mud, motherhood and meaning

I was not always this invested in where my food came from. Growing up, we had little money. We did get half a beef from a neighbor some years. Overall though, we shopped at the cheapest grocery stores around and used what we had.

Once I moved to my current county, my husband took me to visit a local farm with a farrowing barn. (Sigh) It. Was. Awful.
I went in ready to see the cutest, happiest piglets and was profoundly disturbed, honestly. I had never seen a confinement type setup before in my life. Seeing all those mommas lined up in tiny stalls with no wiggle room was disgusting. I felt like I had been gaslit my entire life thinking pigs were so cute and carefree, muddy little messes just living their best lives. Turns out, they are being raised in concrete buildings with regimented feedings, close quarters with zero space, and, if they are in farrowing stalls, they can barely lay down. Not to mention, what do you think happens to the “not-so-lively” piglets? Disgusting.

So, a friend of mine mentioned buying some Idaho Pasture Pigs and I was set! Yes! Jumped right in. Mind you, this was the summer just after my total hip replacement at the ripe old age of thirty-four.

We made a six hour trip to get our first three pigs; one gilt, one boar, and one barrow. We spent weeks getting them to like us by way of marshmallows and peanut butter. We decided on rotationally grazing them around the pasture, feeding fresh fruits and veggies, and a locally milled grain mix. They became super friendly and absolutely understood when feeding time was.

Not only were we impressed by their temperaments, but the ease of raising those first three really made us want to continue. Tallulah never got pregnant and Mack just died one night. We had no idea what happened and didn’t have the resources to find out, so we buried him on the property. We added another boar. Still, Tully didn’t get pregnant. In the world of farming, she wasn’t providing for our family. The hard decision was made to put her in the freezer. She was a bountiful harvest. We purchased a replaced gilt who has now had two litters for us. We’ve had three litters in total of IPPs since starting this endeavor. Definitely not where I thought we would be five years later, but we are moving along.

I must say, they are not always as easy as those first three were, either. We’ve had boundary testers, diggers, runners, and some pushy ones. Right now, we have three girls that just love the shock of the electric fence as they run to tell us it is feeding time. They, also, must enjoy the shock on their way back in. Never patient enough to wait for me to flip the switch before they break back in. As much as some of them test me, I don’t give up. Have I wanted to? Uhm, yeah…numerous times. After I’ve rolled my ankle for the fourteenth time moving fences, gotten muddy ten times on the hottest summer day from pigs pushing into me, re-watering the same bunch nine hundred times a day as they just dump the bowl again when I start to walk back to the house….in those moments, I curse and tell them I will eat them all someday. Come on, we all have those moments. I am just not sugarcoating it.

As a kid, I was sort of obsessed with pigs but never really had an understanding of why I liked them or wanted them. I never had any pigs as a kid, nor did I have any pig experience. I just thought they were cute. I must say, not all pigs are cute. MY pigs are cute. Hairy, spotted, double wattled, thick bottoms, shorter legs, upturned/shortened snouts….CUTE.

They, also, have purpose. They bring nourishment to our family and those around us. We raise them all with love, patience (as much as possible with pigs-ha!), nutrition, and freedom. They have the freedom to dig in the dirt, though we prefer they stop before they dig a cavern; freedom to be pigs. They can explore their surroundings, eat what they fancy, play in the water, be disgusting and get us all muddy. They live happy, I would say fulfilled lives, until the last day. The last day is the fulfillment of their life purpose. We thank them. We thank them for their provision, for their nourishment to our bodies, and for their sacrifice.

Is it hard work? Yes. Will we continue doing it? Yes.
Remind me of that tomorrow. I will probably want to give up again. Seriously.
Building. something from nothing isn’t easy. Choosing to do it every single day, even in the growing seasons, brutal.