Gerald's Piglets by Ronald Mackay
I arrived back at my farm early that Friday evening, ready for a busy weekend to ensure all my equipment would be ready for spring ploughing in a month’s time. When I saw Donald A and Alex sitting on my porch, I had a premonition that my plans were about to be scuppered.
After the “Giddays!” and the obligatory bottles of Molson, Donald A got to the point of their visit.
“Whatcha plan on doin’ wi’ that?” He gestured to a derelict chickencoop.
Alex looked at me and then at the coop as if I were neglecting the crown jewels.
I knew that my neighbours had already decided on what I should do with the chicken coop. Their question was merely to prepare me to listen to their advice.
“A rooster and a few hens?” Nothing was further from my mind, but I knew their ‘question-answer’ strategy and played along.
“Layers?” I knew that suggestion would alarm them.
“Our eggs? What’ll we do with ours?” My neighbours feared to see their beer money evaporate if I no longer bought from them.
“Maybe a hundred goslings?” I kept the fiction going. “I’ve been offered day-old goslings next month.”
They exchanged another concerned look.
“Or,” I toyed with them, “I could demolish it!”
“A good shed!” Donald A gasped.
“Macrae, built it back in ’36,” Alex looked appalled.
I waited. I knew they’d come out with their plan.
“Make a good shed for piglets.”
“A man could fatten a dozen feeders in that.”
“Lotsa money in feeders!”
Pigs, I thought. Not a bad idea. Feeders fatten fast and I can sell them at auction in Saint-Polycarpe. However, I didn’t want to give in to Donald A and Alex’ so easily and besides, I had no idea where to buy feeders.
“Too much trouble. I’d have to find a source, hire a float. Besides, I know nothing about fattening pigs.”
“Gerald MacInnes’ sows are farrowing!”
“He has piglets ready to wean.”
“Ten would be right for your henhouse, Ron! Cheap! Ten dollars a piece.”
“Sell em on to a finisher in three months. Big profit!”
“We’ll help ya. Feed and water ‘em if you’re stuck in Montreal.”
They nodded. “Lotsa money in feeders!”
I knew it took only three or four months to take weaned piglets from 8 kilos to the 90 finishers wanted. Demand was constant, the profit attractive. And if Donald A and Alex are willing help…
Although I should have known better, I found myself getting hooked.
“Here’s Gerald now!” His enormous, lime green limousine turned into my lane.
A set up! I’ve been had! Again!
“Gidday, Ron!” Gerald’s smile was innocent. “Heard youse’re lookin’ for feeders. Nodding, he led us to the derelict hencoop. “Shed’s good! All she needs is a bit o’ fixin’ an’ the mesh reinforced.” My neighbours nodded. “Can do that now, if ya like.”
“Sooner ye get them weaners here the more money ya make.”
“Get them cedar stakes and the sledge over here! We’ll have her good in no time.”
Half convinced, I complied.
“She should be good now, eh Ron?” Gerald always made assurances expressed as questions. They were designed to absolve him from blame if his prediction turned out to be false.
Donald A and Alex nodded. “No feeder’ll get out o’ that. Eh?”
We drove over to Gerald’s. He’d converted cow stalls into sow pens. Two of the sows had birthed, piglets everywhere. “Them are ready for weanin’.”
I was still doubtful and to seek time, I said, “Maybe I’ll ask Leo for his float, tomorrow.”
“Leo? Float?” Gerald shook his head. “Potato sacks!” He grabbed a squealing weaner by a hind leg, plunged it headfirst into a sack and tied it with baling twine. The sack struggled then went quiet. “See?”
One by one, we dumped protesting sacks into the vast trunk of Gerald’s limo. He pocketed my hundred-dollar bill. Noisily, we headed back to my place.
By the time we’d emptied the tenth sack, nine piglets had already escaped from the coop.
“No problem, Ron!” Gerald enticed them back with molasses feed. “Lock em inside. till you get the wire reinforced.”
Immediately, pink snouts poked out where old boards met the ground. Gerald quickly placed unsplit heavy blocks of firewood round the base of the shed. “She should be good now, eh?”
Before Gerald’s limousine was out of sight, three piglets were already free and straining to get through the wire fence.
“Not as strong as she looks, your henhouse, Ron!” Donald A made it sound like my fault.
Alex nodded. “Built for laying hens she was, not feeders!”
“But we’ll beat her yet, Ron.” Donald A sounded optimistic. “Get them extra posts from the barn.”
We began reinforcing the wire fencing and nailed round cedar posts to the base of the shed’s uprights with eight-inch spikes.
By dark, we’d shored up the hen coop, reinforced the wire fence, and had enticed all ten piglets back inside with extra feed.
“She’ll be good now, Ron, eh?” Alex nodded vigorously.
With these words, my two conniving neighbours firmly placed the responsibility onto my shoulders and walked back to their farm.
At dawn I rose to inspect. The hencoop and the fence appeared to be intact. However there wasn’t a piglet to be seen. The bags of feed I’d bought and stored in the drive-in shed 100 yards away had all been breached and spread over the ground.
I stood alone in the warmth of the rising sun and kicked myself for being conned yet again. I listened. A bluejay called from a wooded corner, a meadowlark rose on its own song into the egg-blue-sky. I heard gentle grunting near the stream, walked to the brow of the hill and looked down. On the bank, ten piglets lay stretched out in contented sleep, pink in the rising sun.
The moment the Canadian Tire store opened, I bought ten 20-kilo bags of feed and a large bucket of molasses. I had to tempt them back inside before my neighbours could learn of my failure and made me the joke of Glengarry County!
When I approached with feed laced with molasses, they raised their snouts and approached me without the ill-will they’d shown the previous night.
Hold on, a minute, I thought. If they got out, there must be a weak point in the coop and in the fence. So, I enticed the beasts inside the fence, spread the feed out in a trough to keep them occupied and searched for their escape route. I found more than one. They had been slipping through the tiniest of spaces smaller! Now they were bringing out my competitive side. These little beggars will not beat me!
Throughout the day, I checked, watered and fed them. They were voracious -- a drain on my finances. I neglected the work I’d planned for the weekend and focused on the hencoop and the fence to secure my investment. When Donald A and Alex came over to check they looked astonished and disappointed to see my feeders well confined.
“Got them where I want them!” My neighbours merely drank from their bottles.
“Think so, do ya Ron?” Donald looked sceptical.
“Crafty beggars, pigs.” Alex nodded. “Remember! You got them in a coop built for chickens!”
My neighbours always managed to turn the tables on me. Wasn’t the chicken coop their idea? The piglets too?
Sunday morning, I rose at dawn. The pen was empty and when I opened the door of the coop it too was empty. I could see no point at which a piglet might have escaped.
Minutes later, I found them as I had the previous morning. On the bank, in the sun, snuffling contentedly and looking as if each had put on an extra ten kilos.
I enticed them back into the pen with molasses, and while they ate it, I reinforced even points that needed no reinforcing.
Finally, I thought it safe to start the work I’d planned and began to repair a bar-mower I needed for haying.
Mid-morning, Gerald’s great Galaxy turned into my lane. It stopped by the barn and Gerald, Donald A and Alex got out.
“She’s good, eh Ron?” Gerald’s smile shone with innocent optimism.
“Take a look. Reinforced inside and out. Can’t escape now.”
We walked to the pen. Not a piglet in sight.
“Can’t keep them beggars in!” Donald A and Akex nodded as if at my foolishness.
To save face, I said. “I know where they’ll be!” I filled a bucket with the last of the feed. “They’ll be on the bank, in the sun.” But they were not. They were in the muddiest part of the stream and ignored the sweet scent of molasses.
Gerald made a dive for the smallest. It squealed, plunged into deeper water and Gerald landed in mud. Donald A and Alex shouted. Ten piglets began running up and down the bank and through the mud. The best game in their world!
To myself, I said I’ve had enough! “Know what I’m gonna do?” My neighbours looked at me. “I’m goin’ to Canadian Tire to buy for slugs for my twenty-two. Soon as I get back, I’ll execute the beggars one by one. I’ll give every neighbour on our line a present they’ll remember”
Furious, I started my truck and scattered gravel down the lane.
Canadian Tire was closed. Where might I get ten shells for my 22? I drove to the Glen Norman road where Emile Paquette lived. Predictably, he was under an old car. His boast was never to take a job that didn’t paid him cash. ‘Me? I don’t pay no tax, me!’
“For groundhogs, Ron? Sure.”
“Yep, Emile, I gotta rid my field of a few groundhogs!”
When I got back at my farm, Gerald’s car was gone. Donald A and Alex had disappeared too. So had my ten feeders.
The following Friday, Donald A and Alex walked over seeking a Molson.
“Gerald? Took his weaners back, Ron.”
“Seein’ you can’t handle ‘em.”
“Seein’ you housed em in a old chickencoop.”
“Only a city man does a dumb thing like that!”
They shook their heads at my foolishness. I said nothing. Offered each a Molson.
When I next met Gerald, he neither mentioned the incident nor offered to return my hundred. Likely, I told myself, he’s decided my cash was his due for offering the solution to my self-inflicted trouble with feeder piglets!
