my own drum

I went over to visit with my neighbors this afternoon. They were coming home with a truck of firewood each, and I was invited over to give a hand. Of course, I agreed. Eventually we came around to talking about a neighbors hog. This morning that hog took to wandering around the valley floor. She came through here before noon, wandering around the house and nearly into the forest. Then she made a trip around the garden fence, and one more trip around the house. After a twenty minute visit she wandered back down the driveway and into the road, where she managed to slow down a couple of cars. Eventually her owner loaded up a bucket of fruit and lured her back home. She would have gone home anyway, she knows where to eat. But there was one rather large problem.. that 300 pound sow was destroying trash cans and scattering the contents. She had to go home.

We started talking about slaughtering that hog, even though it wasn't ours to slaughter. We figured the owner was just about ready to make some bacon. That hog was nice and fat, nearly 300 pounds, and cleaning up the mess in the neighbors yard was become a real strain on their relationship. Anyway, I was listening to all this because I never had a hog, or killed one. My bacon always came in a package. While listening it came to me that perhaps one thing we could all do to help restore some peace and compassion to this world would be for each of us to raise a hog.

There is something about the process of raising a hog that teaches us a lot about ourselves, and about our neighbors. People come together and learn valuable life lessons like acceptance and humility. When it's all over, when that hog reaches a point where it becomes ham, that is a time for everyone to spend the day together for an old fashioned hog butchering. At the end of the day everyone goes home a little happier and a little better off.