SWINES, PIGS AND HAM

Speaking of swine flu...

Well, no one in the Gonzales household has been inflicted with this disease - yet Arnold has declared a "State of Emergency" for California with only 11 confirmed cases. Go figure.

My kids asked me yesterday how pigs got the flu and wanted to know how a person could get something that came from an animal. Interesting conversation. Apparently this same discussion occurred at school with a couple of the teachers.

Evan shared with his class that we have pigs and they aren't sick.

His teacher stated: "Well your pigs probably haven't gone for a walk through the park."

What does that mean?

Of course my mind drifted to thoughts of "Hogzilla" our 275 lb pig, who took "a walk through the park" last Saturday to Pig Heaven. She will feed the Gonzales family for about 6 months.

In celebration of her graduation from mortal life we had a ham (not hers) on Sunday.

"Summer" the younger pig will take a walk through the Ventura County Fair in August and will be auctioned as a Market Pig. Pig auctions at the fair bring in a lot of money. So we are excited about re-couping some of the money spent on feeding these beasts.

We have had poultry/live stock for at least 5 years and I think Victor is done. He has decided that it is expensive to feed these animals and would rather spend money on something else. I think he is going to have a butcher frenzy this summer - We will have meat of all kinds in the freezers. CRAZY.

Brings back memories of chickens running around our backyard in Indiana. I think Christopher is still traumatized by the possessed headless chicken that would not die - funny! I still laugh about it. My kids think the story is funny too.