Great, just great

A neighbor, who has never been overly concerned about keeping her multitude of dogs in her little yard, added a piglet to her menagerie a few months ago. Not a Vietnamese Potbellied Pig this time, either, but a real one. The porker, while still small, has grown quite a bit and has bonded with one of her escape-artist dogs.

When I heard my back gate CLANG this morning, I instinctively thought Da Kid was home from work. Da Kid never shuts the back gate, he CLANGS it closed. But he wasn't due home for several hours and the noise not only didn't stop, it kept getting louder.

I looked out of the back window to discover the dog already in my yard, and the pig throwing itself against the gate trying to follow. And follow it did when it finally managed to open my latched plus bungie-corded gate just enough to squeeze through.

Chase ensued as I tore around the yard trying to herd the two OUT of my gate.

Let me rephrase that. With a two bad knees (one is way worse than the other) and a-just-about- healthy-again-but-not-completely-healed-yet sprained ankle, I hobbled after them quickly and purposefully, loudly saying nasty things to them and about the neighbor.

(Meanwhile inside, my dogs were loudly losing their minds. I'm not sure but it sounded to me like they were bellowing, "BACON! BACON ON THE HOOF!")

Dog, closely followed by the pig, finally headed back out the way they'd come in and headed home.

I followed and closed the neighbor's gate (she wasn't home) behind them.

About 45 minutes later, they were back. Back in my yard. Both of them.

This time another neighbor's 13-year-old son helped me get THEM out and home. And then, the neighbor still not home, we TIED their gate shut with hay rope.

I don't know when the neighbor finally got home, but when I saw her car late this afternoon I walked over. Please do something with that pig, I said. Pen it, fix your gate, do something. It's been in my yard twice today bending the corner of my gate in order to get in and . . .

The pig, she assured me, would be going to her father's-in-law farm shortly. It would have been there already except the pig prefers dog food to hog feed, the latter it won't eat.

When it gets hungry enough, I said, it will.

Supposedly (I'll believe it when I don't see it.) the pig will be gone tomorrow. At least that's what she said before, "Do you know what I got today?"

And that is when, almost as if on cue, from her backyard came, MOOOOO!