Martin
The glint in her eyes, the curve of her thighs, the swell of her buttocks, and the elegance of her strut…who could fail to love her? Perhaps the kink in her tail will give you a clue…yes, she is a two hundred kilo sow and I well remember the day that I rang to my neighbour to ask when I could bring Dolly over to be serviced by Freddy, his highly enthusiastic boar. Our own boar Sam was in-fact father to Dolly; even in the pig world one likes to retain some semblance of propriety! “Yes of-course” was the answer, “but early evening when I am home from work”. Neighbour Kenneth teaches physics at the local college and only really farms because he is son to a farmer and wouldn’t know to stop.
It is mid December in the south of Sweden, and the snow is deep, but despite being able to see your neighbouring farm, getting there necessitates a trip of over three kilometres around the deep valley between. Around 5pm I have loaded Dolly into the transport box; a device mounted on the back of the tractor enabling the pig to enter from one side and exit from the other. I had ploughed the snow on the kilometre of our own road that morning, and the public road had also been cleared, but the several feet of snow banked up on either side in the dark gave a strange feeling of detachment from the world…..what I was detached from was soon to become evident. On arrival Kenneth emerged from the stables, and with a quizzical look said “I thought you were bringing a sow with you?” Jumping down, I am horrified to find that Dolly has smashed her way out of the box….there is no end door, and definitely no Dolly.
I drive slowly back home searching for signs of Dolly or wreckage of the box door, all to no avail. At home I call out the family to search around our own land and buildings, and then set off again to search more thoroughly with my mind playing scenarios of poor Dolly freezing in snow drifts in the deep valley below…the terrain down there being in-accessible at that time of the year and my chances of rescuing her very poor.
On arrival at Kenneth’s place, having once again drawn a complete Blank in my desperate search, I am met once again with laughter and the explanation that twenty minutes after my departure, Dolly had emerged from the snow covered field on that side of the valley to stand waiting at the door where Freddy is housed, and was now in there doing the necessary business. Dolly stayed the night in a vacant pen and I happily returned home to repair the smashed box door.
In retrospect, Kenneth’s conclusion was that possibly Dolly knew rather more about pig breeding than her owner, and the tale was later recounted many times over with numerous glasses of moonshine, but the outcome a few months later was a litter of beautiful piglets from which I eventually selected, on the grounds of proven parental character and intelligence, two young females to become future breeding sows.
Martin