Felicia’s new favorite place to sleep is at the top of the set of stairs Fred made for Spot, so Spot could sit by the window and watch the birds. It has since become Miss Momma’s favorite place to sleep. This morning, Felicia took possession of it.
Miss Momma’s opinion of the usurpation. Felicia better watch out!
I ran to L0we’s first thing this morning to buy more screws. It got dark last night before I could finish screwing the boards to the frame of the pig shelter, but we didn’t have quite enough screws to get it done anyway. Fred had planned to stop on the way home to pick up more of them, but I wanted to get my part of the job done before he got home, so I entered the Hall o’ Testosterone and bought the screws my own self. (I did have to call and ask him where the hell the right screws were kept, of course. When I’m in L0we’s I’m usually interested in the rugs, garden stuff, and vacuums, not the boring shit like screws and wood. YAWN.)
After breakfast, I finished my job as the Best! Helper! Ever! by going out and finishing the drilling and screwing. The shelter’s mostly done now – apparently the pigs don’t get windows and fancy shit the way the chickens do, maybe because they’re not going to be around as long as the chickens, I don’t know. I don’t get my pretty head involved in the planning of the structures, just do the grunt work I’m instructed to do.
And I like it like that.
After promising me that we were going to send the pigs off to be butchered so that I could convince myself that we were sending Pig 1 and Pig 2 off to live on another farm and then – COINCIDENTALLY! – receiving neatly wrapped packages of pork a few days later (no connection between the two at all!), Fred is being swayed by someone he works with (we shall call him Franklin), who swears up and down that they can do the butchering themselves, because said person he works with grew up on a farm and did it all the time.
Readers, kindly join me in making the Face of Skepticism.
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“It would be less stressful!” Fred says. “You give them a big bucket of slop, and they dig in, then you shoot them in the head, and one minute they’re doing their favorite thing on earth, and the next – nothing!”
“And the next, you and Franklin are being chased across the back forty by a really pissed-off injured pig who has slop in her mouth and murder in her heart.”
“He knows what he’s doing! He did it plenty when he was a kid!”
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“Bessie! He grew UP on a farm, and he butchered a million pigs!”
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“And it would save us, like, a hundred dollars if we did it ourselves!”
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“You don’t have to take part in it, Franklin and I will do it all ourselves!”
“Oh, I KNOW you and Franklin will do it all yourselves, because I’m fucking going out of town so I don’t have to hear you whining about how you boiled your arm off,” I said.
“Why would I boil my arm off? Oh, from scalding the pig to get the skin… well, we don’t do it like that. What we do is -”
“Nope. Don’t want to hear it. Just let me know when you’re planning to do it, and I’ll make plans to be gone.”
“You’ll probably want to be here for the second day, because you slaughter the pig and then hang it up overnight and then butcher it the next day,” he said.
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“And I’ll come home to find you and Franklin hanging in the shed and the pigs picking their teeth with your toenails.”
He sighed with exasperation. “Seriously? You’d actually leave the house?”
“If it’s going to take two days, I’ll not only leave the house, I’ll go out of TOWN. Hey. You should do it when I’m in Maine at Christmas!”
“No, I don’t want to wait that long, I want to do it before, so we can show up at my parents’ house with a smoked ham, and I can say ‘We grew it ourselves!'” he said.
“Yes, I can see what a lovely idea that would be. ‘What’s the matter, you don’t want a great big slab of Petunia? She was a good pig. Did I tell you about how stinky she was? Sometimes I would go out and oink at her, and she totally looked at me like she understood me!'” I said.
He did not appreciate my humor.
So, it looks like I’ll be going out of town in early December. Who’s up for a road trip?!
(Note to self: Make sure Fred’s life insurance is paid up.)
Yes, I am a great big wimp for not wanting to partake of the pig slaughtering/ butchering. At least I know my limits and won’t be reeling around the back forty crying like a great big murdering baby.
We were watching TV last night, and Fred paused the show and went to check his email and check the side door to see if Maxi was ready to come inside. She and Newt generally go back outside after Snackin’ Time, and most nights they eventually come back inside to spend the night.
A moment later, Fred yelled “We have another cat!” and went running into the laundry room to get a bowl of cat food. As I stood at the window and watched, he convinced a little gray cat to come over and eat, and be petted.
He reported that the cat was an intact male, and though he was clearly well-fed, he was very hungry. He ate and ate and ate, and then he went over to be petted by Fred and then he ate some more. We talked about what to do, debated whether the cat belonged to a neighbor or was lost, or was a drop off. I thought he was too hungry to belong to someone nearby, and Fred thought word had gotten around that we were cat people, and if someone wanted to abandon a cat but make sure it was discovered and cared for, ours was the house to drop it.
We decided to leave him outside for the night, gave him more food, made sure the heat lamp in the outside cat house was on, and came back inside. Fred went out several more times to check on the cat, and the cat was very friendly and willing to be petted and picked up.
We decided that if he was still around this morning, we’d check with the neighbors before we brought him inside (to the foster kitten room, away from the other cats in the house) and made a vet appointment to have him examined and neutered.
This morning, he was nowhere to be found. Either he went home, or decided to move along. We’ll be keeping an eye out for him, for sure. He’s a cutie.
Previously
2007: We’ll be spending all day at the house.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Bet I was a cold splash of water in HIS night.
2003: Poor Miz Poo.
2002: Give me a guy with a great smile any day.
2001: Yeah, I know, it’s goofy.
2000: No entry.