Whisked Away!

One of the things I gave Cowboy for our anniversary was a new whisk. I know this may sound weird, but everytime he's gone to make pancakes lately I have heard, "We used to have a wire whisk. Too bad we don't anymore." He knows full well what happened to our whisk, he just loves bugging me. We both love attempting to get under each others' skin. He's much more successful than me. Nothing ruffles that guy's feathers! I, on the other hand, get my feathers ruffled WAY too easily.

OK, to the missing whisk. On September 1 I had the privilege of hanging out with my dad in his barn while Miss B's pig, Pearl, had babies. We had to be there because Pearl turned into a witch (my dad's word for her for the day) when she had her babies. She killed the first one before he could get to the farm that day. She would have killed all the others if we had not been vigilent about protecting their little lives that day.

My dad grew up on a farm, but I did not. He didn't purchase his first piece of land until about the same time as I married Cowboy. Cattle are his true passion, but he bought a couple of pigs last year for the grandkids to show. Little did he know when he bought those pigs just how much work they were going to be!

Back to baby pig delivery day. C-Man stayed with my dad for a few hours that day. They needed more supplies (food, drinks, and a wire whisk to mix some man-made colostrum) so we headed out there in the afternoon. It was also Opening Day of Dove Season (capitalized because it is a holiday), which meant Cowboy and some of his comrades would be heading to the farm anyway to shoot some birds. So, as a family, the rest of us gathered supplies and hunting gear for the afternoon/evening.

By the time we got there my dad was exhausted and C-Man was ready to leave his post as the labor and delivery nurse. I took over C-Man's job so that he could run off and "hunt" with his dad and Grandad. Miss B & Cowboy also went hunting. Dad, the lead obstetrician, and I stayed in the barn. I don't recall how many alive babies there were at the time, maybe 4. I was exhilerated! What fun! I got to help with newborns. Who doesn't love a newborn? OK, I know the newborns were only pigs, but they were SO cute!

I quickly learned my high-pressure job. There were huge stakes involved--little lives. My job was to help my dad grab the babies once they were born, wipe them down, cut their umbilical cords, dip them in iodine, and tie them off. The scariest job came next. The babies were placed with their mama to nurse. However, Pearl's main goal in life was to kill her babies once they were born. One of us had to constantly stand by her head with a long stick thing (my farm implements' vocabulary is miniscule) and fling the babies away from her head's reach. At first I was afraid I would hurt these precious newborns. Then I witnessed Pearl being the witch that she was named that day! YIKES--that woman had some serious hormonal issues going on during delivery. If the babies got close she would make a horrible sound that even the dove hunters could hear. She would try to slash them with her teeth, like she did the first one. At one point she stood up and then waited until one of the babies got under her to try to nurse and she laid back down on top of it. It's not easy getting a laboring several hundred pound hog off a little newborn!

We finally gave up on allowing her babies the chance to nurse on their mama. Our goal became keeping them warm. We sent my brother-in-law and sister to look for colostrum (man-made) at a fairly local farm store. We mixed colostrum and attempted to bottle feed those sweet newborns. At the end of the long day we placed her six living newborns with Tink, the other mama, who did her best to care for these newborns alongside her 2-week olds. Unfortunately, only 1 of Pearl's baby survived. :(

Needless to say, we never regained posseession of the wire whisk. Our old whisk was placed on a much more major mission than pancake-making. It was on a life-saving mission. And as for Cowboy? Pancake-making has not been the same since the loss of his wire whisk. In a few minutes Cowboy will wake up and happily make a batch of pancakes with his new wire whisk. We also might even have a side of bacon or sausage with our pancakes. Nothing's better than farm-fresh pork for breakfast. (Thanks, Pearl, for tasting so yummy!)