Friends and Food?
It was a hot summer day in Northern California. My family had only been living on the ranch for about a year now. We moved to the ranch from the San Francisco Bay Area when I was 11 years old. I really enjoyed the country life. It always took forever to get anywhere but I was starting to get used to it. Besides, I loved having so many animals. Since we moved to Little Shasta we had been able to get many more pets. It helped that we went from a house with what would be a good size back yard in the Bay Area to 160 acres of land. We had horses, dogs, chickens and goats. The goats were so much fun. We originally got only two goats. They were African Pygmy goats so they were about the size of a medium dog. Their names were Spike and Pepper. Pepper was a little fat when we got her but it was no big deal. We didn’t think anything of her being on the fat side until she kept getting fatter and fatter. It was then that we realized she was pregnant. Before she had her babies she was about as wide as she was tall. When we came out one day to our amazement Pepper was not pregnant with one baby, but with two babies. They were so cute. We named them Ricky and Lucy. They were so adorable to watch. We got to see first-hand how good of balance goats really had. Ricky and Lucy would jump on everything. One of their favorite places to jump was on Pepper’s back and stand on her for a minute before jumping off. Their other favorite thing to jump on was this old dog house my dad made that was in their pen. They would jump on and off of it all the time.
They were a lot of fun to have around but at the same time they were quite a nuisance. We had to blockade the goats from off both our front and back porch. They loved to sleep on the porch at night. The problem was the next morning they left hundreds of little piles of evidence that they had slept there. The worst one was Spike. We called her Spike because she was the only one with horns. Spike was not the worst not because she left a trail on the porch, but because she was so unfriendly. She was always getting her head stuck in the fence, and then she couldn’t get it back out. Unlike the other goats, you could not walk up to Spike. The only one Spike really liked was our dog Lucky. They had the strangest relationship too. Lucky would chase spike around the yard and play with him like he was a dog almost, except Lucky didn’t like other dogs. We even caught Spike sharing Lucky’s dog bed with him in the garage. But as soon as we would walk into the garage Spike would quickly run out. It was then that my dad decided that four goats were too much. He decided to give the goat to a neighbor named Elias. Elias is a nice short, round man of Hispanic ethnicity. He had been asking if he could have one of the goats for a while when my dad finally told him yes. He lived about 5 miles up the road in an old Victorian styled house. When my dad gave the goat to Elias he knew exactly what he wanted with the goat, a barbeque. I heard my dad mention to my little brother that Elias was having a barbeque and that Spike was on the menu.
I was standing out in the garden with my mom when Elias pulled up in his little yellow Toyota pick-up truck. We greeted him and asked what was going on.
“Hey what is that you have there?” my mom said.
“It’s something Brian wanted to try” said Elias.
“Really?” asked my mom.
My mom then proceeded to have a short conversation with him in Spanish. I could not understand a word they were saying but I was smart at putting two-and-two together. I knew that a barbeque of my former pet goat Spike was being hosted by Elias and now he had some strange dish that my mom didn’t want me to know what it was. It was settled that he had brought over what was left of Spike. That was my little pet goat only a month earlier and I wanted nothing to do with what was in that Tupperware dish he brought over.
*** A Few Years Later***
It was in the fall time because we had got back the meat from the animals that my dad’s business bought at the fair, as well as the meat from our back-up pig. We had several pigs that we raised that year for the fair. When raising a pig it is important to have a back-up pig in case something happens to your pig. My first year raising a pig, it ended up dying on the first day of fair. Despite my tragic loss I decided to raise a pig one more year. I wanted the experience of actually showing and selling a pig at fair and I just loved their personalities.
The pigs were super cute and fun to raise. They were like giant oversized puppy dogs. They would run out whenever they heard the sound of the hose. They loved being squirted down and drinking from the hose. They also loved when you scratched their back and belly; it would make them lie down and roll over like a dog. When you were inside the pen with them they would follow you around. They were always looking for your attention. Pigs were very personable and were like a pet when you raised them. They also were a bit of work to take of them. I had to check them every morning and night to make sure they had food and water. When the heat of the summer came it became even more crucial to check the pig’s water. We would often bring a container full of ice cubes to try and keep their water cool because pigs will not drink their water if it is too hot. We even installed misters in our barn to keep them cool. After selling my pig I missed going outside and checking on her. The first couple weeks after fair I felt a void in my routine, because I often looked forward to going outside and spending time with my pig.
It was morning time and my mom was cooking up some bacon.
“Yummm… is that bacon?” I said.
“Yes it is” my mom said.
“Oh look it’s the thick bacon. Is this from the fair?” I asked.
“Yes it is Miriam” she said.
“Is this our back up pig from the fair?”
“No, we traded with another family so we would not have to eat our own pig.”
“Really? Why would we do that? I wanted to try out our pig. They looked like they would be tasty.”
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