Life with [hogs]

(Technically, I guess these aren't hogs, are they? They're more along the line of "pigs." However, since my recent post was entitled "Life with dogs" I decided to continue the theme. Impressive, huh?)

(But I digress.)

So, what would you think if your mom sent you the following, cryptic text message one afternoon:

"Pigs are here. Call."

Wow. Um, yeah. Call, I did.

It seems that some of the livestock out back (which includes alpacas, a donkey, some goats, and who knows what else) were now, out front. In my mom's yard.

(My friend Jesse has instructed me to make a joke about Legion, but I'm not really sure how. So, I'm inserting it here.)

I told her (from experience, I knew this) that she needed to call the Sheriff's Department. There are no animal control laws in the unincorporated areas of the county, so the law couldn't do anything forceful - but they could help locate the owner. No one lives on that property - they only keep their animals there, and come through every couple of days to feed them and check on them.

Except, no one had apparently done that in a few days, because some neighbors told mom that they'd seen the pigs sauntering around the day before. That leads me to know two things:

1. Whoever is supposed to be taking care of those animals, probably isn't, and

2. We have lazy, lazy neighbors who apparently don't care that there are farm animals wandering around their homes, because NO ONE had called the authorities.

Ahem.

When I got home, no one in my neck of the woods had called either, so I took it upon myself to do so. I found two LARGE adults (one of them obviously nursing piglets) and five babies. They were tearing up my mother's yard, looking for acorns, and tormenting my poor dogs.

The dispatcher was asking me all sorts of questions, like "Who do they belong to? Who owns the property?" And so on, and so on...

Um, if I knew the answer to any of those questions, I would not be calling!

They sent a deputy out. He attempted to figure out who the land (and, by extension, the pigs) belonged to. In the end, he told my dad that he was free to shoot the swine if he felt the need to - the officer can't, because, again, NO animal control laws means he has NO authority.

My dad, just having had open heart surgery, was reluctant to shoot. Also, we pondered who would dispose of two huge adults and five babies once they were dispatched!

(Although, I'm sure Jason would not have minded setting up a spit and smoking a whole hog, in the yard, for Easter.)

I wish I had some grand, glorious ending to this saga. Really, I do. I'm assuming the owner was located, because I haven't seen anymore pre-bacon wandering around. I can only hope so - my three hunters haven't brought back any little piggies, unlike the dead possum they kept retrieving a few weeks ago.

Yuck.

Until I find out for sure, I'm keeping my eye out for any wayward, curly tails.

P.S. My mother (great caretaker that she is) allowed Anna Marie to get this close to those things with her video camera, but I haven't laid hold of any of her top secret swine footage.