Side Trail
PIG BI'NESS
John Duncklee
The classified ad announced "'weaner' pigs for sale". A "weaner", in pig circles, is a youngster pig recently weaned from its mother. I called the phone number for directions with hope I could purchase a pig or two to use the bountiful milk from "Pamela", my Alpine goat. My wife, at that time, had disdainfully announced at the dinner table, "This milk tastes like goat!" After that the three children refused to touch the milk they had been enjoying for a month. A "weaner" pig or two might provide a solution for this surplus.
I had just finished tossing an open-ended fifty-five gallon drum into the bed of my old pickup truck. Should I be successful in purchasing a couple of pigs, I would haul them home in the drum. As I started to leave a car appeared in the barnyard. One of my colleagues from the university arrived to show his brother from California how I managed to survive at "poverty level" as chairman of the geography department. A chart on the front page of the local newspaper had revealed that with a wife and three children my salary was indeed at "poverty level". I didn't need the chart to inform me of my low salary. I had been raising beef, lamb, chickens, goats and vegetables on my ten acre former bean farm homestead to make ends meet. The chart was, however, confirmation that I had chosen a low paying profession. The colleague, a California urbanite, was intrigued by my rural lifestyle. He became a frequent visitor, observing my weekend activities, and attempting to understand my survival tactics.
The colleague and his brother gleefully joined me in my quest for "weaner" pigs. As it turned out there were five pigs for sale. I estimated that they averaged in the neighborhood of twenty pounds, and they looked like a healthy lot. I was ready for "pig bi'ness". The owner said that he wanted twenty-four dollars a piece. That sounded like a good starting point for a trading session, so we sat on the pig-pen fence for a talk while my colleague and his brother explored the nearby forest. The man said he really didn't want to sell the "weaner" pigs, but he had his eye on a motorcycle. I returned the conversation to the pigs. The owner agreed if I took two of them I could have them for eighteen dollars each. More talk. After fifteen more minutes of meaningless banter I bought all five "weaner" pigs for twelve dollars each; sixty dollars, cash.
The scramble capturing my purchases, and placing the pigs in the drum was, unfortunately, before videos had invaded the entertainment business. My colleague had never been near a live, running, dodging, squirming "weaner" pig before, but he learned quickly that grabbing a hind leg is a more effective method to catch a pig than trying for an NFL tackle.
On the return trip I made a short detour to sell a pig. Five pigs, when grown, would never fit in my small antiquated freezer. I sold one pig for twenty-four dollars, and the buyer agreed to buy the feed for one of my pigs if I took care of his. My colleague couldn't believe what he had witnessed. He also wanted to get in on the action. He bought two pigs for twenty-four dollars each, and agreed to buy the feed for my other pig in exchange for my caring for his two pigs. I was to furnish all the pigs with Pamela's rich goat milk which I extracted from her twice daily.
I returned to my barnyard with twelve more dollars than the five pigs had cost, and the funds to fatten my two "weaners". My colleague expressed a desire to choose his own pigs. I explained that if he selected any of the pigs for specific ownership he would be shouldering the risk that his pigs might become sick and possibly die. I felt that any such gamble should be mine.
My colleague's brother lacked only a month toward finishing his master's degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He scratched his head in wonderment that I had started the afternoon with an empty drum, bought five "weaner" pigs for sixty dollars, and before I had returned home, had sold three of the pigs for seventy-two dollars, and the feed for growing my two pigs into hogs. He confessed that he had learned more about economics that Saturday afternoon than he had throughout his entire graduate degree program.
The pigs thrived, and grew into hogs, true to their brother and sister swine, converting feed into meat more efficiently than any other domestic livestock. When they appeared to weigh around two hundred pounds I found two men in town who were willing to butcher them. The only charge for this service was their keeping the heads, liver and hearts. Good fortune persisted with the services of an expert sausage maker who ground, seasoned, wrapped and froze one of my pork carcasses into "whole-hog sausage"! My colleague chose to do the same with one of his. Since I cut and packaged one of his pork carcasses into roasts, chops and spare ribs, he paid for the processing of my sausage.
My children may have rejected Pamela's milk, but they enjoyed the pig project for over a year. Had my colleague's brother been privy to the entire project, he might have continued his graduate studies in economics through a doctorate, using my example of Pig Bi'ness as a dissertation topic.
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