Opinion Joyce Wyllie
Sometimes routine jobs on a routine day take a less routine turn. With Jock away at dog trials I walked to the kennels one evening to run and feed the remainder of his team left at home.
It’s a familiar routine of letting energetic dogs off for enthusiastic exercise , feeding pellets to pigs, shutting the team up with their tea.
It was drizzling as I opened the doors and let animated animals race off for time out and toilet . Pushing the feed shed door open to get pig tucker revealed a fourlegged super surprise.
A large black sow stuck inside was relishing rolls of dog sausage. The problem being that the latch wasn’t strong, so pressure from a pushing pig swung the door inwards, then operated like a crayfish pot swinging back trapping the culprit.
We have pet pigs, living in paddocks not pens so free to widely roam and occasionally find a hole in a fence or under a gate. She was very happy to be in there. I wasn’t so pleased.
Quickly prodding her out I shut the door on the mess of chewed plastic wrappers, slobbered sausages and spilt biscuits. Sow wasn’t happy to be outside but dogs were and great excitement started.
Thankfully we don’t have close neighbours listening. Barking, yelling, hollering, snarling, grunting, shouting , running and puffing ensued by porcine, canines and human . Eventually I managed semblance of control as I closed the gate separating pig back in paddock and dogs out.
I traipsed back up the hill in the rain to carry on with routine job in hand.
Pushing the feed shed door open to get pig pellets surprisingly revealed another four-legged surprise – a large red sow stuck inside relishing remains of black sow feast.
Wiser this time I slammed the door leaving pig still inside and locked all dogs up. Smart move I thought as I extracted second sow from shed and scooped pellets into a bucket to tempt her to follow me down the hill.
Pouring with rain by then. Handicapped with soggy elasticwaisted pants dragging downwards I ran as quickly as I could back down the hill for second time, slithering on wet ground. One hand held strides up, one hand kept bucket out of reach of enthusiastic sow following hard on my muddy heels.
Finally, I shut the gate on pig paddock again. Very glad we don’t have close neighbours watching.
Sloshed back up the hill, pushed the feed shed open for the third time. Thankfully finding no more livestock stuck inside I finally fed pellets to weaner pigs, collected half eaten dog rolls for dog’s dinners, left the rest of the mess for next day job, found the gate where pigs had escaped, trudged back to house.
Clutching saturated pants but no longer any dignity my return home was much later than expected for simple every evening routine.
Note to self to wear wet weather gear even for quick routine job. Note to boss about urgent repairs required to strengthen latch on dog food shed.
After I was showered , clothes were washed and some semblance of routine returned and so did my humour. I realised again that things don’t always go to plan today but there’s always another day of ‘‘routine’’ tomorrow , plus new fodder for a funny story when folk ask what-I –do-on-the-farm.