Okay, before you say anything, I know I'm a failure. I bailed on the A-Z challenge before I even reached G. And my excuse is weak, so I'm not even going to throw it out there. But I'm back with a farm update. And what an update it is too! 

We've talked about our impending spring pigs for months now. We went to pick them out a month ago, way before they were even weaned, and planned out our trip to pick them up weeks in advance. We had the dog crate at the ready and the electric fencing was up and tested.

Then when the day of the trip arrived, we were forced to throw down tarps in the back of the Kia and load them into the car sans crate (it was just an inch too wide to cram it into the back.) But hey, no problem, right? Where there's a will, there's a way. And nothing was going to come between us and our little piglets.

Famous last words...

When we finally got them home and unloaded them from the car, all our careful planning went to shit. 

It was like a fairy tale gone wrong. Or a twisted Disney news headline. "Three little pigs vanish into the woods, never to be seen again." Okay, so they were seen. And seen again. They were just behind our pasture. But let's just say, capturing wayward piglets is about as easy as training a mastiff puppy not to drool. And if you've ever read my blog, you know mastiffs are champion droolers. So trust me when I say piglets are impossible to catch. 

My husband was inconsolable. And not just because we'd forked over a nice chunk of cash for said piggies just that afternoon, though there was that. But it was also the plans for the future that disappeared right along with their curled up tails. 

Fast forward to this afternoon...

My neighbor messaged me to say he'd seen our piggies, so I quickly dispatched the hubby and one of the girls for a reconnaissance mission. I told them not to come back without the pigs! Maybe I didn't say those exact words, but I did say to hurry. So off they went, armed with a tarp and a bag of bread. 

An hour later, they returned, pigless. Those slippery little bacon babies had gotten away . Hubby was dejected and sad. And very possibly covered in poison ivy, again. But he vowed to set a trap the next day.

No trap would be set, because no sooner had we settled in to watch TV this evening when hubby spied three little pigs peering through our gate. They'd wandered right up and strolled on through. (So that's a total exaggeration, we had to corral them toward the open gate, but it was oddly simple given the prior experiences.) 

And so my happy ending includes three frolicking, well fed little piggies playing tag with the mastiff puppy in my back yard. I can't wait to see where this leads to...

Until the next time... I'll be feeding pigs again!