Pete Gets A Massage from a Somewhat Ineffective Masseuse (Namely, Me)

Pete the pig has been having some trouble walking again. He had made tremendous progress in the last few months, but then had a set-back after the heat wave a couple of weeks ago.

We've been giving him a gallon pitcher of Gatorade because the electrolytes can help him in the heat. Here he is today with citrus-flavored Gatorade foam coming out of his mouth. You can also see how his back legs splay out. This isn't normal or most likely healthy, either.

When he lays down, I try the technique that Joanne, a volunteer who's a licensed massage therapist, showed me. It involves pushing in on his thigh and hip (particularly the right one, which seems to give him the most trouble).

The theory being that Pete grew too fast for his joints (being a factory farm-bred Duroc pig) and the gentle pushing eases his leg back into the hip socket.

Whether our theory is right or not, Pete seems to love the pressure and settles in for a nap. There are few if any pig masseuses, or pig chiropractors or for that matter pig vets. Or not yet. As humanity's circle of compassion widens, the circle of experts to relieve animal pain will too. For now, we rely on the animal to tell us what feels good, what seems to help.

Some humans bred Durocs to grow too fast for their bodies to keep up--which results in pigs like Pete. Some humans spend hours to help one Duroc pig heal and re-learn how to walk. Some make money selling Durocs, some connect to their hearts, one by one. We are the ones who get to see Pete grunt hello in the morning and shove his nose into mud and stand up on his own, like he was doing a couple of months ago, meandering into the middle of the field and grazing, on a cool summer evening.
We're the lucky ones.

Post massage, Pete rehydrates with some water from Julie. And some mud.

Tomorrow, the real deal--Joanne--is coming to give massages to Pete and some others who could use it. Until then, Pete has to make do with what love we can transmit through such crude vehicles as buckets and Gatorade and mud puddles and our often-ineffective, but well-intentioned hands. 

A Few Members of Our Herd

On Friday, the rain didn’t enter the picture till late afternoon. It came down over the mountain to the north. The winds picked up and the air cooled.

There was a pause, a holding of breath, then the goats came sprinting into the barn and the sky let loose. Dawnell ran to get in the chickens who were outside of the med center. I closed the windows and doors in the goat and sheep barn. The rain was loud on the roof. The steer stayed outside, grazing, but the sheep came in just after the goats. Everyone stood, dripping, listening to the pounding on the roof of the barn.

The rain makes the barn feels like a fort—it’s us vs. the elements. But we’ve got hay and water and shelter and we're with our herd, so here we stay.

Carrying Cassidy into the med center, Dawnell noticed he was thin. Cassidy is a barred rock rooster with a misshaped beak. The top part curves to one side over the bottom. A couple of days ago, he fought through the fence with another rooster who also lives in the med center and who he sees every day, and injured his beak. Now Cassidy's tongue can’t coordinate getting food in, and he’s drooling. 

We decide to syringe feed him. I cut the bottom off an old syringe to make the hole bigger. Trying to get the syringe into his mouth with his head wriggling is pretty much impossible. 

Thus, to Plan B: Dawnell tries making little balls with moistened mash--not unlike rolling cookie dough--and putting them in his mouth. He still moves his head in every possible direction. But once the mash-ball is in his mouth, he swallows and looks around for more. Not that he stops wiggling. How can a rooster head move like that? He's a miracle of rubbery engineering. 


After a half hour, Cassidy’s head is covered in mash and so are we. 

But he has some food in his crop. So we put him back into his cage for the night with one more bowl of mash in case he gets inspired to eat.

Night is about making sure everyone is fed and watered and comfortable and tucked in. And making sure we’re ready for the next sudden rainstorm or heatwave and our friends are too. Which may include us shoving rolled-up balls of seed-mash into their mouths so they’re not hungry while their beaks heal after a senseless fight with another rooster they were friends with the day before. 

We don’t understand everything they do; I’m sure it’s vice versa, too. Tomorrow, Cassidy will wiggle his head like crazy when we hand-feed him. But he’ll eat and be one day closer to a healed beak and eating on his own. He’s our Cassidy, so whatever it takes.

A Day of Bananas

They came like manna from heaven. Actually, Sunflower, a local organic grocery store, called. They had just gotten a shipment of bananas that were all too ripe for people--people being fussier than pigs.

So breakfast for the pigs was bananas, a whole garbage can full of them. Most of the pigs, like Lodo, got right up. 

Although Louie demanded breakfast in bed. When I tossed a few bananas to him, we had a war of wills over whether I’d go in and move the bananas closer to his nose, or refuse to wait on him hand and foot. Patsy resolved it by swooping in and eating both herself. Louie nestled further into his bed of straw and went back to sleep.

Andy pig refused to eat the bananas unless we peeled them for him. He walked around sniffing the bananas with peels and turning his head away—a peel, such a disappointment.

Everyone else got bananas too. The birds had them cut up in their mash. Bob brought a couple of bunches to the steer. The goats got banana treats. Even the humans got in on it—Phil had taken some home the night before and made peanut butter banana bread. We ate it all day in the kitchen.

It reminded me of days late last summer that were days of corn. There was so much sweet corn, people drove it over in trucks. We put bushels of yellow corn into the pig troughs. We husked it and threw it to the chickens who ran to peck off the kernels.

There are random days of bounty when the animals revel in all of the corn or bananas or slightly squished grapes. They don't seem to worry about if it will come again.

This does not mean that they will not grab every banana they can. Alfonso takes a banana and walks away from his friend Petunia as fast as he can with his giant, malformed turkey feet. Bounty doesn’t necessarily mean sharing.

It’s time to start closing the farm for the night. Dawnell looks up how much Kaopectate Lil Jay the goat should get. The banana treats have given him some diarrhea. I come along to hold him by the horns while he gets the dose, but he decides he likes Kaopectate and ends up licking pink all over his mouth.

If there are things undone tonight, we don’t know about them. Or not yet. So much is about noticing what’s right in front of your nose.

The pigs don’t get up fast for dinner. We surmise they’re in a banana coma. The air has cooled and it’s perfect to just let go and relax right where you are: with a stomach full of a morning full of bananas. And a cool evening in a bed of dust and straw under the mountain with the mist rising up and fall still forever away. 

Pink Dirigibles

It's how I generally think of Patsy and Judy. They’ve become more round than any other pigs at the farm. They are round, but they also look like trouble and mischief and curiosity. They don’t let much get by them. You can try to hide whatever you’re doing, but they’ll nose it out. Forget about sneaking food in, it’s impossible. They can smell anything and they love new smells.

I once made the mistake of putting peppermint essence into vitamin E oil to massage Sophie the pig. Judy and Patsy both got up, came over, rolled against Sophie and on top of her and nosed into the peppermint on her back. I couldn’t stop them; I could only apologize to Sophie for having the opposite effect on her relaxation.

It makes me think that I should put peppermint on a pillow for the girls. We have tried to think of toys to keep them amused. I bought a dog’s Kong toy once and put peanuts into the holes. It wasn’t a big hit. I tried to get Patsy to play tug of war with a towel once after she chewed on one I was using to clean hooves. She sort of pulled away, but it bored her fast. She likes snuffling around when I’m cleaning hooves and turning over the water and smelling the hoof brush and flipping the pink tool bin and biting into my boot.

We try to imagine what they’d like with those supersonic noses and their strange sense of humor and stiff bodies that are still so strong they could flip you over with their nose or make a giant bruise on your leg by turning their head. What do they like? What do they dream of? Yes, food, but there’s more to it than that. They might like stories read to them or opera sung. They might like aromatherapy or loofahs applied to the dry skin that forms on their backs in the summer. But most of this is guess work.

Phil made scratching posts for the pigs out of pine trunks and 2x4s and set them into the ground in the pig field. But they bent over under the pig pressure and eventually broke off. We put a horse toy in the yard—one of those balls with a handle. They don’t play with it. It’s like they’re thinking, ‘I’m not a dog—I don’t care that much about having ‘fun’ with you so get over it.” Despite the fact that we’re trying to provide entertainment for them; although I guess that is fun for us.

Who doesn’t want to see a full-grown pig spin around in a circle from sheer joy—spinning in a circle is what they did when they were piglets. Now they do it on rare occasions like the first warm day of spring when the snow starts to melt and drip off the roof of the barn, the sun glints against the wet snow in the pig yard and there’s less white on the mountain and more pine-green.

Andy, on a late winter day

Then the pigs come out, stepping into the snow with their prima-ballerina feet. They spin in circles and grunt and take off at a full-out run. It’s a sight to see and even the pigs can’t blame us for wanting to see it more. They don’t blame us, the pigs, but they also don’t indulge us with empty shows of joy. They know when and how to let it out into the world for us to see and marvel at and remember. 

The Art and Science of the Pig Pedicure

Okay, so in reality, there is no science to a pig pedicure. Or not much. And there's not much art, either.
This isn't beauty school, it's just that we want our pigs to have healthy hooves. Actually we want all pigs everywhere to have healthy hooves and to live out their lives in peace and happiness. But for now we have to settle for making sure our particular pigs' hooves are free of cracks.

Which isn't easy. Pig hooves are like ballerina toe shoes supporting 6 or 7 hundred pounds. Take a look at Pete here.

Big pig, little feet.
And Stubby is over 800 pounds. It's like the whole weight on of the world on the tippy tiny toes of a pig.

Yes, they're waiting to get in for dinner, but they could be waiting stage-left for their entrance in Swan Lake, could they not?

Okay, so we've established the physics problem of lots of pig, miniscule hoof: the hooves crack. And that means we have to treat them.

And at some point, the 'we' might be you.

So, here is what you'll need:

Hoof treating stuff, a syringe for squirting water into cracks for cleaning, and a rag. Look! It's all assembled in a handy pink bin.

All you need now is the pig. 

Preferably a pig with cracked hooves who is conveniently sleeping with the necessary hoof out and ready for you. Like Lodo, here. 

You might not be able to see the crack under all the mud, but it's there. 

So. 

Wash the hoof gently with the rag. 

Then, dry gently too.

Then, apply the Hoof Hardener.

This is really intended for horses, but horse hooves and pig hooves are somewhat similar in structure and needs. 

While the "soundness and reliability" promised on the label don't sound like bad things for a pig hoof, we really would prefer something more like "for an exquisite pig hoof that will not only be strong and healthy but will display for a world sadly ignorant of the tremendous character and charm of pigs, just how much we value and love them, including their hoof health."

Something like that. 

At any rate, we are where we are in the evolution of humanity and we can't expect commercial package labeling to lead the way to a new millennia of compassion and understanding. 

So, set aside your Gandhi-esque aspirations for the moment, and apply Hoof Hardener to the clean, dry hoof. 

And maybe blow on it a little too. If you have one of those small hand-held fans found at The Seven Happiness Nail Salon in Brooklyn, all the better. 

Now you are done, so you can take a moment to admire your accomplishment. Healthy hoof, happy Lodo!

Only three more hooves to go. And then there's Louie after that, and Stubby after that. And at some point thereafter, all of your other Gandhi-worthy aspirations of universal compassion. 

Volunteering can be kind of a full-time job.  

Brushing Gertie

During a break one day, I go out to the goat field with a brush to see Gertie. Even though she’s always been shy and stand-offish, she’s started to like getting brushed. She comes up to me now when she sees that I’ve got the brush. I start to feel what it is to be honored by those who know more than you. It’s like having a deer come up to you in the forest and place its head against your heart in the middle of all of the trees. The deer knows the names of the trees, each one, and you don’t and it’s like the door opening to a magic world that you felt was there or you hoped but you weren’t sure. The colors all become brighter or you see them for the first time. And the secrets of the kingdom are revealed by the ones who know them already, who hold the key that we can’t seem to find or almost never.

I come to Gertie in the field with a brush to say I will give what I can, I will be still as much as I can, I will listen as much as I can. And maybe here on this field with the breeze blowing and the bugs buzzing just like any normal summer mid-afternoon in the bright flat light of the sun, everything changes because one goat sees you and begins to walk over to you in an ordinary field on an ordinary day. Words can leave then or stand to the side. For a moment, it’s a place of legend and a place that’s still just ordinary.

But Gertie knows what I sometimes guess at or sometimes get a glimpse of so I sit on the ground and she lowers her nose to the brush and for a time it’s just her and me and the universe flowing around us because we are the same even if I know that I am the one with the brush and she is the one with the flaky skin and the black hair and the udders that are still swollen because years ago she gave birth and humans did whatever they did with her babies and she has come through trials and travails and stories that almost ended badly and near-misses and death-defying leaps of chance to find herself here. And in my own way, so have I, in my own human way.

All of the stars and the planets have aligned for us to meet in this field on this patch of clover with the fragrant white flowers and the hot sun and the roosters crowing in the background and my shirt stained with Swat from smearing it on Andy the steer’s belly to keep the flies away and bits of tomato and melon from the pigs’ dinner of produce. But nothing has killed me yet, not the aloneness of being human and it’s to my thirsty heart that Gertie walks across a hot field and lowers her head to me, out of all the billions of souls in the universe, to me and she says we are exactly the same, brusher and brushee and nothing has to keep us separate from love. 

Pigs and Mud

Andy is a pig who always has a smile on his face. That’s what I say when I introduce him to people, but it’s not true. He doesn’t smile when he’s sleeping or not usually and he doesn’t smile during feeding time when he’s locked into the Weight Watchers room, which is actually the gated area outside the iso pen.

Judy and Patsy eat there too because all three of them are on diets. None of them likes it. Sophie says they’re on the Jenny Craig plan, which means one bowl of food for each, although Andy goes to every bowl first to make sure he doesn’t miss anything. He is big and he is a bully at feeding time even to Patsy and Judy who are bullies themselves pretty much all of the time, knowing how to throw their weight around, which is considerable. I saw in the pig chart in the med center that they now are estimated to weight more than Stubby who has always been our biggest pig—which is how I introduce him to people but that’s got to change unless our Jenny Craig plan works for Patsy and Judy. They may be losing some weight, but it’s hard to tell with those girls. They are pink like Andy and troublemakers, which means they are always curious as to anything that’s going on, always peeved if the goings-on include someone other than themselves getting something good. 

Andy isn’t a troublemaker unless he wants to lie down in a spot that already contains another pig who is comfortable and snoozing. No matter. Andy wants what he wants and he usually gets it. I give him the occasional massage and he yawns and stretches out, demonstrating what perfect letting go looks like.

Andy is part earth usually anyway, with mud encrusted in thick dry riverbeds down his sides. He lays in mud puddles, becoming half pig, half emissary from the realms of earth and mud deep under the surface, in the place where the earth exists just for itself.

Oliver and a mud puddle

That’s the world Andy reaches into with his belly and his hooves and his snout, asleep, almost submerged. He brings word from the world pigs reach, word of what is beyond our feet on the ground, he brings word from the roots. And something in our blood awakens to listen, even if the story is told just in the sound of his breathing as we sit next to him, as the dried mud on his sides turns to dust and swirls up to the rays of sun streaming through the windows of the pig barn.

Jack

If I was going to write about Jack the goat, I’d start with how he used to hate men. When he first got to the farm, he’d push anyone he didn’t like—usually men--into a wall or a gate or just keep pushing till they fell over or started to run or called out for help. No expression on his face, he just kept pushing. It didn’t matter that he’d never met the person before. We’d be cleaning the barn and Jack would come over to any male and push and not stop till we separated him into a pen and he’d go back to grazing.

Jack was bigger and stronger than pretty much any human male and just didn’t like them, not giving them a chance to explain themselves or maybe say that they’re not like the men at the slaughterhouse who owned Jack and Joy and bred them to get baby goats for meat. We don’t know what Jack saw, just how he felt about it.

Now Jack has been at the sanctuary for a while and he doesn’t just tolerate men, he gives them a chance. Why waste time head-butting or pushing, when there are so many other good things, like hay and grass and getting brushed--and sometimes it’s even the men who brush him. 

We fall for Jack because he’s strong but he knows what it is to be hurt and then also to let something different come in to melt the angry rocky places.

With all of his strength and the glimmers of old anger that come out rarely now, he has the capacity to be with us, to come over to connect and every time it’s an honor. Kneel down and have Jack put his big goat hoof in your hand or on your lap and it’s like having a mountain lion fall asleep next to you or a Percheron lay down by your side or a thunderstorm soften around you to a mist as night falls and all is well and there’s no need anymore for anguish or anger.  Jack comes over to stand with you and the peace reaches deep into the hearts of you both.