The Life and Trials of Sir Stinky...Or Was That Mr. Pink???

I'm riding on the back of the four-wheeler the other day just looking around and thinking how pretty everything is looking on the farm. My stream of consciousness went something like this: There's our beautiful garden where Marissa has just done some fall planting and we picked hundreds of tomatoes from this morning. I can't believe that it used to just look like a jungle there! Oh look at all of our baby chicks...they're teenagers now! I wonder if we'll have enough firewood for the winter. Oh and there is one of the pigs with his little curly...pig? PIG?!!!? So Boom (our sweet little border collie) goes after him and I see them run off into the woods. I stand there and call them for a while and look for them everywhere in the direction they ran off in, thinking they're in the woods somewhere. Finally I give up because I need to continue with the afternoon chores and head over to the pig pen where I see all five pigs looking at me in hopes of something delicious to eat and little Boom laying near the pig pen keeping a close eye on his charges. Sneaky little pig!!! We have a theory that the other pigs send him to do the dirty work and let us know that they are hungry. We just consider him a "free-range pig", which seems a lot better than "the pig we can't seem to keep in his pen"!

We have five pigs, the original Sweet Peeps piggies, Truffle Scruffle and Locks 'n Ivy (very well behaved as far as the fence goes) and the three younger pigs Mr. Pink, Sir Stinky, and Dr. Porkchop. I keep calling the rogue pig Sir Stinky (because I think he is a stinker!) but Marissa tells me it's actually Mr. Pink. We are all especially fond of these last three names because of the story behind them.

Back in the beginning of the summer we were invited to bring some of our animals to the Library Summer Kickoff party. We had a blast and our mini petting zoo was a huge hit with all the kids! The best part is that we had a "Name That Pig" contest where all of the kids entered their favorite names and we chose the top three. I have to say that variations of "porkchop" and "bacon" were probably the most common followed closely by "Wilber". That's pretty much the two ends of the spectrum as far as meaning of pig names go! "Wilber" is sweet but I think "Bacon" is more accurate. Lots of people ask us how we feel about the thought of eating our pigs. Honestly, for me it is a little bit hard to think about but I really like what a farmer friend of ours, Tom Ward says that "every day of these pigs lives is amazing and good until one day they have a bad day". And it's true, you never saw such happy, healthy pigs...especially our free-ranger!