Life continues...

In between meeting the draughtsman and making some changes to his original plan, we've been having weekly phone calls with Terry's uncle in Lower Hutt who is selling our house for us, as well as work for Terry, kindy for Tori, school for Matthew, swimming lessons for the oldest 3 kids, meetings for Steph ... and Terry's been re-baiting the pig pen.

A lot of things have happened this week - we've sold our house, we've signed off on the concept for our new house ... and this morning the cherry on the top ... Terry caught pigs!!!

After almost 3 years here we've now notched up between 60-70 pigs in Terry's pig trap. It's amazing how successful it's been, but as the years have gone by it's taken more and more work to get them. Which is why when Terry went up the back this morning to check the pen with Matthew, Tori and Ryan, he wasn't expecting much. There hadn't been much action on the dead sheep he'd used as bait, there was a lot of tucker about anyway, and the only sign that anybody had seen was a sow with some young piglets. He'd also become a bit lax in making sure that the gates he used to make the pen were rock steady and immovable ... such is life. So as he came up the track towards the pen his heart started pumping a bit harder when he saw 5 young piglets trotting about in front of him, then around the bend ... it was mayhem!!!!!

Boars, sows, trotters and piglets were all crammed in the pen, and crazily trying to get out. Adrenalin high, he ordered Ryan and Tori to stay in the cab of the truck (Matthew was in the dog box on the back and couldn't see anything, so he was screaming to see), and jumped out with the gun. Then Matthew could see something - pigs were escaping as one of the corners of the pen jumped open after not being secured properly. Terry raced to that corner and hauled the gates together holding the ends in one hand while trying to aim and shoot the gun with the other. It was only the .21 though and after 4 shots the mag was empty and nothing was dead. Two big pigs had escaped, but there was still 2 boars, 2 sows, 1 medium sized pig, 3 young ones and 1 piglet milling around ... the truck was 10 metres away, the bullets were in the truck, the gates weren't secured and Terry was shaking as he tried to figure out what to do.

Spying some loose wire he wound the top of the gates together and prayed that the pigs didn't rush into that corner when he vacated it to get more bullets, as the bottom of the gates had a hand span gap - plenty big enough for them all to nose into and escape. He rushed to the truck and let Matthew off instructing him to go to the loose corner (mmmm not sure how I feel about him putting Matthew in that position!!), he grabbed his bag from the car, but a strap had wound itself around the gear stick and he couldn't get it loose he was so panicked. Eventually (probable it was only seconds) he got it and raced to the weak corner, madly filling the magazine with bullets.

Mag full, gun loaded and calm settled. One by one he popped off 6 of the pigs (3 bullets in the head for the biggest boar before it dropped) and took a breath. Two young ones and the piglet were still madly tearing around, but Terry jumped in and caught them. Stuffing them head first in a sack to take home. The kids are really excited - it was an unexpected haul of pigs.

Not able to lift the biggest boar onto the truck, Terry guts him there before he can lift him, then stuffing them all on the back of the truck and into the dog box, he races back down to home to share the news.

I can hear the excited chatter from inside the house, and come out to see Terry putting the 3 live ones in a sheep pen - what he doesn't do and what I and the kids didn't notice was that the gate wasn't snibbed shut so half an hour later the two young pigs have escaped and there is only the piglet still in the pen. Bummer!

Terry still has adrenalin pumping through him as he narrates the story back to Jack, and Claire and I. We had been getting worried that our pork stores were dwindling but I guess that's no longer a concern. Now the hard work starts ... gutting and skinning 6 big pigs will probably take Jack, Terry and I over an hour. That's where I'm heading now.