LJ Idol Season 8: Week 28; Walking on Eggshells (and around all the farm animals)
"Please move...." I whispered. "Come on... Just a little bit?"
I nudged softly with my foot, trying to get my dinner from the stove. My foot only moved about half an inch before a shrill squeal broke out into the room.
"Kristen! Did you kick the pig?" My mom came rushing over from the kitchen table causing almost as much noise as the pig itself.
"Of course I didn't kick the pig! I'd never do that!” I pleaded. "I gently nudged her to make her move..." The pig’s squealing continued as she glared up at me as if to say, "How could you?”
My mom gave me the exact same look.
"Poor Miss Piggy... Did she kick you?" The pig nuzzled up to my mom's hand like a dog; taking in the affection while still not moving from the front of the stove. If pigs could smile, I'd swear she was smirking at me as she claimed her victory over the house once again.
"I didn’t kick her, I swear!” It fell on deaf ears. I looked down at the pig who was now pretending that I beat her within an inch of her life; the pig who’d gotten me into more trouble than a sibling. "You're lucky my family is crazy and doesn't make bacon out of you. If you were my pig..."
I knew better. I knew that if she were my pet pig, I'd dote upon her too. She just needed to stay out of the tiny kitchen; that house was too small for a pig!
(For the visually impaired, the above photo is Miss Piggy as a baby. The photo is blurry, but you can see her in my sister's living room near a ball that she sometimes rolled around. Trust me, she got much bigger than this.)
Sadly, this wasn’t the first time Miss Piggy and I had had a confrontation. She came to learn that just by squealing, my mom would fuss over her and assume I’d done something to hurt her. Or if I’d dared make her move from the couch where I’d wanted to sit? It was worse than if I’d just told her what was in the BLT I was having for dinner! I can’t count how often I had to sit on the floor so she could have the couch. Miss Piggy couldn’t sleep on the floor either, and she always had to have a blanket covering her too. God forbid it fall off; she would cry like a maniac until someone covered her up and tucked her in again. Somehow she managed to convince everyone that I had intentionally uncovered her. Alas, always the bad guy.
If only it had just been the one difficult pig that had ruled the house, maybe then, I could brush off the fact that my mom sided with a farm animal over her own daughter. But Miss Piggy wasn’t the first critter to live with my family. Goats, chickens, ducks and maybe even a turkey or two had all been roommates at some point, as unlikely as it sounds.
It started when I was about 14 with Charlotte, a typical meat-eating pig. You know, the kind that usually gets made into bacon or sausage? Yep. We had one of those as a pet because it was my sister's favorite animal. Although, if there’s one thing our pigs never had to worry about, it was becoming dinner. Send our pigs to the slaughterhouse? No way! It was unheard of! They had a better house than many dogs in this country.
Charlotte started out as an inside pet, but because he was a gazillion pounds larger than the pot-bellied Miss Piggy who followed him, he eventually had to move outside. And yes, I called Charlotte a “he”. You can thank my then 4-year old niece, Samantha, for that one.
"This is my pig, Charlotte!"
"Why Charlotte, honey? Isn't he a boy pig?" I knew kids were strange creatures and often have random reasons for naming their pets, but I just had to ask.
"Yep! I named him Wilbur...” She rubbed the pig’s snout gently. "But then daddy cut his nuts off! So now his name is Charlotte!”
Leave it to a 4-year old to create logic such as that.
Charlotte lived to a ripe old age in a fenced-in area next to the house. Walk by and forget to pet the monstrosity of a meat-eating pig? He'd cry like a baby. He would nuzzle your hand and eat scraps gently from your fingers, just like any of our million stray dogs that also wandered the property. The day we had to put Charlotte down because he was deathly ill was a tragic day for our family. No one laughed as distant family members joked about making him into bacon. He was our pet, our friend; not our dinner. He had a name and a unique personality that we would miss dearly. Who cares if he could have fed a village in China? He had been our pet just as much as any dog or cat.
Charlotte was buried in our backyard, alongside the other animals that have passed through our lives, including goats and horses too.
Animals are my family’s weakness. They always took in any creature that needed a home. That’s how we got our first goats. Three goats were being neglected at a road-side petting zoo so my mom bought them from the guy for $50. Billy, Tom and Huck quickly became part of our family. Eventually, we added other goats to the mix. There's nothing more adorable than baby goats jumping playfully from your coffee table, legs splayed out like they’re flying. Then as they land, they climb back up and do it all over again.
Goats are goofy. Seriously, if you have never owned a pet goat, you’re missing out. For the most part they are hilarious creatures and sweet as pie. Unless you get a non-neutered male with horns. Then they get pretty dang pissy. I learned early on that you don’t want to piss off something with horns unless you can run like hell.
While Gruff lived with us, I was in the best shape of my life from all the running.
Sure, at times, I’d try to "play” with him by letting him ram my hands with his horns. Just like playing with a temperamental cat though, within minutes of playing, he would grow tired and show me up. Which usually meant I'd end up head first on the ground, with an angry goat peeing on me (because he was an ass like that). I learned early on that he wasn’t a goat to play with since I wasn’t into water sports. But that didn’t mean Gruff didn’t try to take me down every chance he could get.
I would look around cautiously... We had seven acres, a good chunk of them wooded so he could be hiding anywhere, but I always prayed he was sleeping in the shelter. I’d start off walking across the yard and then I’d see him staring at me, his eyes were dark burning pools of mayhem. He was already in position to disembowel me with his horns. I’d do an about-face and book it back towards the house with the goat in hot pursuit. Sometimes I won, and would savour the victory from inside the kitchen. Most of the time, though, he did. And every single time my mother would shout from the house:
"Kristen! Why do you insist on upsetting the goat?”
Because apparently I had a death wish?
Even the chickens attacked me, and what harm can a tiny chicken do? Really now... Laugh all you want. But imagine this sucker chasing you down from out of nowhere, peck-peck-pecking at your feet.
Meet Dumpling. He looked exactly like this.
(For the visually impaired, the above photo is of a silkie chicken. Silkie chickens have very thick white feathers on their heads that resembles fur).
Dumpling is the killer chicken that looks like he came out of a Science-Fiction movie. He inspired many-a-nightmare as a child. If you’d met him, you’d understand.
To be fair, Dumpling started out as a very loving chicken. I used to carry him around, petting his soft feathers and loving him. Not many of our chickens got names, but Dumpling was special. Then one day he snapped.
But then, my mom would often remind me... he was merely a chicken. A chicken that, bizarrely, happened to have a taste for human flesh, and made me stop wearing flips-flops, for fear of losing a toe.
What’s a toe or two when you have a companion like that? Just thank God he wasn’t taller, because he gladly would have gladly pecked out my eyes had he been able to reach them.
I’ve been attacked by goats, chickens and even a baboon (a story for another time). I’ve had a pig boss me around my own house. However, I still absolutely adore animals of all types; no matter if they are furry or slimy, sweet or dangerous, they all have a place in my heart. I’ve held baby alligators and felt boas constrict my fingers while thinking it’s the coolest thing ever. I’ve taken care of baby ducks that later died in my hands after being attacked by dogs. I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced wild baby squirrels crawl up my legs and allow me to hold them. We’ve also saved a baby deer during a flash flood, and held it until conservation could come and to take it to safety.
My name is Kristen and if you ask me to list one thing about myself, the first thing that always comes to mind is that I’m an animal lover through and through. For now I have a dog and a cat, but who knows what my zoo will look like one day.
Thanks, Mom.
(This is my entry for Week 28 of
therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please stop by and read other wonderful takes on the topic. Heck, even if farm animals aren't your thing, consider stopping by and reading the other awesome writers that have been kicking butt for almost 7 months now anyway. Maybe consider joining in on the fun next season too!)
I nudged softly with my foot, trying to get my dinner from the stove. My foot only moved about half an inch before a shrill squeal broke out into the room.
"Kristen! Did you kick the pig?" My mom came rushing over from the kitchen table causing almost as much noise as the pig itself.
"Of course I didn't kick the pig! I'd never do that!” I pleaded. "I gently nudged her to make her move..." The pig’s squealing continued as she glared up at me as if to say, "How could you?”
My mom gave me the exact same look.
"Poor Miss Piggy... Did she kick you?" The pig nuzzled up to my mom's hand like a dog; taking in the affection while still not moving from the front of the stove. If pigs could smile, I'd swear she was smirking at me as she claimed her victory over the house once again.
"I didn’t kick her, I swear!” It fell on deaf ears. I looked down at the pig who was now pretending that I beat her within an inch of her life; the pig who’d gotten me into more trouble than a sibling. "You're lucky my family is crazy and doesn't make bacon out of you. If you were my pig..."
I knew better. I knew that if she were my pet pig, I'd dote upon her too. She just needed to stay out of the tiny kitchen; that house was too small for a pig!
(For the visually impaired, the above photo is Miss Piggy as a baby. The photo is blurry, but you can see her in my sister's living room near a ball that she sometimes rolled around. Trust me, she got much bigger than this.)
Sadly, this wasn’t the first time Miss Piggy and I had had a confrontation. She came to learn that just by squealing, my mom would fuss over her and assume I’d done something to hurt her. Or if I’d dared make her move from the couch where I’d wanted to sit? It was worse than if I’d just told her what was in the BLT I was having for dinner! I can’t count how often I had to sit on the floor so she could have the couch. Miss Piggy couldn’t sleep on the floor either, and she always had to have a blanket covering her too. God forbid it fall off; she would cry like a maniac until someone covered her up and tucked her in again. Somehow she managed to convince everyone that I had intentionally uncovered her. Alas, always the bad guy.
If only it had just been the one difficult pig that had ruled the house, maybe then, I could brush off the fact that my mom sided with a farm animal over her own daughter. But Miss Piggy wasn’t the first critter to live with my family. Goats, chickens, ducks and maybe even a turkey or two had all been roommates at some point, as unlikely as it sounds.
It started when I was about 14 with Charlotte, a typical meat-eating pig. You know, the kind that usually gets made into bacon or sausage? Yep. We had one of those as a pet because it was my sister's favorite animal. Although, if there’s one thing our pigs never had to worry about, it was becoming dinner. Send our pigs to the slaughterhouse? No way! It was unheard of! They had a better house than many dogs in this country.
Charlotte started out as an inside pet, but because he was a gazillion pounds larger than the pot-bellied Miss Piggy who followed him, he eventually had to move outside. And yes, I called Charlotte a “he”. You can thank my then 4-year old niece, Samantha, for that one.
"This is my pig, Charlotte!"
"Why Charlotte, honey? Isn't he a boy pig?" I knew kids were strange creatures and often have random reasons for naming their pets, but I just had to ask.
"Yep! I named him Wilbur...” She rubbed the pig’s snout gently. "But then daddy cut his nuts off! So now his name is Charlotte!”
Leave it to a 4-year old to create logic such as that.
Charlotte lived to a ripe old age in a fenced-in area next to the house. Walk by and forget to pet the monstrosity of a meat-eating pig? He'd cry like a baby. He would nuzzle your hand and eat scraps gently from your fingers, just like any of our million stray dogs that also wandered the property. The day we had to put Charlotte down because he was deathly ill was a tragic day for our family. No one laughed as distant family members joked about making him into bacon. He was our pet, our friend; not our dinner. He had a name and a unique personality that we would miss dearly. Who cares if he could have fed a village in China? He had been our pet just as much as any dog or cat.
Charlotte was buried in our backyard, alongside the other animals that have passed through our lives, including goats and horses too.
Animals are my family’s weakness. They always took in any creature that needed a home. That’s how we got our first goats. Three goats were being neglected at a road-side petting zoo so my mom bought them from the guy for $50. Billy, Tom and Huck quickly became part of our family. Eventually, we added other goats to the mix. There's nothing more adorable than baby goats jumping playfully from your coffee table, legs splayed out like they’re flying. Then as they land, they climb back up and do it all over again.
Goats are goofy. Seriously, if you have never owned a pet goat, you’re missing out. For the most part they are hilarious creatures and sweet as pie. Unless you get a non-neutered male with horns. Then they get pretty dang pissy. I learned early on that you don’t want to piss off something with horns unless you can run like hell.
While Gruff lived with us, I was in the best shape of my life from all the running.
Sure, at times, I’d try to "play” with him by letting him ram my hands with his horns. Just like playing with a temperamental cat though, within minutes of playing, he would grow tired and show me up. Which usually meant I'd end up head first on the ground, with an angry goat peeing on me (because he was an ass like that). I learned early on that he wasn’t a goat to play with since I wasn’t into water sports. But that didn’t mean Gruff didn’t try to take me down every chance he could get.
I would look around cautiously... We had seven acres, a good chunk of them wooded so he could be hiding anywhere, but I always prayed he was sleeping in the shelter. I’d start off walking across the yard and then I’d see him staring at me, his eyes were dark burning pools of mayhem. He was already in position to disembowel me with his horns. I’d do an about-face and book it back towards the house with the goat in hot pursuit. Sometimes I won, and would savour the victory from inside the kitchen. Most of the time, though, he did. And every single time my mother would shout from the house:
"Kristen! Why do you insist on upsetting the goat?”
Because apparently I had a death wish?
Even the chickens attacked me, and what harm can a tiny chicken do? Really now... Laugh all you want. But imagine this sucker chasing you down from out of nowhere, peck-peck-pecking at your feet.
Meet Dumpling. He looked exactly like this.
(For the visually impaired, the above photo is of a silkie chicken. Silkie chickens have very thick white feathers on their heads that resembles fur).
Dumpling is the killer chicken that looks like he came out of a Science-Fiction movie. He inspired many-a-nightmare as a child. If you’d met him, you’d understand.
To be fair, Dumpling started out as a very loving chicken. I used to carry him around, petting his soft feathers and loving him. Not many of our chickens got names, but Dumpling was special. Then one day he snapped.
But then, my mom would often remind me... he was merely a chicken. A chicken that, bizarrely, happened to have a taste for human flesh, and made me stop wearing flips-flops, for fear of losing a toe.
What’s a toe or two when you have a companion like that? Just thank God he wasn’t taller, because he gladly would have gladly pecked out my eyes had he been able to reach them.
I’ve been attacked by goats, chickens and even a baboon (a story for another time). I’ve had a pig boss me around my own house. However, I still absolutely adore animals of all types; no matter if they are furry or slimy, sweet or dangerous, they all have a place in my heart. I’ve held baby alligators and felt boas constrict my fingers while thinking it’s the coolest thing ever. I’ve taken care of baby ducks that later died in my hands after being attacked by dogs. I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced wild baby squirrels crawl up my legs and allow me to hold them. We’ve also saved a baby deer during a flash flood, and held it until conservation could come and to take it to safety.
My name is Kristen and if you ask me to list one thing about myself, the first thing that always comes to mind is that I’m an animal lover through and through. For now I have a dog and a cat, but who knows what my zoo will look like one day.
Thanks, Mom.
(This is my entry for Week 28 of
therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please stop by and read other wonderful takes on the topic. Heck, even if farm animals aren't your thing, consider stopping by and reading the other awesome writers that have been kicking butt for almost 7 months now anyway. Maybe consider joining in on the fun next season too!)