Walzie loves pigs. Now, I\u2019m sure there will be a few smart-alecs out there thinking, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s why he\u2019s still with that redheaded porker\u201d. Well, just knock it off; that\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about. I mean those porcine critters that give us sausage, bacon, ham, and pork chops.
\nWe don\u2019t have a farm, but Walzie thinks we do. He decided that it would be great to raise our own hog and butcher it. But, Walzie rationalized that it doesn\u2019t cost any more to raise ten hogs than it does to raise one. So in our little ramshackle shed we call a barn, Walzie sectioned off a box stall for ten little pigs. Cute little oinkers \u2026 while they are little; but boy, do pigs ever grow fast.
\nWe had a mixture of sows and boars (girl and boy pigs). The boys needed to be neutered. Supposedly, that would keep them even-tempered. I never could quite figure that one out. Cut my bottom and my even-temperament would skyrocket to the moon. Besides that, don\u2019t the girls get PMS?
\nSo neutering day came. Walzie and his buddy, Ralph disappeared inside the barn. As an unwilling witness, I stayed on the back porch. Knowing full well what was happening to those poor little boy pigs, I cringed with each squeal. Soon the faux-veterinarians emerged with a plastic bag filled with country oysters. Now, I am fairly adventurous and will taste almost anything, but no, no, no, not that. I fed them to the barn cats.
\nNearly all the little pigs fared well through the neutering, all except one. The poor little guy developed an infection in his behind. Have you ever wanted to rub salve on a pig\u2019s butt? Well, neither did I, but I got elected for that daily chore. Actually, I did have a choice: hold the pig or rub the salve. Walzie has more muscle \u2013 he held; I rubbed; little pig squealed. Day in and day out, until four days into the routine, Porky escaped.
\nWe searched all through the woods behind our house, around the local farmer\u2019s fields, and combed the neighborhood shouting, \u201csoo-eee, pig, pig, pig\u201d. Porky didn\u2019t answer. We figured he was a goner.
\nSeveral days later, our neighbor lady called. \u201cThere is a strange looking creature lying in the stream by my house. Maybe it\u2019s your lost pig?\u201d
\nIt was.
\nWalzie high-tailed it to the stream. Porky saw him coming. He ran through the brush and the brambles; no way was he returning to be tortured at the Walls\u2019 dungeon. Finally, he cornered Porky in the mud wallow where he had been holed up. Walzie pounced on him. Now, just imagine a two hundred pound guy, wrestling a fifty-pound greasy pig in a mud wallow.
\nWhen I saw Walzie carrying Porky home, I nearly split a gut. The only way I could tell them apart was because Porky squealed louder than Walzie.\u00a0 But at least our little pig was home. And guess what? The mud had healed his behind.
\nSo for eight more months, Porky and his friends lived the life of Riley. We had access to all the tainted milk the local farmers were throwing away and pigs thrive on milk mixed with mash. They quickly became ready to be prime whole hog sausage.
\nEver try to load ten two hundred pound squealing pigs into the back of a pick-up truck? \u2018Taint an easy task. Walzie pulled, I pushed, and got knocked into the pig poo half a dozen times, but finally we got them loaded. Nine went to the sale barn; Porky went to the slaughterhouse.
\nThe custom butcher shop was in Altoona near the high school. Yeah, in the city. You won\u2019t believe what happened next. When we unloaded Porky, he took one whiff of that slaughterhouse and jumped the gate. Porky escaped again, running up the alley behind the butcher shop. I ran after the pig. Walzie ran around the street and cut him off at the end of the block. Porky spun around and charged me. I dove atop a parked car. The butcher, armed with a rifle, ended Porky\u2019s charge. Do that in Altoona today!
\nYou know, I really felt bad the first time I unwrapped a package of Porky, after all, we\u2019d been through so much together. But then I tasted the sausage; it was the best ever. I\u2019ve never looked back. T-t-t-hats all folks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Walzie loves pigs. Now, I\u2019m sure there will be a few smart-alecs out there thinking, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s why he\u2019s still with that redheaded porker\u201d. Well, just knock it off; that\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about. I mean those porcine critters that give us sausage, bacon, ham, and pork chops. We don\u2019t have a farm, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-interest-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}