The 3 Little Pigs!

As a kid, on our small farm in Oregon, raising sheep to show and sell at the county fair was a family tradition. Somewhere in the middle of those years, my brother and sister and I decided to try to raise pigs as well – an experience I remember with zero fondness and even less joy.

The idea of raising animals for show is that you raise the meatiest, best looking animal you can so that you fetch a high price at auction. So you have to exercise them. Our pigs would just wallow in their mud pit until we’d come out for fitness hour, yelling at them like drill sergeants and slapping them on the butt. We’d chase them out onto the property and proceed with their “canetraining” while trying to keep them from nosing up the lawn or the flowerbeds.

Pigs are supposed to be smart right? For show, you want your hog to respond to taps on the shoulder from a cane to get them to walk in the direction you want them to go. Well not old Leonard; he’d have none of my training. He just ran every place he wasn’t supposed to be, nosed around till I got close and ran to the next. He got plenty of exercise that way, but so did I. By the time the county fair rolled around, I didn’t give a damn what that pig did anymore. I put him in the ring, let him walk wherever he wanted, and gave him a kick in the rear when I sold him at auction.

Never again… or so I thought. Now I’m in my third year raising hogs in Igiugig. But how could I resist? Sportsman’s Lodge brings me buckets and buckets of such delicious looking slop, there’s times I wish I was shouldered up with my pigs slurping up a meal. Yes, a pig in Igiugig is the luckiest kind – at least until October. And now that I don’t have to worry about a blue ribbon at the fair, I’m kind of fond of the little oinkers. So here’s to another good batch of hogs, and a hearty thank you to the folks at Sportsman’s Lodge for the most delicious pork chop you ever tasted.