Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

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Monday, April 11, 2016

Diary of a Pig: Earnest's journal



April 10. Sunday evening.

The weather was good. The mud has crusted over allowing me too dust a bit, but also lets me maintain a light layer of mud as the sun heats me up in the afternoon. I have been quite lazy. Why not, I am not allowed in with Eleanor right now. She was not interested in me yesterday when I pressed my body up to the gate. I could knock that rat trap gate over if I wanted to, held up with hay twine, it would be less than an afternoon's work for me. But like I said, I feel lazy. It's the warm air and sun.

This morning we had breakfast and the day seemed like yesterday and the day before. I don't keep track of the name of the day like the people do. Why bother. But I knew something was different about the day when I saw the two of them together in Eleanor's paddock, with wire crates. All of us in the upper barnyard were curious and gathered to watch. The squealing began. One by one my children were caught and carried off to the driveway and the trailer. Eleanor was not upset, so I followed her cue and did not worry myself. I heard no bullets. The llama took care of circling the paddock so there was little I could do to interfere. Then I remembered she mentioned it to me, my woman. She told me the children would travel to a near by farm to live. Children go off, that is the way it is. They don't come back. I have my consistency here though-my food and ample areas to bed in. I have White Dog, and Eleanor, and my daughter Cornelia. This is enough for me. I like the people, they interact with me and care for my feet and rub my belly. But I don't need to be surrounded by piglets running amok.

So the children except one have gone off to their own destiny. I am told they will live out their lives there in the pasture, with goats, and two brothers that came from my seed. A pig either is in a pasture for life, or is eaten. I don't judge the outcome either way.

It was quieter at breakfast without the children. A nice quiet. They were good looking, like their mother.