The Farmer & His Wife
Anne decides to go into business with a grandchild.
THE telephone rang. Anne went to answer it. She enjoys the phone. “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll go into partnership with you.”
She spent another 20 minutes discussing, of all things, pigs, ending with, “Don’t forget – I’ll put up the money.”
When she finally hung up, she told me it was Grandson Number Three on the phone, the third son of our daughter, Mary. He’d just come back to their farm, having got a BSC in agriculture down south, and was anxious to branch out from sheep and crops. He wanted to get two breeding sows and “go into pigs”.
His father wasn’t keen on the idea, but Granny was all for it. She’d bred pigs as a girl, and again after we were married.
I don’t suppose you know anything about the market in pigs. The pig market goes up and down like a yo-yo.
Anne spent that evening studying the price of pigs at the various markets. A chart in the “Farmers Weekly“gives the ups and downs of pig prices.
“John, they’re at the bottom of the trough! They’ll rise. He should get in now.”
She was quite excited. You’d have thought she was “going into pigs” again for herself! Later the phone rang again. “Hi, Gran. How are you?” Number One grandson is a vet. All our grandsons keep in touch with Gran. They think the world of her – and she them.
Anne told Number One that Number Three was going in for pigs.
“Tell him there’s a new breed of pig just coming into this country. He should try to get a couple.”
He was very interested, but I still can’t make out if he was taking Gran for a ride or not; he put it over so seriously.
“They’re called pot-bellied pigs and they’re very wee, but fatten well and can be kept in the kitchen. All you need is to give them a toilet area. They don’t smell. I’m sure Mum would love them.”
“Where can I get a pair?” As I said, Anne believed him.
She phoned Number Three to tell him about these pot-bellied pigs. He was as keen as Anne.
“I’ll get on to Number One right away.”
Half an hour later the phone rang again. It was our Mary. She was mad.
“If you think I’m keeping pigs in my kitchen . . .!”
Ten minutes later Mary tumbled she was being teased, and they all had a good laugh.
Anne and Number Three are going ahead with the project. I’ve lived long enough to know that, if she sets her mind on doing something, she will reach her goal.
So I’m sure Anne will make a go of “going into pigs”.