We used to have a barn, then we had Katrina and now we don't have a barn.
On the west side of that barn was a cement floor laid on a slant and designed to house hogs on death row. Once we lost the barn we had to make do. The first hog pen we had was built log cabin style out of sweet gum (i.e. weeds). It was perfect in that the hogs were unable to get out but it was terrible in that the floor of the pen quickly turned to slop and and there was nothing we could do about it for it was too fragile relative to its considerable weight to be moved. What we needed was a pen that was easily moved so Youngblood conceived of the pen shown in the picture. However, he quit keeping hogs before putting it into use.
I build my present home across the road from him, decided to try my hand at raising hogs, and got permission (along with a cussin) to use his pen.
I drug it to my house, set it up, bought two pigs, dumped em in and all was groovy until . . .
They got big!
You couldn't keep the dern things in the pen.
Once when I was very young, I asked, "Daddy, are hogs strong?"
"IS A HOG STRONG?! Boy, a hog get his nose under it he c'n pick up the side of a barn!"
A lesson I relearned the hard way. I figure they escaped this pen no less that ten times. I thought we had lost them twice but their hunger for store bought feed kept'em coming back to the house. The way they escaped was that they would pick up on the side of the pen and in doing do would lift the metal post(s) clear out of the ground. Since the posts were attached to the hog panels out of which the body of the pen is made, the post would clear the ground and then act as a brace holding the pen in the air high enough for them to escape.
I had to come home from work three times at least to fetch em back in the pen. Usually wasn't very hard to do . . . but a headache nevertheless.
Youngblood cussed me good for wanting to start keeping hogs again. A couple days ago, seeing how much trouble I was having keeping them penned, he told me, "When we raise our hogs next year, we're gonna have us a pen with a ceeement floor!"
I kept my mouth shut.
The hogs right now are in Youngblood's trailer and we are taking them to the processing plant in the morning.
I'm REALLY glad to be shed of them things and out of the hogs business until next year.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"
"If you can't beat them, bite them."