I received an email yesterday from a student/friend. She mentioned that the man who delivers her hay was looking to re-home a five year old sow named Tea Cup. Apparently Tea Cup could actually fit into one, at some point, but that time has long passed. It seems a fairly common story that people see an ad or read about the availability of piglets who are some kind of small breed who will never tip the scales at anything close to 200lbs…and then those piglets begin to grow and just keep on growing.
I believe I have mentioned my desire for swine. Probably a throw back to Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web, or possibly Babe. In my mind’s eye I see us walking down the dirt road together to gather sheep, my dogs quietly strolling behind us in perfect line. From time to time my pig looks up at me, adoringly, and gives a quiet snort. I understand. We are the perfect farm family.
Cut to what probably constitutes reality; I’m at a pretty fast jog chasing Tea Cup down the dirt road as he gallops, in all of his 300lb glory, after my puppy Muir, his un-trimmed teeth gnashing. It takes me, Paul, Josh and a tow truck to get Tea Cup back into his enclosure only to find that he has broken out again fifteen minutes later, with a not-so-quiet snort.
At dinner last night I broach the subject to Paul because I have the uncanny ability to ignore my own warning signals. We sit quietly eating steamed dumplings and I tell him about the email I have received about the pig. I like to think that the choking had nothing to do with the email…
At first he simply said “no”. But, with some gently reminding about being a team and making decisions together he said, “…probably not.” We were getting closer to the answer I thought I was looking for.
We spent a lot of time talking about the pros and cons of the situation. It remains important to us that everything on our small farm have a purpose; the dogs move our sheep, the sheep grow wool for blankets that we sell, the chickens provide dozen-boxed eggs, and we grow grass. What would Tea Cup’s contribution be? If your first thought is bacon, you thought wrong. I mentioned having her birth a litter of piglets to sell. That made Paul tilt his head to the right a little, but not quite enough to overcome the dollar signs in his eyes over pig food, a new shelter to be built, and straw…always straw.
What we did talk about was the amount of time the work we already do takes up. There are morning and evening chores: rain, shine, or snow. We don’t mind them, in fact we even enjoy them. But they do take up time. When we went on vacation for seven days we needed both a dog and farm sitter. Adding Tea Cup to the farm might require her own pig sitter! We talked about music and performances now that Covid restrictions are lighter, about things in our lives that are as important as the farm. We talked about the need for rest. We agreed to table the discussion in favor of ice cream cones.
Last night, sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up. It was one of those wake-ups where you aren’t brain-foggy in the least, but completely awake almost immediately. And there it was. The answer.
I could see the issues represented in the figure of a mountain, and Tea Cup was balanced, precariously, on the top. It was obvious that adding a pig to our farm at this time would represent the tipping point.
Having a full life, a life full of purpose, is important. But if you stuff too many things into that life, you lose balance. When all is said and done, there needs to be time for ice cream, walks and swims. In other words, rest.
I closed my eyes again, feeling restful in the knowledge that this was the right decision…. for now.
Melissa