Hogs Dont Make Good Gardeners

This goes to show you that livestock and gardening don't mix. True story.

 

Hogs Don’t Make Good Gardeners

Written by: T. L. O’Neal

 

   There’s nothing worse than putting a lot of time and effort and money to boot, into a pretty yard and garden just to have it all ruined. My girlfriend at the time wanted all of these flowerbeds here and yonder all over the yard. Now I was more than happy to oblige her with this because that’s what she wanted. Now they didn’t mean that much to me given that I was always partial to planting a vegetable garden, because I had planted them every year for a good long time.

 

“If you can’t eat it, then why plant it?” Is what I always said but she had her heart set on this so I went to work on it for her with bells on.

 

    So we set to it with her marking out on the yard where and how she wanted them, and made a list of what kind of flowers and plants that she wanted to go in it too. Then I went to work digging and removing the grass and roots to make some nice clean beds. It sure was hard work that’s for sure and by the end of the weekend they were all ready to plant. In the meantime we had them bring in a load of mulch in to use later to finish the flowerbeds off.

 

      We went and got all the plants and flowers that her heart desired, then we set to planting them all and put out the mulch to finish the beds off. Finally it was all done and all that was left to do was water them and watch those things grow, and they did too. By the time early summer got there they were pretty as a speckled pup and growing to beat the band. My vegetables were growing well too and I was already picking some things to eat. All in all everything was working out dandy.

 

      Well one morning when I woke up early, I always liked to go to the garden first thing and see how everything was growing. Everyone knows that plants grow better at night. So I went out that morning all sleepy-eyed and I want you to know there was 6 or 7 hogs out there rooting away in the back of the house. They had tore up the flowerbeds and they tore up the backyard too and were still going at it. For some reason they didn’t touch the vegetable garden, which I was glad of; I guess they didn’t care that much for their veggies. The only flowers I had personally were foxgloves, I had waited two whole years for those things to bloom and they did and now they’re all gone. Boy, I was madder than hell about that. It looked like those hogs had been at it all night.

 

    As I surveyed the damage, my eyes got as big as saucers and my jaw dropped to my chest as I just stood there for a minute just dumbfounded. My mind-started racing about all that work we did, the thousand bucks I spent on plants, mulch, borders and all. I was fit to be tied and I was starting to have a conniption fit, then I turned red and started screaming at those living bulldozers. I would kick this one in the head, next it was that one in the a*s, but nothing seemed to be doing much good to motivate any of them at all. Finally I took a stick to them and whacked those hogs across their snouts; that got those b******s moving and quick too. That seemed the only way to get their attention because they don’t have much feeling anywheres else I guess. Hogs are some destructive animals that’s for sure, they’re only good for eating and that’s about it.

     

      So I woke up my girlfriend and told here what happened and she was madder than a wet hornet, cause they tore up her flower garden and because those hogs were her brother’s. We tried to fix the damage as best as we could but when a hog roots up something, for some reason or other there never is enough dirt to go back in the hole. She got on the phone and called her brother up and told him to get his a*s down there and fix that mess and also to lock those hogs up and to fix the fence. He got there hours later and piddled around with it and did a half-a*s job of fixing the yard. That was the way he did everything, so I didn’t really expect much more than that out of him.

 

     The next morning was a repeat of the last; with the flowers and yard all tore up again, and hogs and pigs everywhere. It looked like they brought more to help because they had little ones with them this time; I was fit to be tied. Just like the day before, I woke her up and we tried to fix it but it was now just a hopeless cause. This time she called her daddy, now maybe her brother would do something I thought. But he didn’t. After several more nights of repeat performances with nothing being done,

 

I said, “I’m going to handle this. I’ll take it to a professional level.” or so I thought.

 

 So I called the county’s Animal Control. They said, “They never had any dealings with hogs before.”

 

 I asked,  “Is there’s anything that they could do about it though?”

 

They said, “We can give you a cage to trap it.”

 

“Is it big enough for a 300 lb. Hog, and will you take them if I catch them?” I asked hopefully.

 

They said no on both accounts, a lot of damn help they were. They did tell me to call and try the humane society. I thanked them for nothing and called the other place. They though I was foolish and told me to call animal control, and then hung up on me. So I struck out there too. Not one to give up, I called the county sheriff’s department next. They said they would sent a deputy right out. Now we’re going to get somewhere I thought.

   

      The deputy came out and I was grateful for that, being all the hell we already had been through over those damn hogs. He looked at the yard and surveyed the damage and was amazed at the mess that those hogs had done to everything. He was sympathetic to our cause but with the hogs, those damn hogs not being there in the yard at the time, he really couldn’t do anything.

 

   He did agree to talk to her brother and father about the situation though. I thought that was mighty nice of him and hopefully it would get it all resolved, it would at least show that we were serious. But unfortunately, that turned into a shouting match about the right to do with your land as you please debate. Which didn’t make much sense because the yard in question wasn’t either one of theirs. The deputy pointed that out but after a spell he threw up his hands and quit, so that didn’t go very well either.

 

     Things went on as they had been going, the yard still getting torn up every night and calling the sheriff’s department in the morning. After the third or forth time, the deputy told me to just shoot the damn things, as long as they’re in our yard.

 

“Ok, then what?” I said.

 

“Cook’em if you want or haul’em off, whatever. I know one thing, I wouldn’t put up with the s**t.” The deputy said.

 

   I thanked him but I knew that was it, there was nothing else but to do that. Things just can’t keep going on like this; it’s been going on nearly a month already. I don’t like to hunt or shoot anything, but I knew that’s what I was going to have to do to fix this situation. Those things needed to be shed of.

 

       So I got a shotgun, 12 gauge to be exact, and some deer slugs from my brother. I prepared myself to do something that I neither wanted to do or had the stomach for either. “But what to do with them.” I thought? I called a farmer friend of mine who used these migrant workers and asked if he though they would like some free pork on the hoof. He said he would ask, and he did. They said they would be more than happy to take it, except they said it in Spanish of course. Well everything was ready to go but me; so I found my nerves and pulled up the strength from way down to do this thing and got ready to do the deed. 

 

      That Saturday afternoon as if on cue, a 150 lb. hog came waltzing up into the front yard like he owned the place. And for the most part he probably thought he did now. So I loaded for bear and took aim and dropped him where he stood. Then I got one of the boys to help me load him in the truck; I took the bloody end and tossed him in the truck bed. I was wearing shorts and didn’t realize all that blood running down my leg and filling up my leather loafers. The boy was turning white with seeing this but it was just a thing. Pig blood doesn’t do much for leather by the way. So here I go driving to the migrants’ house to make a delivery.

 

  When I got there they were all about to leave. They were all dressed in their Sunday best to go out on the town. I asked them if they wanted this pig and they were tickled to death over it, they were as happy to see that pig come, as I was to see it go. They strung it up right then and there on the front porch and started to gut it, still in their Sunday best too, mind you. I wasn’t about to sit there and watch that, I still had some shoes to clean.

 

     They just kept coming; in the night, during the day, whenever they damn well pleased. I was jolly well sick of the whole stinking mess. Then one day this 300 lb. black and white sow was in the yard with a lot of little pigs too. She was just rooting away in what was left of a flowerbed. So I got the gun and took aim at its head and “POW!” I shot that thing in it’s fat, yard rooting head. It made a grunt and I noticed that it wasn’t dead. But I did manage to blow its bottom jaw off and it was hanging on by only a thread, it just went back to rooting in the flowerbed like if nothing even happened.  This distressed me to no end, so I loaded another deer slug and shot it again, this time taking the top of it’s head off. I can tell you that shotguns aren’t that accurate when trying to pinpoint shoot at a distance, as I just found out. Anyways, that hog rolled down the hill and wasn’t moving. Thank God I thought.

 

   So I called my farmer friend to come help load this huge old hog. He arrived about 10 or 15 minutes later and we went out to get it. I took him to the place and I want you to know…it was gone. We looked around for it and there it was going across the field, top of its head gone, bottom jaw just hanging by a thread and little pigs in tow. It seemed not to have a care in the world. I wanted to put the thing out of its lack of misery but it was no longer on our land so I couldn’t touch it now.

 

       The hogs had made so much blame damage to the yard that we had to buy a load of dirt to fill in all those holes. So we did, buy a load of dirt and filled up all the holes that is. Then I noticed that there were Nutgrass nuts in the dirt; you don’t want that s**t growing in your yard. It spreads from these nuts under ground and you can’t kill it or ever get rid of it. It grows faster than anything else and when you mow it, it just chews it up instead of cutting it. Damn I thought, I ain’t having this mess to contend with too. So I shoveled it all back up and hauled it back into a pile. Then I called up the dirt guy and told him to come get his Nutgrass infested dirt and sell it to somebody else, I wasn’t having it. He finally did come get it and I was glad to be shed of it too. The yard looked like a war zone with all those holes everywhere. So we had to buy some more from someone else, but this time it was clean dirt.

 

    A few days later, my girlfriend was up at her parents’ house and her brother was telling how a pack of wild dogs got hold of his biggest sow and killed her.

 

 “Tore her head up bad.” He said.

 

   He told them that he was missing hogs left and right and that dog pack must be getting them all. And they weren’t even leaving a trace of most of the pigs behind either. He couldn’t add two and two and see that this had something to do with our yard or the fact that I was the one-man dog pack. I take it that he just didn’t have a clue about what was going on, people who smoke pot everyday usually don’t. I did find it all a bit amusing about him though; at least I got something out of this ordeal.

 

      Well after I snuffed out about six or seven more of those critters, to tell you the truth I don’t even know how many it was but the problem seemed to stop. There wasn’t hide nor hair of any more hogs around anywhere. Whether this was because he finally got the idea to fix his fence or that the simple fact of the matter was that there just wasn’t any left. But I do know one thing; those migrant workers sure did eat good for a while.

 

 

Reviews

[Gary H]

So you are pretty lethal with a gun then! I shall be watching myself when I visit the US. Tawny has already offered to take aim as well!

My favourite line to upset the vegetarians is -
Hogs are some destructive animals that�s for sure, they�re only good for eating and that�s about it. - lets be honest here, they did destroy your expensive garden, but I suppose they think you will let them go if they leave the veg alone?

I'm only buying the book if I get a signed copy from the master of all these tales himself!

[Donna Jones]

Wow!! It is sad that you had to kill them to get them out of your yard!! You had done everything in your power (from contacting the owners, and local authorities) and nothing could be done. Why can't people take responsibilitiy for their own problems? I commend you for not shooting the owner!!! lol

[[untitled]]

Glad I came across this - it's cheered my day no end to read it. Best wishes, Bethlynne

[All faded blue]

Still laughing myself sick.. Not because of the work and the shooting you had to do, just sounds like something that would happen in my life.

All faded blue

[David P. Eckert]

Amusing story. It's something to have that clueless and oblivious a brother-in-law, or actually just a girlfriend's brother. Have never had to deal with hogs thank goodness. I keep wanting to call the story Hogs In The Family.

David

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Hog wild! This reminds me of a Big woodpecker that was pecking holes in my brother in laws house. He called animal control and they said it was protected and endangered and they couldn't touch it so he shot it. Stupid animal control people!

[Angelheaded Hipster]

Ya know, I was half way through this, and I was thinking, ya know, T, pigs make bacon, and ham, and pork chops, etc....so shoot the fuckers. *LOL* And you did!
I feel bad about the one that had half it's head missing, but what can you do?
Did you ever get the gardens going again?

[Adam Greenfield]

Damn T, I'm glad you share this stuff with us. Seriously funny stuff. Thanks.

[Jennifer]

It is funny that I have never heard your voice, but when I read your work it's as if you are sitting there telling me these amazing stories. All of your stories are great. I love the fact that you took the hogs to the migrant workers. Another great story. Jen

[Katie B]

That big pig...creepy the way it kept on living. I mean yeah it died eventually but still kind of creepy like a zombie pig.

The last line was the best one

[L.P. Hawkins]

This is a very amusing story told with that incredible narrative voice of yours. Pile these up and ship them to publishing!