Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer (22 page)

PART III

PIG

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

What’s a barrow?” I asked Bill. He shrugged. We were sitting in some metal bleachers facing a sawdust-filled ring, feeling a little self-conscious. We were 150 miles from Oakland, up north in a town called Boonville. It was April and we somehow found ourselves at a swine auction.

I fiddled with the auction sheet. After almost ten years of beekeeping, vegetable planting, and chicken tending—and more recently turkey raising and rabbit herding—Bill and I were going to reach the pinnacle of urban farming: we were going to raise a pig.

I had discovered the auction while at the feed store buying rabbit pellets. The multicolored flyer, posted on the corkboard amid ads of horses for sale and rototillers for rent, had caught my eye. I stood looking at it as insane thoughts streamed into my mind. By the time I had finished settling up with the clerk for the pellets, I couldn’t think of one reason not to go to that auction. I scribbled down the details.

Bill and I had followed the road that led to Boonville, a windy, tree-lined affair, with no idea of what to expect. Upon entering the fairgrounds, we were handed a sheet of paper on which each piglet for sale was listed by breed, followed by a number (which I deduced was weight), followed by a B or a G. Barrow or Gilt. I knew it had to be something about the gender of the pig. Could it translate as easily as Boy or Girl? That the basic terminology eluded me should have drawn my attention to the fact that, this time, we had really gotten in too deep.

Boonville was a sleepy logging town that smelled of Douglas fir forest and wood smoke. It reminded me a little of my hometown of Shelton, Washington. Here, though, if you breathed in deeply enough, you might detect a fragrant hint of marijuana, the area’s number one cash crop. This made for a tight community, and clearly the other auction attendees knew one another. There were handshakes and hugs all around. We got vague smiles.

An auctioneer wearing a big black cowboy hat and tight Wrangler jeans held a microphone and was rattling off numbers on the sidelines. Near the ring was a ramp where the pigs made their entrance. A large woman wearing a dirty white T-shirt herded a pale pink piglet into the ring. He kicked up sawdust and squealed.

“That’s a lively pig, a good pig, good pig, good pig,” the auctioneer yelled. “One-fifty, one-fifty, do I hear one-fifty?” Then it started to rain—a cold spring deluge—on the tin roof of the auction barn.

The piglets were the projects of children from local 4-H clubs. The USDA-sponsored 4-H (Head, Heart, Hands, and Health) program was started around the beginning of the twentieth century with the idea that young people would lead the way for more innovative farming. In addition to encouraging kids to grow plants and animals, 4-H aimed to instill in them a connection with nature and to promote good old American agrarian thrift.

The pint-sized 4-H-ers wandered around, helped rustle pigs, and brushed the piglets before they scampered out into the spotlight for bidding. The trouble was, there were only about ten bidders sitting in the fairground bleachers and almost twenty-five weanling pigs.

Bill leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Are you going to bid?” Nobody was bidding on the pink piglet in the ring. Too high-strung, maybe? I couldn’t tell. The piglets so far all looked the same to me.

“Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Which one should I get?” I felt panicked, like a cornered opossum. The pink piglet went unsold and was prodded out of the ring.

“Maybe this little one,” Bill said, his brown eyes widening. A white piglet with a black stripe around its belly pranced into the ring.

“OK,” I said, and held up my placard—a number 40 in black with red and white checkers around it.

“We have one-fifty,” the auctioneer shouted. “Do we have two hundred? Two hundred?” A jolt of electricity filled my body. I had bid!

A man in a gray sweatshirt sitting behind us waved his number.

“I have two hundred,” the auctioneer said. “Do we have two-fifty?”

I had no idea a piglet would cost so much. I shook my head no at the auctioneer. We had heard it was best to buy a piglet from a quality place, so you could make sure its genetics were good and it would produce quality pork. Also, I was into supporting the 4-H kids. But we could have bought a $40 piglet from a farm—we didn’t need a prize pig—I just didn’t know that then.

“Let’s go look at them again,” Bill said.

We dashed through the rain to the back of the auction ring, where the pigs waited in pens before they were herded up the wood-shaving-strewn ramp that led to the ring. The pigpens were surprisingly clean, with fresh cedar bedding in each of the twenty stalls. Little children wearing cowboy hats and boots ran around in packs, surveying one another’s piglets, which lolled around and napped together.

There were the classic pink ones, deep smoky-red ones—the kids told us they were called Durocs—and Hampshires, black with a white belt across their shoulders. Four tiny red pigs with white faces nestled in one pen by themselves. “Herefords,” a lady standing nearby told us. We asked if we could buy two of them outright, but she said they were spoken for. So back to the auction ring and the cold bleachers.

“Here’s the one,” Bill said, grabbing my knee.

It was a G, whatever that was, and G was cute. It had deep red hair and black hooves. A wheezing swineherd wearing a dirty T-shirt had lofted this piglet into her arms and cradled it like a toddler, with its hind legs almost wrapped around her waist, its head calmly gazing over her shoulder. The woman gave the pig a little kiss before she set it down.

A piglet in a large ring is, by itself, quite wonderful. This little one pranced out into the middle of the circle with a joie de vivre that I could appreciate. The piglet snuffed the ground with its snout, its curly tail flitting back and forth, its hooves kicking up wood shavings. Then suddenly the pig realized that everyone was staring. It let out a shrill scream and bolted for the door.

I suppose I could come up with some lofty reasons for what had gotten me here, to a swine auction in Boonville. To discover the American tradition of pig raising. To test my farmerly resolve in the face of an intelligent, possibly adoring creature like Wilbur in
Charlotte’s Web.
To walk in the footsteps of my hippie parents, who had raised a few hogs in their day.

But I’m not going to lie: this was all about pork.

From the moment I first saw the flyer for the swine auction I had thought about all the products of the pig. Smoked pork chops, which Bill and I loved to buy from the Mexi-mart. Pork ribs, slathered in spicy barbecue sauce. Bacon, that temptress, which we preferred cut thick and spiked with pepper. Ground pork, to be used in marinara sauce, or clustered on pizzas, or rolled in sage and fried for breakfast. Sausages, glorious food that feeds the masses, I imagined snuggled up in buns, doused in mustard, and served to all our friends at a barbecue. Ham, of course, smeared in maple syrup and spiked with cloves, was part of my pork daydream. I would be able to make all of these things if I could find a way to raise some pigs. There were other more exotic items I fantasized about as well, like salami and prosciutto. But these were intimidating pork products; I wasn’t sure what went into making these, but I knew they were expensive and I liked eating them. I knew that before I got too carried away with my pork-fest fantasies, I had to take the first step: buy a piglet.

Pint-sized pig wranglers waiting on the edge of the ring tugged on the piglet’s ear to get it away from the door, and it yelped and moved back to center stage. No one was bidding on this adorable red pig. I couldn’t tell if there was anything right or wrong with it. It was kind of small at thirty-eight pounds. The auction was nearly over, and the metal grandstand seats had almost emptied out—there were only three men left, wearing baseball hats and denim jackets, perched like crows in the bleachers. For reasons I couldn’t understand, they were sitting out on this pig.

But I wasn’t. I enthusiastically waved my number.

“One-fifty. Sold at one-fifty,” the auctioneer called. He seemed relieved. The swineherd woman beamed at me. Clearly I had bought her favorite pig.

My first pig. Was it a girl or a boy? Why hadn’t I prepared for this? “Excuse me,” I asked a towheaded eight-year-old. “Does G mean ‘girl’?”

He looked at me as if he might fall over from the sheer power of my enormous idiocy. Then he nodded, so stunned by my stupidity he couldn’t speak.

Patting myself on the back, I watched them herd her back into her pen. The little red pig scampered back, as if she knew something good had happened.

A few more piggies were sold, and we neared the end of the list.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” I said to Bill, signaling that we should go.

“Wait—shouldn’t we get another one?” Bill asked. His eyes darted back and forth. The look in his eyes conveyed a deep sense of panic, fueled by scarcity.

“Really?” I said, thinking about our small backyard. How exactly was this going to work?

“Yes, get two. Get two!” he yelled.

One of the 4-H kids had told us earlier that pigs like company, so it did seem like a better idea to get more than one. I didn’t want some lonely porker snorting in the backyard.

The last pink pig trotted out. I didn’t want it. I had overheard someone in the crowd say that the pink ones can get sunburns. Plus, I wanted a matching set of red porkers. No one bought the pink pig. The towheaded boy standing next to the bleachers wailed into his mom’s arms. “They didn’t buy it,” he sniffled. Poor kid.

A pair of red piglets trotted into the ring.

“We got a brother and a sister here,” the auctioneer yelled. “Prize pigs. Make a bid and choose which one you want.”

Somehow this confused and attracted me. I held up my number. Sold: $150.

“Do you want the barrow or the gilt?” he yelled over at me.

“The boy,” I answered dumbly. The barrow.

After we paid at a card table manned by 4-H parents, we were told to load up our pigs. The parking lot was muddy, and all manner of trucks—Ford F-250s, Dodge Rams—maneuvered to pick up their pigs. We had a station wagon. Bill eased our car closer to the pigpen and opened up the hatch. An iron cage someone had given us sat in the back, waiting for our piglets.

The owners of the pigs—one of them the woman in the soiled white T-shirt—gave me their phone numbers in case I had questions. “She’s a real good girl,” the woman said, holding the pig in one arm like a small dog before she put her into our cage.

The 4-H kids helped load the boy pig into the car. He was definitely larger. Once they were both in the cage, they sniffed each other’s butts and pressed their snouts together in greeting. Though they weren’t from the same litter, it seemed as if they were going to get along.

Near the loading area, someone was selling pig brushes and something called pig chow. It came in a giant dog-food-like bag marked with numbers having to do with ratios of protein and calcium.

Now that I was closer to our pigs, I could see that their hair was fairly substantial, not unlike a man’s beard. I figured I should buy a brush. I had visions of morning grooming sessions with the pigs in our backyard. They would stand very still while I coaxed their bristles into a high sheen as the BART train rolled by. A vague thought of buttermilk baths crossed my mind, too.

The woman at the table asked if I wanted a bag of chow to get me started. I shook my head no. We had other plans for feeding our babies. I did buy a bright pink brush, though; it had soft bristles and a sturdy canvas handle.

Nobody asked where I lived or what I was planning to do with these pigs. They just waved as I drove away from the Boonville Fairgrounds. Bill frantically rolled down his window, even though it was chilly out, turned to me, and said, “What’s that smell?” I took a deep breath. Oh my god. It was barnyard and sweat, but worst of all a manure odor far too reminiscent of human fecal matter.

Oblivious to their stench, the pigs fell asleep. Bill and I drove in silence, afraid that if we opened our mouths to speak, the pig smell would enter us, land on our taste buds, and go down our throats. We were brined in the choking turd odor for the three-hour journey home.

Back in the ghetto, I herded the pigs into their new home. It was just getting dark; the air felt heavy, but it wasn’t raining. That morning, in anticipation of the piglets, I had enhanced the chicken area with a bucket filled with water and a feeding trough made from the same metal washtub I had once used to dip and pluck Harold. I had also tipped a barrel sideways with the idea that they would sleep in it. The chickens had walked into the barrel and pecked at the metal trough; they seemed confused.