A month and a half was practically forever!

It takes me longer than most to adjust to new schedules and somehow the blog slipped away. And once a few weeks passed, it started feeling overwhelming. Rest assured though, I still went to Winslow every week. Goal going forward with a new job: No neglecting Minding the Minis!

Yes, you read “new job” right. It turns out that the nursery business, in addition to being seasonal, is greatly affected by the weather and current economy. So, even though I would have been laid off  for a few months each year (had NO idea), having a bad summer means letting go of extra hands like me. While I’m sad to leave the animals behind, my job was so focused elsewhere that I only had a few moments with them each day. Now I can visit the nursery just to feed them. Score!

Being at Winslow, as always, has been an oasis from the rest of the world for me. Lots of little moments have been lost in my writing absence but I will have lots of pictures to share…once I sift through the virtual pile.

In the meantime, here’s an anecdote from last week. I’ve talked about Waterford, the 450 pound pig, many times. Over the past month, I’ve started getting him into his pen by myself. For some reason, he’s been following me easily in without the aid of food. I sing-song to him and he gets up and trots after me, or in a few rare cases, he’s just seen me and off he went. Whenever I regale Deb with these small adventures, she’s always surprised at him and then follows up with warnings.

Feeling cocky, I went for another notch on my success belt on Monday and he completely ignored me. After singing his name, he followed me to the pen and then realized I had no food. He braked that big giant body, turned around and walked away. Hmmm. After a brief barn visit, I emerged with a scoop of hay pellets and he followed me once more. He went in but didn’t leave enough room for me to easily put the grain into his bucket.

So I nudged him.

He nudged back.

He does this very quickly, accompanies it with a snarl, a bite and jams his tusk in really hard.

While thinking, “oh. Ow!“, I quickly threw the food in and closed the gate. I can officially report that when he gets pissed, he means business and he acts on it fast. Much faster than his laissez faire attitude lets on. And he delivered the blow to my knee cap. While it broke skin, it didn’t bleed, but it was in ridiculous pain that night.

When I told Deb about it our adventure, her response was, “No one ever believes me.” Oh, I definitely believed her but really needed to experience it for myself in order to not want to experience it again.

I still love his big floppy ears though!