Coop_ A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting - Michael Perry [78]
“That’s OK.”
I hope so.
The female lowers her nose first, scooping tentatively at the dirt with the ridge of her snout. When she raises her head, she is balancing a tablespoon dollop of soil above her nostrils. And this is the trigger. Both pigs drop their heads and begin scooping dirt wholesale. The innateness of it is fascinating; all their young lives spent on a grate or concrete, and given five minutes with the earth, they tuck into it as if born to it—which of course they are. Amy and I watch them with delight as they snuffle and burrow. At one point the female roots her snout deep into the earth and plows straight from one side of the pen to the other. She turns around. Surveys her work for a moment. And then, with an all-or-nothing flop, she drops lengthways in the furrow, rolling back to rest on the cool dirt, blinking with satisfaction at the open sky.
I wander up to my office in an attempt to get some work done, but I keep rising from the desk to gaze out the window at the pigs, like the kid at Christmas who keeps returning to the garage all afternoon to verify that the shiny red bike is really, really there.
It’s hot out, and I’m worried they won’t drink, so I walk back down and tweak the valve a few times so water drips in the dirt. I’m hoping they’ll smell the moisture and get the idea. I’m also not sure how to introduce them to the feeder. I got the pig feeder free from my brother John. It’s basically a tall, rectangular galvanized box with a roof-shaped lid. The lid tilts back so you can fill the box with feed, which then spills into troughs on either side courtesy of gravity. The troughs are covered by a series of segmented trapdoors. The pig merely noses the lid up and out of the way to eat, and when the pig leaves, the door drops shut to protect the feed from rain and small varmints. At first I prop the trapdoors open, but when the pigs nose in, a couple of the doors bang shut, causing the pigs to squeal and bolt. Eventually I open just one trapdoor, and when they get snooted in and start eating, I lower the lid gently on their brows. When they pull out, I open the door and repeat the process. After about three tries, one of the pigs raises the lid without assistance, and from that point on the buffet is open.
When I stop by the next time, they are snuffling inquisitively at the watering nipple. Finally one pig accidentally bumps the spring-loaded pin and a few drops of water release. Pouting her lower lip, she catches a drip. Then she noses the pin again. On about the third try, she opens her mouth and clamps it over the nipple, releasing the water to flow freely down her gullet. Soon they are taking turns at the nozzle.
I return to the office. I manage to get a little work done, but I have to lean forward to keep the pressure off my throbbing hinder. By suppertime not only has the throbbing failed to recede, it has developed a specific rhythm, at which point it strikes me that if your average cogent person found a loony bluetick coonhound dangling off his fanny by its four main teeth, he might have already taken time to inspect the damage.
I toddle off to the house.
Alone in the bathroom, I back up to the mirror and drop my shorts. And what I say aloud is, “Holy Shnikies!”
The greater portion of my left butt cheek is obscured by a hematoma the size of a personal pizza. The hue of the relevant skin is something along the lines of stomped blueberries. In a nod to symmetry, a quadruplicate set of puncture wounds brackets the bruise as neatly as the four cardinal points of the compass. First thing I think is, I gotta SHOW this to somebody!
I call Anneliese from the kitchen. She is used to indulging my fascinations—that is to say, the woman can stifle a yawn—but it cheers me to report that when she sees the bruise, her eyebrows shoot right up. I have her bring me the digital camera so I can get pictures. This I accomplish by twisting around and shooting at the moon in the mirror. You festoon up