Strange Things

 

Around here a pig gets what a pig wants. Our girl, Blossom, typically has her babies out under the pine. She scrapes out a little area, adds sticks and branches and things, and makes a hole her home. 

So it was a bit unorthodox when she had gone through the lower fencing and was up at the yard fence asking to be let in. Her trilling squeal was hard for the ole Farmer to resist and he happily obliged. 

She knew right where she wanted to be and headed for the overhang stall on the milking shed. Pa got her set up with deep, fluffy straw, troughs for both food and water and made sure she would be cozy. She wouldn't let him leave for a while though. She kept knocking herself into him. She's never been much of a "cuddler", usually only seemingly tolerating our fawning over her as if half annoyed. So again, unorthodox and also quite perplexing.  All the knocking and chirping however got her exactly what she wanted and much time was spent rubbing her belly, scratching that flocculent curly-haired head and telling her what a beautiful girl she really is. 

And a few hours later she did it! Piglets began their entrance to the world about dinner time. 

It went okay for the most part; there was one stillborn brute of a baby that caused a bit of a traffic jam, but after some assistance, the rest came sailing out safely and alive. 

It was a bit difficult to do, because as sweet as she was, she's still Blossom and we know her well and we needed to make sure we were out of harm's way should her mood flip back to its usual. When we realized it was time to assist we had just gotten home and there was at first no time to change. So ole Ma Farmer, tossed off her "town" clothes right there at the stall shucking her good sweater and pushing up the sleeve of her undershirt. Once it was clear it was a bigger, messier job, a trip to the house to quickly find barn clothes was in order. 

We can't help but wonder if she somehow knew there was trouble and that's why she came to the house. Her demeanor was so changed, and our normally standoffish girl was all about her farmers yesterday. All of us, not just the farm favorite Ole Pa,  And the fact she broke from the sow pen to come not just to the barn, but to a stall right up close to the house was for lack of a better word, just weird. It just simply wasn't like her at all.

Pigs are smart. Really smart, not many realize the depth behind those snouts. We have observed some astonishing things so her knowing and coming is completely plausible. 

And even if those snuggles and heart-melting squeaks were only an attempt to perhaps "butter us up" and keep us handy for when she needed, or were, in fact, in fact genuine we don't care. Because what she may not know is we love her anyway and would go through whatever lengths were needed to help.  We know she is gruff on the exterior, we know she might choose to chomp us and we accept her still. She's our girl, and we love her and so why wouldn't we?

 She's a beautiful girl just the way she is, just the way the Maker made her.  And we know how truly blessed we are.