Good Girl!
Good Girl!
“Get back—good girl, get back.” I’m in my PJs, and it’s an ice-freezing morning. I know because the bucket of water I left out last night is frozen solid. Worse, as I was finishing chores, which included carrying buckets of water to three different pens, the water sloshed out and soaked my mittens. So my hands are now also frozen as I stand in my basement, wielding a garbage can cover like a shield, trying to push Louisa backwards and out the door.
Louisa, a Kunekune pig, is wider than she is tall. Her hairy black back just reaches my knees. She is solid, strong, and persistent—and she lives to eat!
Earlier this morning, while I was sloshing water into the heated bowl in the duck pen, Louisa pushed her hefty body through the outside door into the basement and stuck her snout into the apple bin. There she stayed, practically inhaling mostly rotten apples—her favorite!—until I discovered her.
“Out, Louisa, out!” I cried as soon as I found her. But as I tried to pull her head up from the apple bin, she squealed and tried to take a hunk out of my shin. Now I’m in full panic mode, and time is of the essence. I have an online class to teach in less than half an hour, but if she stays here and keeps this up, she’ll bloat up and die.
This has the makings of a horror story. In addition to the bin of apples, there are garbage cans filled with grain, dog food, and cracked corn. There are at least thirty pumpkins and just as many butternut squash, as well as boxes of bananas, tomatoes, acorn squash, and even peppers. It’s pig heaven! But if Louisa keeps eating, she’ll end up in real heaven. She’ll burst herself wide open like she’s just done with the extra bag of cracked corn. As the corn spills out, her grunting speeds up, and she starts choking while trying to inhale the fine grain.
“Back, back, back—good girl,” I plead, pushing her with the garbage can cover. It’s not working, and I’m wondering how to call 911 since I can’t leave her alone here. I have a vision of her lying on her back, her short, chunky legs sticking straight up.
I abandon the lid, bend over, and heft up one side of the huge apple bin. Ouch! Something snaps on my side. It feels like I’m trying to pull up a guard rail and use it to push back a stalled Volkswagen Beetle.
If I can’t get her out of here, Louisa won’t stop until she pops. Meanwhile, I’m feeling the pressure of my online exercise class that starts soon. The stress warms me, the fear makes my brain shift into overdrive, and the adrenaline makes me strong.
“That’s it. Stop—good girl. Stop. Get back, all the way back.” One side of the bin leans across my legs, and I pluck a few apples out and toss them past her. This isn’t easy, as I need to avoid her massive jowls, which are working overtime. I’m also afraid because, as Dane has told me, people have been known to throw dead bodies to pigs after a crime because they’ll devour them. I’ve also watched hundreds of hard, round pumpkins disappear in minutes.
The apples flying past her head, combined with my pleas for mercy, seem to get her attention. She starts losing ground now as I grasp both sides of the bin and move forward, forcing her to back up. When she gets to the doorway, Louisa casually turns around and starts gobbling up the apples I’ve whizzed past her determined snout.
Quickly, I step-hop over the tub and shut the door behind her. My heart is slamming against my chest, and there’s no time to waste as I peek out the door, ease my way out, lead her along to the yard with more tossed apples, and hurry back to the house.
It’s twenty after eight, and class starts at 8:30! I’ve been wrestling with Louisa for over twenty minutes. My own warm-up is complete as I tear off my PJs, slip into exercise clothes, and—just in time—nonchalantly begin warming up the good folks waiting for me on Zoom.
Louisa is not a good girl —not today, anyway—not even close. She’s a pig!