“The pigs are out!”

These are never the words I hope to say early a Saturday morning while my husband is trying to catch up on sleep after working a string of late nights. However, today as I let hens out, I looked out across the field and saw an unfamiliar shape moving in the neighboring hen yard. I froze and stared as I watched two pigs leisurely nosing their way under a chicken fence, destroying the fencing in the process.

Everything else we had planned for the morning clearly had to wait. I jogged back to the house and thumped up stairs to wake my husband our 12-year-old son with those dreaded words: “The pigs are out!” Then I found all the slightly cracked eggs that we had set aside for the pigs and started them boiling in two big pots. I knew we’d need the eggs for motivation, and I was grateful for a moment to collect my thoughts. Being in the kitchen with the the smooth feel of eggs in my hands grounded me.

After the eggs were on their way to being cooked, I joined my husband and son outside where it felt like I stood around being bewildered for far too long. It took time to take stock of the situation, to repair the gate they had pushed open in the pig pen, and secure some of the hen’s fencing that they had knocked down. Because of that downed fencing, a couple hundred hens were also out. It was hard to know what to do next.

Thankfully, most of the pigs wanted to eat some of the hazelnuts that had fallen to the ground in one of our hen yards, which meant they were not in danger of running off. As I guarded the pigs that were eating hazelnuts, I made a Facebook post, and Dustin, a friend and farm helper responded, offering to come over to help.

Our Great Pyrenees dogs, Toby and Lily, try their best to keep order on the farm, but they seemed to understand that this was above their pay grade. They kept checking on the situation, looking like they felt rather uncomfortable about the whole thing.

When Dustin arrived with two sons, we had six people on hand and could start moving the pigs back to their pig pen. We carried fencing and plastic shopping bag tied to the ends of boards because the boards extended the reach of our arms and the sound of the crackling plastic bags gave the pigs some motivation to keep moving. I was up front with one of Dustin’s sons, throwing hard boiled eggs from a bucket onto the grass to coax the pigs along. The eggs motivated the pigs, who seemed satisfied with their adventure for the day and were agreeable to going into their yard to eat some more hard-boiled eggs.

There were plenty of hard boiled eggs for the hogs to eat back in their pen, and I will bring them some more tomorrow.

Honestly, I think some big companies pay for their employees to have experiences together that build teamwork and creative problem solving. We get to have those experiences as a family, without trying. Today, after chasing after pigs, I am grateful again for the help of our friends. When challenges come up, it makes such a difference to have good support.