Sheba, under NO circumstances are you to let those little piglets out of your sight. I know they're cute, but don't fall for it
Three full days after they first escaped, the two boar piglets were still on the loose and seemingly happier than pigs in, well, you know. The first few days we were worried about them. By day four, after a full day of piglet evasion tactics at their finest (under the trap, over the trap, around the trap...), we were just worried we'd never catch them. I even voiced possible acceptance of the worst case scenario of the boars running wild on our property. They'd have no qualms about slipping through the electric fence to visit their impounded ladies for a "marital" visit, and as long as they had reason to stay around, maybe they wouldn't go off and form a pack of wild pigs... Yeah, maybe not the best idea! But that should give you a good idea of where we were.
For the first few days the piglets had remained, for the most part, in hiding. Only coming out to snarf some of the food we had set out or to attempt a visit to their lady friends. By day four though the pigs seemed to be flaunting their freedom and enjoying making us sweat. On Wednesday morning, as I pedaled along the path back from the back pasture, I rounded a bend and there they were, smack dab in the center of the path, trotting along towards home, oinking happily away and jokingly body checking each other. I screeched to a halt and called Scrapple. "They're on the road coming towards the house!" "For real?!" "Yep! Game time! Again!" I left the bike in the middle of the pasture and crept around to the house along the edge of the land. Scrapple inched out of the back door and crept over to his spot behind the maple tree. I practically belly wiggled to my spot where the end of the rope lay behind the well house. We waited with baited breath for the piglets to come out from under the peach trees just a few feet to the left of our new and improved trap. And we waited. And waited, Until with infuriatingly jovial sounding oinks, they turned on their tiny little hooves and high-tailed it back to the woods. AGAIN!
The girls, eyeball-deep in some grass roots
Later that afternoon I was building the pallet enclosure we planned to put them in once caught and they showed up to taunt me yet again! They were a ways off, but I could hear their grunty oinks through the breeze. It almost sounded like they were down at the pond. I looked over only to see a huge turkey hen looking like it was witnessing an alien invasion. We hadn't yet spotted them this far away from their hideout in the woods. The fact that they now felt comfortable enough to range the entire farm seemed a bit absurd, but sure enough, a few seconds later, the oinks became more distinct and their little snouts popped out of the tall grasses surrounding the pond. Once out, they looked right at me, oinked at each other, and then headed off towards the woods at the very back of the farm, curly tails bouncing along. "Well oink you too, pigs!" I left Scrapple a message and then went back to finishing the pen, shaking my head in disbelief. How long would this go on?!
The end of the day rolled around and I pulled on my boots to head out and get the goats for milking. Scrapple came down from his office ready for chores and we chatted for a few minutes in the kitchen before heading out. We couldn't help but laugh at the piglets and ourselves even as we wondered aloud how long we would be Wiley Coyote and Elmer Fud. And then, they were back! Yet again, we snuck into position. About 20 minutes later they were still too far to trap. Scrapple was checking his email on his phone and I was pondering how to eradicate my boot tan (it's bad), when finally it happened. They were in the cage chowing down! I yanked the rope, pulling the the door shut, and held on for dear life as they slammed against it. Scrapple lept over the fence and locked the door behind them. A moment of disbelief was followed by pure giddiness and much high-fiving, hugging, jumping up and down, and "YES!"-ing.
What a relief!
