Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

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©Katherine Dunn.





Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Bust out! Shark like pig escapes and takes dog with her

I was minding my own business early this morning, brushing my teeth, admiring the 100 year old hydrangea tree outside the bathroom window when I saw...Marcella. If you know our layout, this is not suppose to happen.

I pulled on the Mucks and headed out and she greeted me at the garden gate-that is also not suppose to happen.

The front slider gate was open, but as I gathered her into the barn, I still didn't know how she got out, since her area with he pigs is far away. I wandered out to the paddock she and the three pigs live in-Eleanor was gone, Cornelia and Little Lonely aka Freddy were there. And then I saw where one of them busted down a part of the wood fence, two pallets of wood toppled over. I had no time to assess that, my head was full of images of her on the front road. She had so much to eat out back I started calling and looking there but it was silent and she usually responds. She wouldn't go through the stream, I figured, so I headed out front which is the front garden, and the dreaded road. Nothing. No grunts. No alarming barks from White Dog. I decided to keep feeding and calling her as I did.

And then I heard a far off snort. She had reappeared out front, and I went out with grain and she ran all the way across the yard to me. Eleanor is about 350 pounds, and of all the pigs, the least personable. She is not mean or unfriendly, but she is...a pig of her own desires. I call her The Great White Shark begins she swims the area looking for her next meal. But I was pleased she came, and I got her back in another paddock, so now I can try to remaster the place they busted out.

I had just put Marcella in another area yesterday, with the three pigs, to give her more of a job. She was bored in the smaller Earnest area, and was starting to overboard him, and me. I initially blamed her in my mind, that she started it, and Eleanor followed. But I think Eleanor due to her size and strength-she is about 350#- was snorting around that part of the fence, digging mud, or rubbing her big l' butt, and she snapped the side of the pallet where it was attached.

I talked to Marcella about it. She looked at me with those huge brown eyes, then lay flat on the ground, showing her submissiveness to me. Instead of looking at it as a bad morning, I told her it was a good morning, because so many things that could have gone wrong didn't-Eleanor came back, Eleanor didn't head for the road, Marcella didn't get hit by a car, I got up at 7am and just happened to be brushing my teeth at that exact moment when she walked by since I usually dwaddle in the morning for breakfast...and the breach at the fence is refillable and it will be okay.

In fact, she really did what she was supposed to do, go with Eleanor.