by now. So we decided we’d hire the job out this time….or so we thought…. The plan was to lead the pigs into the trailer with the buckets of grain that they would normally be eating for dinner. These pigs have been used to us leading them to fresh ground in the past and we figured it would be a cinch….mistake #1.

We had everything worked out…where each adult would stand and what their job would be. We enjoyed dinner with our friends who were roped in at the last minute and then got to work. Of course in true farm fashion it was dark…and raining and the pig pen was especially slippery. Mistake #2. Armed with head lamps, flash lights, buckets of grain, and a few pallets we headed for the pig pen. We got everyone into position, opened the gate and attempted to lead the pigs into the trailer. We sloshed most of the grain onto the floor of the trailer thinking the noise of dinner would entice them….well boy were we wrong. Those pigs were not going to budge. Despite every begging pleading sweet here piggy call we made they looked at us like ….um you’ve got to be joking, we aren’t setting one hoof in that trailer. We quickly scrambled to make a few changes hoping it would help. I made a phone call to my mom - who gave us a few helpful suggestions. After implementing the suggestions we were still unsuccessful in luring our four reluctant pigs into the trailer. In fact, much to our dismay the pigs decided that the events of the evening were tiring and they retreated to their cozy nest under the tree. With our heads hung low our boots covered in muck we headed for the house to make a new plan for the morning.

After great discussion our friends went home, and we went inside poured a drink and came up with a new plan for the next morning. We all felt that we needed a longer shoot to funnel the pigs into and we needed to block their path so they couldn’t get back into the pen. Only one way to go….and that would be into the trailer. We made a mental list of all the things we needed to gather for our second attempt, did out best to distract ourselves by talking about upcoming events and went to bed. Of course none of us got much sleep… pigs were on the brain.

6am we climbed out of bed and set to work. Our friends arrived, we filled them in and we set to work getting everything in place. We had everything going for us -It was light out, it was warm and not rainy and the pigs were extra hungry since most of their dinner was still scattered on the trailer floor. This was gonna work! With our kids cheering us on from a safe distance us adults got into position. The pigs went right for me and their breakfast just as planned, I slowly backed myself into the trailer and the pigs seemed to follow. The guys who were behind the pigs ready to block their escape were ready and all was going great, until suddenly one pig realized what was happening and did and about face and ran right through the barrier the guys had made…. that’s ok we were already ahead of them with plan B. We upped the Annie and switched from metal sheeting to more pallets. All of us adults jumped into the pen ready to block their escape this time. We heard them back around to the shoot, YES! We got them into the shoot, YES! We got them onto the ramp, YES! We got them… wait. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

One pig jumped up onto the back of another pig which shifted his weight into the one spot we didn’t have a person standing, which made the ever so slight gap in the shoot, the pigs took their chance and used all their weight to push through into FREEDOM! The pigs were now running wildly with excitement in their new found freedom. We all quickly climbed the fence and scattered in all directions to get the pigs back into their pen. We ran. We chased. We huffed. We puffed. We yelled, grabbed sticks, sheeting, even an old PVC pipe that was laying around to try to corral them back into their pen. We were nearly successful and almost had them back in when suddenly one turned and went straight through our line. Back to chasing we went… we were all getting pretty exhausted by this time. We realized we did have one pig still contained within its pen, however another pig had taken off down the driveway and towards the road while the other two had gone in a completely different direction and headed into the deep dark woods. It was at this point when my husband and I looked at each other in desperation and we knew what had to be done. It was either choose to do this job ourselves or potentially loose these creatures for good… so we made the hard choice to make sure we didn’t loose them. He ran for the gun, I ran after the pig going down the driveway, while our friends had managed to get behind the other two and corral them back towards an area that had two sides fenced. We worked together to get the three not so little pigs into the same area….and then it was time.

With all the pigs down for the count we put ourselves and our pride aside and set out to the task at hand. You’d think that would be the end of the adventure - but life still had a few curve balls to throw our way… One major problem was the crazy warm temperatures we were experiencing. 57 degrees isn’t exactly typical when North Idaho is on the cusp of December. That is not a good temperature when dealing with raw meat…. Thankfully we’ve been processing meat a long time in this family and we had some tricks up our sleeves. Not a scrap of meat went bad. WOO!! We gathered all our materials, pulled out our recipes, our friends and family rallied around us and we were able to get the processing under way in no time.

I am thankful we have the skills to make sure these lives did not go to waste. I am thankful for good friends who are up for an adventure or two. I’m sure we will be laughing about this for years to come. I am thankful for a husband who’s not afraid of hard work and who can manage such an enormous task. I am thankful for a father in law who is willing to jump right in. I am thankful for a life time of knowledge and experience which helps us make the decisions at hand - even if we choose wrong in the moment we are able to make changes for the future. I am thankful for a God who I know even when I can’t see is working all this for our good.

With all the adrenaline gone, tired muscles and a little bit of exhaustion I sit here typing this out…. I will continue to process the events as we work to cut and wrap this beautiful meat over the next few days. Even though I may have tears in my eyes my heart can still smile at what a sight we must have all been that morning - once again chasing pigs around the farm.

THE PIGS ARE OUT!???

The pigs are out?!

Sourdough

A Family Heritage: Hunting