Moon over Martinborough

Lucy the kunekune pig

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“I don’t want to get this pig,” I said to Rick. It didn’t matter that I was already sitting in the back seat of our friends’ ute on the way to get it.

Rick was sitting next to me, practically bouncing with glee. “I know you. As soon as we have her, you’ll love her.”

In the front seat were our friends Leelee and The Wolf. “Pigs are great,” they yelled, practically in unison.

The Wolf is a do-it-yourself mastermind who’s had a lot of experience transporting pet pigs, and Leelee has such an uncanny ability to communicate with pigs that we call her the Pig Whisperer.

The target of our oddball mission that day was Lucy, a 13 year old kunekune pig that lived over on the Kapiti Coast. Kunekune pigs live to be about 15, so this pig was an old lady.

As we drove past the tight curves and precipitous drop-offs of the Rimutaka Hill Road and then the Heywards Hill Road to get to the coast, I watched the empty trailer we were towing behind us sway and bounce.

“Your precious pig’s going to have a heart attack in that trailer and die on the way back,” I said. “Then you’ll be sorry. You’ll have a fat, old, dead pig on your hands. Not even good for bacon.”

“No bacon jokes,” Rick said.

Lucy’s house

When we arrived at our destination, we were greeted by Grant, who works with Rick in Wellington, and Grant’s wife Sarah. They’d been looking for a good home for their old pig, and they found a sucker in Rick.

We all put our gumboots on and headed down to the paddock where the pig lived.

Sarah said, “We brought Lucy home 13 years ago in a little shoe box, and she’s been in this paddock ever since.”

As we neared the paddock, the pig’s back end was towards us.

“There’s the pig,” The Wolf said.

My jaw dropped. It was huge.

“I see the cow,” Rick said. “But where’s the pig?”

The Wolf paused. “Um. That is the pig.”

Rick’s eyes grew wide.

Grant enticing Lucy

Grant set to work right away. I suspect he wanted to get the pig into the trailer and get us out of there before Rick had a chance to change his mind.

Waving a hotdog bun in front of the enormous Lucy, Grant tried to entice her up into the trailer. Lucy tried desperately to move up the sloped trailer to get the hotdog bun. But the slope was steep and it took several tries. In the end Lucy managed to pull her back feet into the trailer and get her well-deserved treat.

The Wolf and Rick quickly put the back gate back on the trailer.

I whispered to Rick, “That’s no pig. It’s a brontosaurus.”

The pig bedding

Leelee called out from over by the pig house, “Is this where she sleeps?” There was a pile of hay and old netting inside.

“Yes,” Sarah said. “Lucy gathered that herself and made her bed with it.”

Leelee smiled. “We have to take that with us. It’ll give her comfort.”

Sarah got an old sheep wool bag to put it in. Then Rick actually got down on all fours, climbed into the pig house, and gathered Lucy’s bedding. It was his very first Selfless Act of Pig Love.

We put the wool bag full of bedding in the back of the trailer with Lucy, along with a bale of hay that The Wolf had thought to bring to make sure Lucy didn’t get knocked about on the roads. Lucy immediately tried to push open the wool bag with her nose to get at the bedding.

“See. It’s her blanky,” Leelee said.

With the pig secured in the trailer, we thanked Grant and Sarah and drove off, up the long driveway.

I looked over at Rick. “I still don’t want this pig.”

One last check

Just before pulling out onto the main road, we stopped the ute and got out to check on Lucy. She was making strange squealing noises, and behind her was the most enormous turd I have ever seen.

Lucy in the trailer cage

“That’s going to stress her,” Leelee said. “Pigs don’t like to have poo where they’re laying. Jared, you have to get it out.”

“Me?”

“Yes.” Leelee forced a tissue into my hand. “Reach through the bars and pick it up,” she said.

I looked at the turd. The turd looked back.

“It won’t fit out through these bars,” I said. “It’s just too big.”

Rick quickly grabbed two tissues. Then he climbed up onto the side of the trailer, reached over the top of the open cage and – gripping the colossal Turd from Hell with both hands – threw it to the side of the road. Selfess Act of Pig Love Number 2.

The mountainous roads back

All the way back over curvy roads, Rick kept trying to see Lucy in the trailer behind us. “I hope she’s okay,” he said. Then he glared at me. “You’ll feel bad if she’s dead.”

At the summit of the Rimutaka Hill Road, we pulled over and got out to check on her. What we saw wasn’t pretty.

Poor Lucy had diarrhea running down her backside, all over the wool bag, and across the trailer. My cold heart started to melt, just a little bit. I felt bad for the pig.

“She’s so frightened,” Leelee said.

“I don’t blame her,” I said. “If you put me in the back of a trailer and dragged me over the Rimutaka Hill Road, I’d crap all over myself too.”

“We have to clean it up,” Leelee said.

“Now?” I asked. “Here? How? We’re on top of a mountain.”

We piled back in the car and got Lucy home to Martinborough right away.

Lucy investigates her new home

The Wolf drove the ute into our top paddock, but when we opened the back gate of the trailer and tipped it down to let Lucy out, she wouldn’t budge. Not even offers of food tempted her. The poor thing was still so scared.

It took only a couple of minutes before our resident Pig Whisperer realized that Lucy didn’t want to leave her bedding, which was still in the wool bag at her side. Leelee reached into the trailer and dragged the wool bag out. Then at long last out came Lucy.

As Leelee got the hose and cleaned the diarrhea off the pig, The Wolf sawed a bigger opening in the old side-by-side double dog house near our hay shed, so that Lucy could fit inside.

Yes. She’s that big. She takes up two dog houses.

Rick carefully pulled the still-clean bedding out of the poo-covered wool bag, and put the bedding inside Lucy’s new home.

He was so grateful to Leelee and The Wolf for their help that they now have the official title of Pig Godparents.

Getting settled

Lucy has been with us for a month now, and it’s like she’s always been here. She grows on you, somehow.

Lucy and Leelee hanging out

She’s got her own routine. In the morning she lingers in the wallow behind the hay shed. In the evenings she wanders down to the culvert in the paddock in front of the house and munches on wild watercress. Every night she lays in her customized, double-wide dog house, her head on her familiar old netting.

Given our previous experiences with the geriatric rooster Old Man Henry, and now with Old Lady Lucy, Rick and I figure we should put a sign out front that says, “The Moon over Martinborough Twilight Home for Geriatric Farm Animals.”

Every evening, when Rick and I visit Lucy to give her a pet, she lays down slowly – like a fat, old lady – and plops down onto her side so that we can rub her belly.

Even I find that kind of cute. And I’m beginning to think that having a pet pig isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Which side are you on in this one? Team Rick or Team Jared? Pro-pig or a bit skeptical?

_________

The Lucy stories

1. Rick wants a pig
2. Bringing home Old Lady Lucy
3. Boytoy for Old Lady Lucy
4. Is the Old Lady Pregnant?
5. One sick pig
6. Donuts every day

Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine

This story appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.

See other ‘Moon’ stories from Wairarapa Lifestyle Magazine.

You can find the magazine in the cafes and shops all over the Wairarapa. Check out the magazine’s website.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 9:58 pm and is filed under New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.