Bringing the Piglets Home

They used to fit in their food bowl…

It’s hard to believe these two mud-splattered hooligans once fit inside their feed bowl. Back then, they looked more like fuzzy loaves of bread with ears. Now? They’re fully grown, snorting bundles of muscle, mischief, and mud.

We brought them home on a grey and blustery afternoon, tucked in a bed of straw in a dog crate, in the back of the car. I won’t lie, Glen and I both squealed a little (okay, mostly me) when we first laid eyes on them. Their little noses wiggled with every new smell, and the moment they hit Bramble Cottage soil, they began rooting with an enthusiasm that bordered on rude.

They quickly learned the sound of the feed bucket. Within a day, they were galloping toward it like hairy, low-slung racehorses. And yes, one of them absolutely climbed into the bowl the first time we fed them, back legs kicking, snout submerged, utterly delighted. That bowl is now laughably tiny next to them, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. It’s a memory now. A mud-spattered monument to piglet days.

They’ve since turned their patch of land into something that looks like a battlefield from a soggy medieval epic, and we love them for it. They grunt when we walk by. They lean into scratches behind their ears. They are, in short, very good pigs.

And if you’ve never watched a pig fall asleep snuggled in straw, I recommend it. There’s something about that contented snoring that reminds you to slow down and be grateful.