Habemus Porcum!

Four porci, to be exact.

After a few days of preparations (see below), and a number of phone calls looking for piglets at the right price, we made the 45 minute drive south through the rolling hills of Polk County to New Richmond and the pork operation of a nice farmer named Paul.

We'd secured the use of Grandma and Grandpa Irkhe's truck last week so all we had to do this morning was fill the bed up with straw and hit the road. The drive was beautiful. A heavy dusting of snow fell last night and covered the mostly brown countryside.

Farmer Paul's four friendly sons walked us over to the hog barn and showed us the pen from which our four grunting little piggies would come--little did I realize what an ordeal extracting them would be! They chatted with us while they waited for dad to come down and point out which pigs were to be ours.

"I got those two at an auction in River Falls," one of the boys offered. "I'm going to raise them myself."

When farmer Paul didn't appear the lads decided to take us on a tour of the building. There were a great number of pig pens set up throughout and pigs happily grunting away everywhere. We got to see a few dozen of the farm's sows: enormous mothers, some with a dozen newborn piglets suckling away eagerly on their swollen teats.

At last farmer Paul arrived and the tour came to an end. He brought us back to the first pen and pointed out our pigs: a large red one, two pink ones and a black one with a pink stripe around her midsection. Then the fun began. Two of the boys hopped into the pen and poised themselves for the struggle. Ungreased though the hogs may have been, they were still elusive as could be. When the boys were able to catch them the hogs uttered horrible, piercing shrieks, something akin to the screams of the ring-wraiths.

The boys deposited the discontented piglets in the truck, we paid farmer Paul and headed on our merry way. We took the turns on the winding road more gently on the way home. I don't know what a car-sick piglet looks like, but I can't imagine it's a pretty sight.

When we got home we put some feed in their trough and water in their dish and steeled ourselves for more shrieking. We took the big red one out first, whom we have named El Guapo, since she seems to be the ring leader of the newly formed quartet. Then the black and pink: Dusty Bottoms. Then the male pink: Ned Nederlander. And, finally, the female pink: Lucky Day.

Our cute pigs in the back of the truck

Once the piggies were in their building they stood huddled in the far corner -- nervous and a bit chilly. The timid creatures wouldn't investigate the new digs while we were watching so we went to check on the chickens. When we came back and peeked through the window they were eating away happily, so we came back in and gave them a few scratches.

We're really stoked to have made this big addition to our farm today. The pigs seem to be healthy and to have settled in pretty well in their first afternoon. We'll be sure to provide plenty of pictures as the little herd grows.

[4/18 -- Update: I am delighted to report that it turns out El Guapo is in fact a male after all. He and Ned, are of course 'cut' as the euphemism goes, so there is no need to worry about piggy progeny popping up at any point.]