Pumpkins for Pigs

Winter is coming, and we all know it. The forecast for snow creeps up another day, and the last of the wintering projects gets jacked up higher on the to-do list. This wondrously long autumn has allowed us to make so much progress on gearing up for winter, compared with other years. Garden hoses have been coiled and hung in the garage, the poultry butchering station has been broken down and stored into sheds, the hens are almost all the way moved out of their summer mobile housing into the winter coop, the last of the potato patch was dug yesterday, and the outdoor furniture at Farmstead has been stored away for the season.

Still, there’s quite a list of projects yet to tackle: finish winterizing the diary before it freezes, move all the harvested squashes from the shed into the basement, build another overwintering pen for the pigs, finish harvesting Brussel sprouts in the garden and tomatoes in the high tunnel, mulch the carrot row for winter harvesting, pull out the last of the electric mesh fences and store them in the garage, etc.…

One project that marks the preparation for winter is picking up several loads of pumpkins (either from other farms or from reject grocery suppliers) to store away in the shed for pig feed. Our heritage Kunekune pigs make wonderful use of harvest foods like pumpkins, and it doesn’t matter if they freeze in the shed a bit. The pigs don’t mind pumpkin-sicles!

These past few weeks have seen several rounds of pumpkin hauling, so one night after starting up the wood stove to drive away the chill and try to rest my back, I wrote this poem about the experience.

Full
The trailer and truck were totally full
Outcasts of Halloween
Never selected
Never purchased
Never taken home,
Like a festive costume never worn
Languishing.

The shocks of the truck
So loaded by the weight
Bent near double in the other direction
Hauling home the heavy load
For pigs
To squirm and squeal
As gleeful as naughty teenagers
At fallen, smashing pumpkins.

But now it’s time to unload,
Time to liberate those shocks,
That old red truck,
The much-needed stock trailer.
Time to squirrel away the haul
Like Halloween candy,
And our house rule of only eating two pieces a day.
That way,
You could nurse the supply along
Nearly until Christmas,
Long after
Your friends had munched their private stashes
In the dark,
Hidden under their pillows,
Making themselves sick
From their own delight.

Not unlike the young pigs squealing in the background
Who can already smell
Those golden globes,
Ripe and plump,
Big around as my torso,
Beaded up with the dampness
That settles in these early evenings.

But we learned years ago
That darkness doesn’t end the day’s labors,
Not on a farm.
Put on a coat,
Strap on a headlamp,
And off you go, standing with arms outstretched
At the back trailer door,
Waiting your charge.
Here it comes—heavy, round, smelling of autumn
You grip it in a great bear hug
As best you can
Then trudge to the cobbled-together bins
Of old palates and broken boards.
They pile higher with each trip
Tumbled, heaped, balanced.

There they will wait their fate
Not beneath the carver’s knife,
But the sure, hungry tooth
Of pigs.

***
Enjoy your feasting of the fall’s harvest this week, and be ready for the oncoming wintry weather! See you down on the farm sometime.