Bill Comes Back for that Sweet Piece of A–
Last Friday, Bill the potbelly pig grew wings and flew away.
Actually, someone left the pig pen open and Bill took off.
As we sat down at the dinner table for tasty tacos, our neighbors knocked on the door and asked if that was our pig scurrying through their fields. Immediately we dropped our tacos and ran to the barn. Imogene was in her pen but Bill was not. Chris jumped on the 4-wheeler, while the kids and I pulled on our boots and headed for the neighbor’s pastures.
See the yellow fields in the distance? That’s the neighbor’s pasture. See the dark trees beyond the yellow field? Bill ended up BEYOND that part.
We chased him through the fields until he buried himself in the woods under thorny brambles where we couldn’t reach. I had a dog collar and leash in hand, but I couldn’t get ahold of Bill’s hairy little body. (Did I forget to mention that we bought Bill in March and he still won’t let us pet him? We believe he was not treated well by previous owners and now has all sorts of PTSD. He’s fucked up, poor little guy.)
I believe it was averaging around 90% humidity that night, and the woods have their own special blanket of mosquitoes that’ll bite your head off, but Bill didn’t care about us. He wanted off our farm, for sure. So he buried himself in the woods until I had to call it — we had to say goodbye to Bill.
Grady, the 8-year-old animal saver, lost his shit in the Rose-floating-on-a-scrap-of-the-Titanic kind of way. “I won’t let him go!” Grady cried.
Grady crawled further into the woods, into the mosquitoes, into the thorns, into the barrier of Hell No that Bill had placed between us. Gretta, too, cried uncontrollably (but in all fairness, she does that when she can’t find her makeup). I told the children we had to say goodbye, that Bill didn’t want to be loved, and that if he wanted to come home, he could see our farm and get there. I took Perry’s and Gretta’s hands and we walked back through 2 giant pastures to our own farm.
When we got home, Gretta opted to cry on the swing set. “All our animals are going to die before the summer is over.” (She’s our ray of sunshine.)
Three-year-old Perry asked me, “But Mommy, does Bill even know that I miss him already?”
It was then that I realized I am the worst farmer ever, and that I suck at caring for animals, and that perhaps farm life wasn’t my best idea. We’d already lost Earthy (Grady’s rabbit for 1 day) and needed to move Gretta’s rabbit Julie to a new location (because Julie turned out to be Julian, actually. Julian the Rabbit Rapist). It was starting to feel like we’d done lots of things wrong for both our animals and our kids.
While Chris and Grady stayed in the pasture for another hour trying to persuade Bill to come home, I researched “How to Catch an Escaped Pig,” which ended up being hilarious because research recommended we tackle Bill and tie his back legs together so he couldn’t run. Stop for a moment and imagine Chris or me doing that. See? Hilarious.
When Chris and Grady finally came back, sweating through their clothes and covered with mosquito bites, the children and I discussed how to handle our sadness. We prayed to God that He would keep Bill alive and safe, but maybe He could also please send Bill home, if He had the time.
“I asked God if the Boogeyman was real,
and now I’m not scared of the Boogeyman,
so I think this works.” – Grady
I watched Gretta close her little eyes, watched her whisper to God to send Bill home.
“Bill’s going to be eaten by a tiger tonight,” Perry cried. We all assured her that a tiger would not eat Bill. (But a coyote might.)
And then we ate cold tacos and went to bed hating ourselves.
That night, after the devastated children went to bed, I kept the front door light on for Bill. Later, Chris swore the motion detector light near the barns was on because Bill had come home. It hurt knowing it was just the cat. Or perhaps the tiger that had eaten Bill for supper.
The sky opened up and it rained like a sonuvabitch. It thundered. Lightning was everywhere. And all I could imagine was poor Bill drenched in rain, scared, hungry, regretting his decision to leave us.
DAY TWO – Bill is still gone.
In the morning, Grady and Chris rode the 4-wheeler through the pastures again looking for Bill. They went to nearby farms to tell anyone to notify us if they saw a little black piggy roaming around.
We kept ourselves on the look-out for Bill in the pastures. We thought we saw him a dozen times. He did not come home.
“I miss Bill,” was said every hour.
I began to create scenarios in my head of why Bill deserted us. Did he hate Imogene, his female pen-mate, and wanted to get away from her? Was he sick of the food? Did Imogene give him a hard time about cleanliness, and that he should be nicer to us?
Was Bill just truly fucked up and couldn’t accept anyone’s love because he’d been hurt before?
I remembered that just before Bill took off, he and Imogene were sleeping together. Had he gotten her pregnant and took off to find literally and figuratively greener pastures, and now Imogene would be a single mother? And — oh God — was Bill just an asshole?
DAY THREE – Bill is still gone.
I became angry for the third day. We’d always treated Bill with love and affection, always gave him super great treats that never included bacon. We even built him an outdoor patio area where he and his woman could bask in the summer sun and then hop in the pool when it got too hot. We shoveled his shit. We gave him dry, comfy straw on which to sleep with Imogene – or whatever they felt like doing at night. We loved him unconditionally, even when he refused to let us pet him.
WHAT THE HELL, BILL? WE GAVE YOU EVERYTHING AND YOU TREATED US LIKE SHIT.
By the evening, we were sure Bill was dead and it hurt all over again. Chris and I claimed we were failures. Our pet was not under our care and it was our fault. We sucked at this thing called farming.
And the rest of the animals were going to start talking. “Did you hear what happened to Bill? The guy went totally AWOL. Makes you wonder what’s going on here…”
“Come home, Bill!” the children cried into the darkness.
“Looks like Tonight’s Special on the coyotes’ dinner menu is Bill.”
Not funny, Grady. (OK, it’s funny. But it hurts.)
DAY FOUR – 1:30 p.m.
I receive a FaceTime call from Chris. It is his sweaty face, and he scans to the sweaty faces of the kids.
And then he scans to two black potbelly pigs in the pig pen.
BILL IS BACK!
“We owe it all to Gretta,” Chris says. “She was playing on the swing set and saw Bill. She thought Imogene got loose. But it was Bill! He came back to us!”
I nearly cry. He came back to us. He came back to our farm. We only failed for three days. We don’t suck; we’re learning.
And now there’s a heavy duty, you-ain’t-goin’-nowhere padlock on the pig pen.
PS:
Welcome home, Bill. Hope you enjoyed your bachelor weekend in Vegas.
(Pretty sure Imogene was perfectly happy while you were gone…)
-6 Comments-
The scent of a woman will do it every time!! Hysterical! I enjoyed every word. Think I’ll go have a BLT now. Yum!
Excellent farming adventure.
So glad he returned! Question: Do pigs typically want people to pet them? I think you’re being too hard on Bill.
Pigs are smart and friendly, usually, especially pot-bellies, because they are pets. Bill should love us — we feed him.
Loved to read Bill’s great adventure. I laughed , I cried. Sara you are an awesome at storytelling 💗
Such a great story! I was smiling the whole time I was reading this!