Suzy the warthhog--Part IV

Says Suzy the warthog:

"My dear mother knows how to occupy my time during the winter. She has bought me a rooting box in which I can exercise and toss balls to and fro. Winter is such a bore (or is it "boar"?) that I can't bear to have a moment without something to do, for warthogs are such Type A pigles. I say, I believe I've created a portmanteau for 'pig' and 'peoples': 'pigles.' Warthogs are so BRILLIANT."

Suzy the Warthog--Part III

Says Suzy the warthhog:

"Summertime makes me giddy. If I can't find a patch of flowers to complement my beautiful skin, then I often have to plant my own. This year while I perused the backyard, I found the most delightful pots. I have decided to plant New Guinea impatiens, for, living in the United States has left me slightly homesick for flowers of my homeland. They shall provide me undying comfort through the long, hazy summers of New York."

Suzy the Warthog--Part II

Says Suzy on brilliant summer days,

"I do so love the warm weather. But I am simply not content to lie about on the grass. It's much too cold for my delicate skin, and I can't bear the thought of insects touching my hide.

"What I truly enjoy are flowers! Flowers of every kind: geraniums, tulips, peonies, and grand roses. My favorites, however, are purple petunias, against which my coat looks so rich."

Suzy the warthog--Part I

Pig people stick together. They sniff each other out, are simpy hog-wild for the company of other pig persons.

I am one of those people. I seek out others who appreciate porcine personality, porkish passion, and pig perspicacity.

We pig enthusiasts belong to a cult that admires flat noses resembling electrical outlets, sympathetic tendencies, and gourmands.

In my search for piggish people like myself, I have met and become friends with a wonderful, creative, fun pig person named Carol Eiswald of The Tusk and Bristle Farm in New York state. But Carol doesn't simply devote her energy to the more simple pet pig such as the pot-belly. She's a hard-core pig fanatic. She has as companions at least one bearded Borneo pig and--Ta-Ta-a-a!--a true, blue warthog named Suzy.

Suzy enjoys living outside when it's warm, and she is able to dig holes in the yard with her ample snout. In cold weather, however Suzy lives indoors with Carol. While she has her own quarters within Carol's home, she prefers to spend her afternoon snoozing between the sheets in Carol's bed.

I've received numerous emails over the past year from Carol--all describing stories about Suzy. Suzy the warthog can be a love-bug, a busy-body, a brute, a comedianne, and a perpetrator of naughty deeds.

My readers deserve to learn and see a bit of what one animal, a domesticated wild animal has up her tusk. So, with Carol's permission, I am posting pictures of Miss Suzy, Warthog of the Year.

Spring Has Sprung

"C'mon, Pussies!" I yelled opening wide the front door. Elliot and Li'l Ralphie galloped to the threshold and put on the brakes as the cool, invigorating air whipped past their whiskers. The overwhelming smell-mix of moisture-laden ground with rich-crisp air joined the sounds of crows scolding cats beneath the birdfeeders. The forces of nature beckoned the kittens beyond the gates of their familiar home.

Elliot put one paw on the porch, Li'l Ralphie, cautious, right behind as if to say, "Go ahead, Elliot. Don't be afraid--just go; I'm right behind you." With trepidation and for the first time in their lives, they entered the great outdoors.

Cautiously the kittens strode in slo-mo across the deck. Lyla squeaked through the door opening, too, just before I closed it. Evelyn, however, more the homey type, just peeked outside and turned her back on it--not in the least impressed.

I wasn't going to let my kittens, with their first taste of the woods and the other cats, explore unattended, so I sat down on a step and observed them. Their unadulterated awe at the outside resembled kids upon discovering their first Christmas tree all adorned with glitter and gleam. The kittens' faces were rapt, fixed on all and everything at once. Once assured that I would stay--just in case they ran into trouble--they became more bold, running to the edge of the deck where beyond loomed three foot piles of snow and from which spread the struggling pachysandra beneath a stand of oak and hickory trees.

Lyla, however, had stopped in her paw-tracks, and for a moment I considered the world from Lyla's perception. She had, after all, eyes the size of golf balls--eyes so big and unblinking that she looked almost alien. Lyla's head swiveled from side to side taking in the clean air, the older cats relaxing on the sun-deck, me, the guardian, in my winter coat. Her face skimming the woods as an up periscope looking for enemy ships, she surveyed every detail around her. I wondered just how keenly Lyla saw this new world around her, for nature was as new to her as it was to the kittens; afterall, she had been rescued from a shelter in North Carolina and had been taken from an irresponsible breeder before that. She had probably never even seen a tree other than through a window.

I watched Lyla survey her surroundings as the kittens leaped onto the snowpile in front of the deck. They picked up their paws delicately, flicking the wet from their toes like beach-children throwing sand off their feet. While Lyla stared up a sixty-foot oak tree, I wondered how those eyes--giant marbles--playthings for a leviathan, interpreted those images to her brain. And suddenly I burped a laugh. Of course! Her eyes allowed her to see everything in high definition. I envisioned the idea: Lyla was seeing everything in extraodinary clearness--in high definition. When I told Edgar later that night how I was certain Lyla's vision had to be super clear, he laughed and said, "Okay. We'll call her Lyla HD from now on."

For over an hour and a half I guarded the kittens and Lyla as they explored the woods and stalked the older and wiser cats: Kenny, Little Eggie, and the Deans: Regular Dean, Spitty Bottle Dean, and S.S. Dean. Elliot acted the trail blazer while Li'l Ralphie followed, rarely letting himself out of brother Elliot's and my sight. Then Elliot suddenly erupted with a burst of speed, leaping over stumps and downed branches. His body lengthened as he galloped, soared, over the melting snow, past Kenny who was watching complacently, and over the old wooden bench. But his finale was yet to come.

This youngster of a Siamese, who had never before seen the light of the outdoors, suddenly transformed into a beast of the jungle. He raced, hunkered down, stream-lining himself, and then he leaped onto the side of a two-foot-in-diameter oak tree. And there he stuck like an arrow into its target. I hiccuped a giggle: Elliot was as shocked as I that he had run vertically, instead of horizontally.

"Wow! Good job!" I yelled to Elliot, still clinging to the side of the tree. "C'mon . . . come on down now before you get yourself to high and can't get down." He looked at the ground and climbed another four feet until he reached a branch. Then he sat pondering the earth beneath.

My fingers danced over my cell phone: for sure Edgar would have to get the tractor to extricate Elliot from his tree. But just as my call went out, Elliot began his descent, head first, claws and paws stretched out awkwardly before him.

I cringed. He wasn't coming down the right way! I couldn't let him fall over ten feet! "Elliot. Turn around and come down backwards," I yelled running, arms out-stretched. Of course, he couldn't understand me, but to my complete surprise he did turn around. Then first one back foot stepped down--he looked at the ground, surely estimating the distance--and then the other placed next to the other. "Okay, Elliot," I shouted. "Now the front feet!" But I didn't have to advise him; he had his first descent from Mount Evertree well under control.

I put the phone down, and as I did, Elliot plopped to the ground. I clapped and hooted my congratulations, and Elliot raced past me, a victory lap for sure.

Timmy's World

We lost another horse yesterday—Timmy--one of our old saddlebreds.
Between the tears, I experience moments of quiet satisfaction knowing Timmy had a charmed life with us. He was born on our farm, raised here, and even broke to ride here—never saw any other place or part of the world. He had a club foot, so we never asked him to carry us over the countreyside. His life revolved around lazy days in the pasture, nights in his stall, and, in general, enjoying a simple, relaxing life—one with no human demands.
Always a well-mannered horse, Timmy was a fixture here at our farm for the twenty-two years of his life. His stall stands silent without him, and though I have not detected any behavioral changes in the other horses because of his absence, they must know he’s not there in the pasture with them. Again—with the death of another of our animals—our place is not the same: I look around the barn and pastures, and the palette has changed--forever.
I have only one regret.
In order to try to save his life we had to transport Timmy to a veterinary surgical facility an hour’s drive away. I regret we had to remove Timmy, in his most painful and fearful moments, from the only world he knew: from the stall he had known for so many years, from his barn, from the pastures, and from all that was familiar to him: the wandering cats, pot-bellies, and us.
As we led him down the driveway to the horse trailer, his eyes grew wide, even as he was sedated with painkillers. Even being led down our drive must have been scary for him—he had never been out of the pastures or the barn; he had never walked on macadam before. Likewise, he had never expected to be lifted by four strange men and locked inside a horse trailer with its rattling, body-jarring ride.
Had I known, then, that surgery was not an option for Timmy, that he had a huge, inoperable tumor that hadn’t raised its ugly head until just two days before, we would not have swept our horse from the only world he knew into what must have been, for him, a strange and frightening environment. We would have put him to sleep where he felt safe, loved, and comfortable: in his barn, the barn where he was born and raised and fed every day, the barn where Julie, Lucy, and his new friend, Bo, lived beside him. Had we known the outcome, we would have let Timmy die in his world-home.
During the hours it took to drive to Quakertown, wait for the surgeon to arrive, do the ultrasound that discovered the tumor, and make the diagnosis, Timmy’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Though we wanted to bring him back home to end his suffering, doing so would have caused him even more misery. So, in that strange, horse-scary place, we euthanized him, calming him, patting his neck, whispering how we loved him, and covering his wide eye so that he couldn’t see the death needle.
That Timmy died outside his familiar world is our only regret. But we can feel good about having kept Timmy, with his club foot, his foundered front feet, and his roaring trachea, as our pet for 22 years. Many a horse person would have sold such an unserviceable animal to the auction where he would have likely gone to the butcher.
We are grateful to have known Timmy, to have taken care of him, and we are privileged to have witnessed his equine antics in his pasture. Bo will surely miss him as much as we will; Bo and Timmy always groomed each other’s withers, as brother horses often do. Though Timmy was seventeen years older than Bo, he could keep up with the young feisty horse. The two played together, play-biting each other and annoying each other like little kids until the lush grass lured them from play. Likewise, Timmy and his full sister, Lucy, hung out together much of the time—just lazing in the pasture side by side. Timmy seemed always to be a comfort to the other horses, assuring them in his sedate manner that there was nothing to be upset about, that this world was a good, safe world.
We brought Timmy’s body back home and buried him—in his world—next to Fancy, his mother Lillie, Nicky, Fax, and Merry.

Snowstorm Revenge

Well, the big storm is in process, and I'm really irritated. It's a heavy snow, and I just about tore open my guts brooming off the front deck. And that was only the first sweep of three inches. By the time the snow has stopped, I will have brushed the same porch about four times. The cats are having trouble walking around in it; the pigs hate it: everyone's grumpy here. Plus, I can't very well ride the horses in this stuff, so, though it's pretty, it's a pain in all our asses.

Edgar's out blowing our thousand yard driveway with a snowblower hooked up to the farm tractor. He just called to say it wasn't blowing well because it's so heavy. That means he'll have to do the properties often to keep up with it. Poor guy.

So, the cats, the pigs, the horses and I are all sitting around watching the snow accumulate and glaring at one another. The pigs blame me for putting he snow there, despite my telling them it's not my fault. But ya can't convince a pig otherwise once he's made up his mind. If I give each one a cookie, though, it'll soften their resentment.

For my part, though, I have vowed revenge on the snowstorm: I am going to sit down with a flower catalogue and order a bunch of tropical plants and bulbs for the garden. In so doing, I'm going to transport myself to my summer garden outfitted like a tropical paradise--so there, snow. The windmill palm tree planted next to the barn will remind me of our favorite tropical island, Grand Cayman, as well as the cannas, elephant ears, and the weird voodoo lily. I can see it all now: this summer Balliet's property will be ablaze in tropical plants--big-leaved, hardy banana plants, castor bean plants, whose seeds I collected this past fall. Picotee begonias, orange candleflowers, and mixed caladiums will compete for space amidst the profusion of emerald greens. Loud tangerine canna torches, a bi-color butterfly bush, red lilies dancing amid the huge green and red-veined castor bean plants--I see them!--towering above the electric-blue lobelia lining the walkway. And the caladium interspersed with the tuberous begonias should be striking, especially with a cat resting beneath the leaves.

Ah-h-h . . . ., I feel a bit better now. Now to the phone to call in my order of tropical plants---hey, if I order $40 worth, I get $20 worth of goods free. My kind of deal.

If you and your critters have cabin fever, you can transport yourself or carry out you storm-vengeance in other ways, too. For those of you always in a mad rush, multi-tasking, rushing about fitting in one more chore before work, take the time to foster mindfulness: slow down, call your pet to your side and luxuriate in his or her company for a moment. Curl up under a blanket with your pet by your side, listen to the roar of her purr, have a conversation with your kitty or dog, look into your fish's eye and just try to imagine what he or she is thinking about you at that moment, about life with you. And I'm sure, if you allow your mind to imagine such things, you will have taken yourself to a place that is warm, comforting, and inspiring--and the snowstorm will disappear, if only for a few moments, like magic.