Even though the Chinese Year of the Pig has ended we have reason to remember its significance. In May we acquired a 14-month-old pig from a couple retiring to Tasmania. We wanted a pig to dig over a future veggie garden and had been enticed by a description that turned out to be a bit of a porky. We were expecting a miniature house-pig but when we arrived to collect “Pink Floyd” she was a lot bigger than we had been led to believe: around 60 kilos in fact. This was no little piggy. She was living the good life in a cosy barn with a grassy yard and was accustomed to having four meals a day plus iced tea buns for afternoon tea. As a pristine pink show-pig, she had no inclination to rut, root or wallow. Was this the proverbial “pig in a poke”? Could we transform this silk purse into a hardworking porcine tractor?
To bring home the bacon we tried to entice, trick, tease and coerce our pig on board. She pig-headedly refused to co-operate and had to be forcibly dragged up a ramp and onto the trailer, squealing like the proverbial stuck pig. She was promptly re-named “Queenie” in recognition of her drama queen performance. On the drive home Her Majesty stood proudly in the trailer, queen of all she surveyed. When she was released into her new yard she obediently stepped down the ramp with as much pomp and dignity as if she were being presented at Buckingham Palace. Her Royal Highness had arrived.
A shelter for Her Majesty was improvised with straw bales and a piece of scrap roofing. She nosed the straw into a comfortable bed and haughtily took possession of her new home. Some time later strong winds huffed and puffed and the roof of her straw house blew away. We tried to persuade Queenie to relocate to a metal shed but she put her trotter down and refused to budge. “We” were not amused. Maybe she’d been expecting a house of sticks or bricks next …... anyway, it was back to the straw bale shelter.
Queenie soon learnt how to be a real pig. She dug up the rampant Jerusalem artichokes and a large patch of comfrey and munched her way through grass, weeds and wild brambleberries. She excavated a trench and wallowed in the dirty water as happy as a pig in mud. She gave piggyback rides to the chooks, played ‘piggy in the middle’ with the magpies and hammed it up whenever she had an audience around.
Queenie has been our resident tractor now for 6 months and doing a marvellous job. She’s been moved to a new paddock and her old enclosure has been transformed into a lush jungle of veggies, currants and berries. No doubt the remains of her Royal Flush has helped to fertilise the new growth. I think Queenie likes her new life. She hogs the show whenever we have visitors but gets quite boared if not paid enough attention. She still gets the odd iced tea bun if it happens to be in her day-old bread ration but she can now fend for her own food and pigs out on roots, grass and weeds. Her living quarters is a veritable pig-stye and she’s no longer the pristine pink porker that we brought home but as the politicians delight in telling us, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
To bring home the bacon we tried to entice, trick, tease and coerce our pig on board. She pig-headedly refused to co-operate and had to be forcibly dragged up a ramp and onto the trailer, squealing like the proverbial stuck pig. She was promptly re-named “Queenie” in recognition of her drama queen performance. On the drive home Her Majesty stood proudly in the trailer, queen of all she surveyed. When she was released into her new yard she obediently stepped down the ramp with as much pomp and dignity as if she were being presented at Buckingham Palace. Her Royal Highness had arrived.
A shelter for Her Majesty was improvised with straw bales and a piece of scrap roofing. She nosed the straw into a comfortable bed and haughtily took possession of her new home. Some time later strong winds huffed and puffed and the roof of her straw house blew away. We tried to persuade Queenie to relocate to a metal shed but she put her trotter down and refused to budge. “We” were not amused. Maybe she’d been expecting a house of sticks or bricks next …... anyway, it was back to the straw bale shelter.
Queenie soon learnt how to be a real pig. She dug up the rampant Jerusalem artichokes and a large patch of comfrey and munched her way through grass, weeds and wild brambleberries. She excavated a trench and wallowed in the dirty water as happy as a pig in mud. She gave piggyback rides to the chooks, played ‘piggy in the middle’ with the magpies and hammed it up whenever she had an audience around.
Queenie has been our resident tractor now for 6 months and doing a marvellous job. She’s been moved to a new paddock and her old enclosure has been transformed into a lush jungle of veggies, currants and berries. No doubt the remains of her Royal Flush has helped to fertilise the new growth. I think Queenie likes her new life. She hogs the show whenever we have visitors but gets quite boared if not paid enough attention. She still gets the odd iced tea bun if it happens to be in her day-old bread ration but she can now fend for her own food and pigs out on roots, grass and weeds. Her living quarters is a veritable pig-stye and she’s no longer the pristine pink porker that we brought home but as the politicians delight in telling us, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
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