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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: My Life Is Weird, part..I’ve lost count

Open Thread: My Life Is Weird, part..I’ve lost count

by | 168 Comments

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ETA: Miss Pig-Pig has been returned to her people.  I have visitation rights.

Miss Pig-Pig’s people were out looking for her and I heard them calling her, so I located them and reunited them with their pig.

Meanwhile, Bixby, who can open any door, had managed to get to her, so I said screw it, I’ll let her in the backyard where she and the dogs played like they’d known each other forever.

Ducks were not amused.

I have video, you’ll have to wait for it because I must now get back to my planned day.  Kisses.

Open Thread: My Life Is Weird, part..I've lost count

Yes, that’s a pig.

Yes, it’s in my front yard (now in my garage).

Anyone keeping track of how many different animals I’ve rescued since we’ve all known each other?

No, she is NOT staying.

Open thread

Reader Interactions

168Comments

  1. 1.

    Another Scott

    You have to post a picture of the ducks riding on her back. It’s required.

    :-)

    You’re a kind soul, TaMara!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I looked out my window and she was in my front yard. Tried to leash her so I could walk her around the neighborhood, but nope, no way. Tricked her into my garage with apples. She then rolled over for belly rubs. Working in finding her owner now.

  20. 20.

    Zinsky

    TaMara – I thought it was Marjorie Taylor Greene, door-knocking in your neighborhood!  Ooops, that wasn’t politically correct, was it?

     

    Go Chiefs in the Super Bowl!   Tom Brady is a right-wing twit.  Mahomes is the King of Cool.

  23. 23.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Zinsky: So far, I know the Superb Owl is being held in Tampa, and (b/c of your comment) that it’s the Chiefs against … ??  I guess Brady got traded, but no idea to whom.  Bliss, really.

  24. 24.

    TaMara (HFG)

    So I have a rescue farm coming to get her – she can’t stay here – she’s clearly a house pig – and potty trained – it distressed her to go on the mat I left for her, she really wanted to potty outside. It’s been a few hours and no one has claimed her and I walked the neighborhood and no one was out looking for her. My garage is clearly NOT pig proof.

  26. 26.

    JMG

    Had Super Sunday brunch late this am, waffles and mimosas. It’s just us four, me, Alice, son Josh, his fiancee Crissy. No call on the game, because betting against Brady seems imprudent, yet I know Chiefs all-around better team.

    Super Bowl menu: Chips and pineapple salsa (latter made by Josh). Vegetarian chili and cornbread (made by Alice). Ribs, mac and cheese and coleslaw, made by food truck a mile or so down the road. Beer, wine and three flavors of Polar seltzer in the fridge.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    My nephew raises pigs for 4H, and they can top out over 300 pounds.  It’s challenging to push eight or ten of those into the show pen at once.  I do not recognize this coloring, so it may be a pet breed, not a meat animal.

    EDIT: I see at 24 it’s potty trained, and no one does that with meat animals!  I wear my worst jeans when working the show, and just throw them away afterward.

  28. 28.

    Juju

    If you get a donkey and a rooster along with all the other critters you have and stack them all up, I think you’d have your own Bremem Town Musicians.

  31. 31.

    sab

    Are calico pigs like calico cats, most always girls?

    If she’s not a potbellied pig she is going to get huge.

    I had a neighbor in Las Vegas that had two dogs and a potbelly pig living together in the yard. When the dogs barked the pig oinked. Very cute.

    Terminology: aren’t pigs just baby sows and hogs?

  33. 33.

    mrmoshpotato

    I have no beer. :(

    My Superb Owl costume this year will apparently be Eskimo Ninja!

    Wish me luck, and if I don’t return, avenge my death.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    Speaking of the Super Bowl, has anyone heard anything about the new show that is premiering right after the Super Bowl?

    The Equalizer (redux) on with Queen Latifah?  I liked the original TV series of the same name.  It was comforting somehow.

  35. 35.

    J R in WV

    A cute pig. Wife mentioned that it was a calico immediately, prior to the post that IDed pig as a calico.

    A cute pig, perhaps a house pet until it became obvious that it was gong to hit several hundred pounds eventually.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’m not interested in the football and won’t watch, but if my streaming Tanglewood lecture on Das Rheingold is done in time, I think I’ll tune in to hear Amanda Gorman’s poem. (I think she’s supposed to be pregame, not that thing that happens in the middle.)

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    All our restaurants are opening up here again, and I can only think “are you fucking kidding me?”  We are so close with the vaccine but nobody can wait.  Numbers are going to jump again.  So frustrating.

  43. 43.

    danielx

    When it’s really cold: you have to take all the stuff out of the freezer of the refrigerator in the garage and put it on the back porch. Because the refrigerator isn’t coming on often enough to keep the stuff frozen.

    Also, Super Bowl chili.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl: 

    Speaking of the Super Bowl, has anyone heard anything about the new show that is premiering right after the Super Bowl?

    Have not heard anything about it, but I may check it out. I also enjoyed the original “Equalizer.”

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    @danielx: Wow, that never would have occurred to me.

    I assume everyone is well at your house, and your daughter came through COVID without terrible symptoms?

    May I ask how things are with the SIL?

  49. 49.

    raven

    Not as weird as my buddy on his bike ride in the country and came across pig that had been killed by a car yesterday.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @TaMara (HFG): Thanks for the recommendation.  It’s hard to set the start time for the recording when it’s after the Super Bowl!

    I just set Tivo to record for an extra 1.5 hours after the scheduled time, hoping that covers it!

  58. 58.

    CaseyL

    The pig is absolutely adorable, but I sympathize with TaMara’s insistence that she is not staying.  She’s an indoor pig,and I can just imagine the outraged incredulity on the part of Bixby and, possibly, Scout.

  61. 61.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @CaseyL: they’ve been insane since the moment I put her in the garage. I’m working with someone now to relocate her until she’s claimed.

    I’m concerned about turning her over to animal control because I don’t want them to get in trouble or lose her because she’s not potbellied and I don’t know how strict the city is about that.

  64. 64.

    CaseyL

    @TaMara (HFG): Oh, hells, yes: don’t want that sweet little lady winding up being butchered!  But I thought you were in touch with a rescue farm, not a random person, on a relocation.

    ETA: Insane with curiosity? Or insane with outrage?

  65. 65.

    Ken

    @MagdaInBlack: The owners may have decided it was getting too big, and dropped it off near TaMara’s place.  My sister lives in a rural area and people often do that with dogs and cats.

    It’s very irresponsible, but many seem to think the animals will be able to fend for themselves in the country. That might even be true for pigs, but we don’t need more feral pigs.

  66. 66.

    Jay

    @MagdaInBlack:

    sadly, a lot of people abandon pets. Period.

    Mellow, jelly, is our shed roof kitty. His original people deliberately left him behind when they moved. The Cat Girls kept an eye on him, tried to keep him fed and socialized, and he learned to sleep on rotten shed roofs to avoid other cats and predators. He lived a spring, summer and fall of that.

    at one of our last neighbourhood dinner parties, outdoors before the onset of winter, the Cat Girls dropped a purring Mellow into SWMBO’s lap, and that was that.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: My nephew raises pigs for 4H, and they can top out over 300 pounds. It’s challenging to push eight or ten of those into the show pen at once.

    You should try shoving a 600# mulefoot boar into a horse trailer some time.

  69. 69.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Ken: Oh yes, we had many pets who just “turned up” when we lived out on a gravel road out in the middle of nowhere. it just didnt occur to me dumping a pig, but it should have. People are idiots =-)

  74. 74.

    raven

    @Ken: This week friends found a female black lab while they were hiking. I kicked into full Facebook rescue mode and someone saw it and a post in Spanish. It turns out she escaped from a Mexican car dealership on the outskirts of town. All is well.

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MagdaInBlack: Many years ago I worked with a gal who’s fiance was a pig farmer in Rosebud IL. 2 days before their wedding he had a boar turn on him and take a chunk out of his leg. I don’t think “colorful” quite covered it.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SiubhanDuinne: And our Percy refused to leave. Then there was the kitten I found in my chicken yard just before I let them out. And the pair of emaciated tick infested pups that came bouncing down my drive. And the super sweet pitbull that was sleeping under my forsythia. And the….

    I hate people.

  81. 81.

    Juju

    @raven: Gracie Lou, my golden rescue, who had been chipped, was a breeder dog who was just left in the woods near the interstate around Greensboro NC.  She had to fend for herself long enough to get heartworm. When the rescue organization who took her in called the people connected with the chip information, they were asked if they wanted her back and they replied that they left her in the woods because she was no longer of any use. I don’t understand people like that. They could have turned her over to a rescue organization rather than letting her get heartworm and nearly starving to death. When I met Gracie she weighed 40 lbs. now she weighs 95lbs. She’s in July of calendar A. I have no difficulty imagining people who are able to abandon a potty trained pig.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Can’t remember the year, though it was decades ago, but I do remember that when NYC enacted its pooper-scooper law, there were literally (*waves to Steve in the ATL*) tens of thousands of abandoned animals, mostly dogs, overnight. Just too much trouble for those snowflakes to clean up after their pets. Much easier just to abandon them.

    That was pretty much when I started to hate people.

  90. 90.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Juju: Try to catch him in Callan. His character in The Equaliser can be seen as a redemption of his Callan character.

  91. 91.

    Yutsano

    Sigh. So many Charlotte’s Web quotes, and no one has yet to say, “That’s Some Pig!” I swear I knew you people.

  92. 92.

    Jay

    Pigs, by nature are a highly social, herd bonded animal.

    Meat pigs are in most cases, not allowed to be that, and as a result, are “dangerous” livestock.

    One of our neighbours at the time, raised Tamsworth’s as a niche, but they kept escaping, and were dangerous to be around, so he stopped by, for some advice.

    I reviewed his “operation”, and convinced him to “free range” them with the cows, goats and sheep. I went into the pens, opened them all up, and sat in the alleyway with a feed bucket for 8 hours. The pigs were for a while, weirded out, about being able to be a “herd”, not trapped in individual stalls with barely enough room to move, and this human, sitting in the alleyway with a food bucket, giving treats and skritches to any pig brave enough to venture close.

    4 months later, he knew all his pigs by name and personality, and in the evening, he would call, and everybody would come home together as a herd. All the doors to the pens were removed, and some of the pen sides, so they could “pig pile” however they wanted.

    They were still “meat” but had much better lives.

  93. 93.

    raven

    @Juju: We think that was the case with our Lil Bit. I always wanted to take out an ad in the paper and say “SEE THIS LITTLE GIRL, WE GAVE HER A GREAT LIFE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE”!

  94. 94.

    TaMara (HFG)

    I updated up top. Miss Pig-Pig’s people were out looking for her and I heard them calling her, so I located them and reunited them with their pig.

    Meanwhile, Bixby, who can open any door, had managed to get to her, so I said screw it, I’ll let her in the backyard where she and the dogs played like they’d known each other forever.

    Ducks were not amused.

    I have video, you’ll have to wait for it because I must now get back to my planned day.  Kisses.

  95. 95.

    gwangung

    @raven: I’m really not surprised that the Equalizer is having a revival. Nor that Leverage gets one, too.

    With the 1% and corporations riding rough shod over the rest of the country, there’s a demand for some sort of retribution, even if it’s fictional.

  96. 96.

    sab

    @MagdaInBlack: It’s Sunday. They might be out somewhere.

    We found a young shepherd on a dogwalk. Brought her home. Called niece who does facebook. Eight hours later the owner called us. Newly adopted dog. Got loose while they went to the store. Her boyfriend had been driving her around all that time as she sobbed and searched. Eventually she gave up, came home, got on facebook, and there we all were , waiting ten doors up the street.

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    We live way out in the country, and have had several animals who were abandoned. In fact we have a wonderful kitty, named Punkin, who Wife rescued from a culvert. She wasn’t much bigger than a chipmunk when Wife brought her home. Took her to our Vet clinic the next Monday, where we learned she was 6 months old!!!

    She topped out near 20 pounds, a compulsive eater from her hungry youth, now a much more reasonable weight. She’s a mostly black calico, very affectionate. Still a chowhound, we feed her in the bathroom and don’t let her out until everyone has finished their dinner. She’s with Coo in the top left corner of this month.

    Our other current kitty is Spike, so named because she is so very sharp. She’s in the calendar too, clawing at a little tree out back. Gray tabby, I think. Also affectionate, learned to purr after about 8 months sitting on my shoulder while I was computing. Stone silent for months! She came from our Vet clinic, which runs an underground rescue service. Underground to keep the volume reasonable. No one turned away.

  98. 98.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: The biggest I’ve ever had to deal with is 300#, because that’s the upper limit for the show.  (Crawford County MO, your area.)

    The scariest part of the event is the pee-wee show, which is held after the rest of the judging.  A dozen pigs, sometimes more, that have been out to the pen and back at least once and are hot and cranky is bad enough.  Then dump a bunch of six-year olds, none of whom really know what they’re doing, in the holding pen with them.  Nerve-wracking.

  104. 104.

    MagdaInBlack

    The first cat we had after we were married came to us because what I first thought was a mud clump in a mud puddle was a 3 month old grey tiger kitten. I brought her home, cleaned her up, she settled in on the bed like she owned it. My husband came home, looked, said ” I see we have a cat.”  By the end of the evening she was sleeping on his shoulder. ( no dummy, she.)

    There were many more moments of  ” I see we have a new…*critter*”  in our marriage =-)

  105. 105.

    Juju

    @raven: I’ve thought about doing that as well, but people like that probably don’t care and may not even know how to read.

  113. 113.

    pat

    I watched the Puppy Bowl and haven’t laughed that much in a long time. Loved every minute.
    I hadn’t watched it before.

    Needs more kitties in the balcony, tho.

  115. 115.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken:Then dump a bunch of six-year olds, none of whom really know what they’re doing, in the holding pen with them.

    Let the fun begin!

    This one was not fun. My buddy was changing breeds and so had sold his boar. That pig wanted nothing to do with that trailer. The thing that finally turned the tide was when I got down low under his ass with my shoulder and lifted it a bit. I think it was his losing touch with terra firma that made him move forward to regain his footing. Then I’d do it again and he’d go forward again.

    Some animals really don’t like not having their feet on the ground.

    ETA, I think I’ve mentioned to you before how I used to go to the CC fair almost every year when I lived in Bourbon. It’s a great time.

  116. 116.

    Jay

    @Nutmeg again:

    We received a letter from the Writers’ War Board the other day asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.” It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure.

    Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.
    —E. B. White
    The New Yorker

  118. 118.

    Ken

    @pat: Needs more kitties in the balcony, tho.

    They’re modelling good social distancing, since humans don’t seem to get it

    (Like when your cat brings in something nearly-dead and drops it in front of you; it’s saying “I’ve noticed you’re very bad at hunting, this is how you do it.”)

  119. 119.

    raven

    OK wife, I know the Sunday session on the porch with your friends is important but I have the Versailles Garlic Chicken ready and kickoff is in 30 minutes!

  120. 120.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Starboard Tack: In Heaven there is no beer.

    What the hell kind of Heaven are you talking about?  Also, is it 5 degrees with a bunch of snow? :)

    Revolution Brewing’s Anti-Hero!  Cheers!

  127. 127.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: ​

    All our restaurants are opening up here again, and I can only think “are you fucking kidding me?” We are so close with the vaccine but nobody can wait. Numbers are going to jump again. So frustrating.

    Crap.

  128. 128.

    Mary G

    You are quite the animal magnet, TaMara! They can sense you will take care of them when they are lost. Love the calico pig and the thought of her romping with Bixby and Scout while the ducks look on in disapproval. Glad you found her owners.

    @dmsilev: The goats are better than the anti-maskers/anti-vacciners, who have taken over the pier for their rallies. It seem unfair that the guy got to have his goats on a beach where dogs aren’t allowed.

  129. 129.

    Jay

    @Ken:

    Winter, the Ice King, White Walkers.

    he has to make a beer run in the snow. He might not make it back.

    but it seems he survived.

  130. 130.

    danielx

    @WaterGirl:

    All good and waiting for shots. Local health department seems to have things in hand, but web site for signing up….by the time I got to it, about 1 pm of the day it opened, they were already scheduling appointments in March. Evidently not enough vaccine and not enough sites. I’m going to try to reschedule.

    As to the sis in law…she is still the same person. One of the nicest people you could ever want to meet, but has this blind spot about the size of the Bermuda Triangle.

    On the other hand we have gained another citizen of the biological empire, to reinforce the usual suspects.

  136. 136.

    Brachiator

    @Ben Cisco: 

    [Thoughts] on Black History Month and the concept of opting out…

    I saw this earlier. Great commentary.

    Not too long ago, a white (supposedly moderate) talk radio host objected to a proposed California Schools Black History curriculum because he did not want his daughter to feel bad.

    This is crap on so many levels, as is the idea of parents letting their children opt out of Black History Month to prevent their children from what? learning some goddam history.

    This is right up their with this nonsense:

    Teachers at a Wisconsin middle school have been placed on administrative leave after an unapproved lesson about slavery upset families.

    Sixth graders at Patrick Marsh Middle School in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, received an assignment about ancient Mesopotamia that asked a question about how a slave should be treated, the school’s principals said in a letter to students on Monday.

    And I am not against teaching something so provocative. But it should do it in a way that is not going to screw with children’s heads.

  137. 137.

    Ken

    @Jay: Ah, I see now.  I would have gotten it quicker if he’d said “I am just going outside and may be some time”.

  138. 138.

    J R in WV

    I like Beau of the Fifth Column, his little classes are great. At first I thought it was comedy, but not so much any more. There are some laughs, but that isn’t where he’s aiming.

  139. 139.

    karen marie

    @raven:   Doesn’t sound too bad, and it does sound delicious.

    Do you source the sour orange juice or just use regular orange juice?

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    Not a huge football fan, but the best quarterbacks were involved in the playoffs, and I want to see the battle between the young guy and the old veteran. Might be fun.

  143. 143.

    zhena gogolia

    We have about 15 inches of the 5 to 8 inch snowfall that was predicted, so I’m not in a good mood otherwise.

  151. 151.

    karen marie

    @raven:   Are you able to buy it locally?  I checked Amazon, and it’s $5 for a 23-oz bottle plus $4 shipping.   Yes, it sounds like it’s necessary to the recipe.  I’ve saved it to my file for future making.  I’m going to check in my local giant Mexican grocery stores and the giant Asian grocery store.

    I discovered yesterday there’s a largish middle eastern grocery store not too far from me that includes a hallal meat department.  I am so excited to go there to buy some lamb!  On the east coast I used to be able to buy lamb loin chops – much less expensive than rib chops and, imo, just as delicious!  Here in AZ the grocery stores rarely have lamb, never loin chops.

    I love food.

  152. 152.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @pat: I was watching a lecture on Das Rheingold. Is there some way I can watch the Puppy Bowl after the fact?

  158. 158.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: Is there some way I can watch the Puppy Bowl after the fact?

    Given the Internet, of course; though you might end up streaming it from an Uzbek site with Korean subtitles.

  160. 160.

    J R in WV

    I would have trouble with any recipe that starts yesterday, if you see what I mean…  All I can do to buy stuff I can cook tomorrow.

    Tonight I’m frying oysters for me and scallops for Wife. Something else too, potatoes, maybe. And sparkling wine, we’ll toast the second impeachment of the Drumpf bastard. I realized we should be really happy to have a second chance to watch Trump being impeached. So we’ll toast to that, too.

  161. 161.

    Starboard Tack

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Mmmm!!! Porter!!! Always wanted to do a Baltic. Maybe if the pandemic eases up this summer, I can put up a few cases for this time next year. It’s a tricky grist.

  162. 162.

    Jay

    @Starboard Tack:

    Old Wooden Head Smoked Porter, Fernie Brewing Company.

    havn’t seen it in years. They smoked the crushed oats before brewing to release more sugars.

    Amazing winter beer. Cats on lap, woodfire, snow falling and no where needed to go.

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