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.