The Rural Voice, 1993-11, Page 10_RLRa�
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Gisele Ireland
Home is where the fun is
No matter how exciting and differ-
ent I feel a day at work has been, I
know before I pull into the garage that
what went on at home will make my
day seem as inte-
resting as sewing
for half an hour
with no thread in
the machine.
Our youngest
daughter, Debbie,
is on a waiting
list to get into
college and is
filling her days
with any jobs she
can find, mainly
babysitting. Mind
you, I know en-
ough not to bring
up the topic of
how the day went if I come home and
she's got eight kids under the age of
five bee -bopping round her. Her
general appearance of barely having
survived a hurricane says it all.
On one of her more fun -filled days
she was minding our grandsons for
the afternoon, one almost three and
the other trying hard to walk. When I
came in the door, I was met by the
oldest, Benjamin, with arms in
motion and words tripping over each
other trying to tell me what happened
that afternoon. I caught the word
"pigs" a lot, and the basic fact that
Aunt Debbie was "mad". She wasn't
long in filling me in.
Benjamin had looked out the win-
dow and told her there were pigs in
Nanna's flower beds. At first she
attributed his observation to the fact
she'd just read him the story of the
three little pigs, but he insisted and
she checked. Yup, there were two
pigs trying to re -arrange the landsca-
ping. She went out and looked at
them and then took a tour of the barn.
She claims there were no open doors
or pens before she made a major
management decision. They had to
be AWOL from a neighbour. She
called whom she suspected owned
them and convinced him neighbourly
harmony would be strained if these
pigs were still doing what they were
doing when I got home. Bring your
truck, she tacked on for good
measure. The neighbour obeyed and
was there shortly.
According to Debbie's narrative of
the adventurous aftemoon, these pigs
were very reluctant to give up their
freedom and much to the enjoyment
of our grandsons, romped both
Debbie and the neighbour through the
yard until their lungs were operating
like bellows. Benjamin especially
liked the yelling. I think that's where
he got the idea Debbie was mad.
In a desperate effort to get rid of
these hogs, Debbie suggested they
load them through our chute in the
barn. The neighbour had an even
better idea. Let the hogs into one of
our pens until help arrived and he'd
get them then. Debbie wasn't having
any of that. She lectured him on
disease transmission and how could
he even suggest putting two mave-
ricks in with the 900 well-behaved
ones in the barn. They had to go!
She put the youngest, Caleb, in a
stroller and tied him in. He didn't
like that and let her know it. Benja-
min was ordered to watch his brother
while she showed a man how a
woman operates when the pressure is
on. The first one jumped off as soon
as it got on, but it was eventually no
match for Super Debbie.
It was about as interesting a story
as I'd heard and between Debbie's
fuming tirade on pigs on the loose
and Benjamin's colourful re-enact-
ment, eye rolling and all, it almost
had me doubled over.
The best part happened the next
day. The neighbour phoned Super
Wrench and told him he had a present
for him. He said it was forced on him
the day before and he just simply
couldn't accept it with a clear
conscience. You got it. The pigs
were not his. After half an hour of
wrestling them off the truck, he found
none of his were missing.
Super Wrench found the place
these pigs had escaped from and
fixed it. Telling Debbie she'd erred
was a bit tougher. Super Wrench just
kindly suggested that times were
tough enough without her giving the
livestock away. It was interesting
after that, too.0
Gisele Ireland is from Bruce County. Her most re-
cent book, Brace Yourself, is available for $7
from Bumps Books, Teeswater, Ontario. NOG 2S0.