Awhile ago, I shared what I thought was going to be a one shot blog post: It's the Little Things.....Uncle Harlan. Well, I was wrong. In the interim, Cousin Bonnie Rieger-Reger shared a memory she had of what we believe is that very same boar written about in that January blog post...hence the "Part 2" of this blog post title.
Before I share that story though, I think I also need to provide a little more background on the farm we're talking about.
This first photo below is a screen capture of the Zacher farm/homestead from a Google Earth image with identifying text I superimposed on the image. Anyone can access this image without the text at: Google Earth Zacher Farmstead. It'll come up as a map, but there should be a little image button in the lower left corner of the screen that will change it over to a satellite image/photo if you click on it.
The next photo is a screen capture of the Zacher farm/homestead zoomed out a bit with text superimposed showing the old pig sty. I talked about this pig sty in my previous blog post.
That pig sty was HUGE!
The next two photos were provided by Fonda Rieger (youngest and most spoildedest of the Rieger children.....by FAR). She took these photos (along with a whole bunch more, but you're going to have to wait to see them until I get motivated to write more blog posts on the old Zacher farm/homestead - please don't hold your breath cuz I can be pretty unreliable when it comes to motivating myself to write) on a visit she made to the old farm/homestead August 20, 2016.
Thank you, Fonda....
Just looking at those photos brings back memories of that big ol' boar charging straight at me huffin' and a chuffin' at a gallop with Uncle Harlan hot on his heels on horseback and me sweating profusely wondering in my mind if this was really a place I wanted to be.....but I digress.
Bonnie Rieger-Reger is Uncle Harlan's second born. She's my age although a month older than me (sorry, Bonnie....couldn't resist putting that little factoid in here).
Bonnie's Story
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| Bonnie Rieger-Reger |
Ok, so there is another story about dad’s prize boar.
You were right Jerry, the pig pen was really pretty big. I’m thinking it was at least as big as a whole city block, if not bigger.
I think the story I am about to tell might be about the same prize boar. All of dad’s animals were very important to him.
Anyway back to the story, I carried the milk and slop up to the pig pen from the house, which was a bit of a hike. These were two of the 5-8 gallon grease buckets.
So I crawled over the fence and turned around to lift one of the buckets over the fence to pour in the trough.
Needless to say by this time all of the pigs were right there knocking me around like a rag doll.
I was getting slop all over me ( luckily I had coveralls on) but I still wasn’t very happy about it.
That’s when I set the bucket of slop down on the outside of the fence again and there happened to be a piece of 2x4 there and I just grabbed it and started swinging like Kung Fu Panda and hitting the pigs to get them out of the way.
I hit “the prize boar” and he started squealing and headed for the pig barn.
A couple days later dad had gone up to the pig pen for something and decided to check on all of the pigs. “The Prize Boar” was still in the pig barn.
When dad came into breakfast he told mom that he was probably going to have to sell the boar because it couldn’t walk, it was dragging his hind legs and dad couldn’t figure out why.
I was sitting there listening to this but did NOT say a word. Kung Fu Panda obviously hit the boar right on the backbone and did some nerve damage.
I did not tell my dad until long after I was an adult and we were living in Oregon. He was telling someone about the boar not being able to walk and he never could figure out why. I finally fessed up.
The good thing was after a few days the boar did get the feeling back in his hind legs and he was able to walk again. Lucky for me ALL parts worked and there were lots more little pigs.
Thanks, Bonnie. These are the kind of memories we should all be sharing with each other.
You were right Jerry, the pig pen was really pretty big. I’m thinking it was at least as big as a whole city block, if not bigger.
I think the story I am about to tell might be about the same prize boar. All of dad’s animals were very important to him.
Anyway back to the story, I carried the milk and slop up to the pig pen from the house, which was a bit of a hike. These were two of the 5-8 gallon grease buckets.
So I crawled over the fence and turned around to lift one of the buckets over the fence to pour in the trough.
Needless to say by this time all of the pigs were right there knocking me around like a rag doll.
I was getting slop all over me ( luckily I had coveralls on) but I still wasn’t very happy about it.
That’s when I set the bucket of slop down on the outside of the fence again and there happened to be a piece of 2x4 there and I just grabbed it and started swinging like Kung Fu Panda and hitting the pigs to get them out of the way.
I hit “the prize boar” and he started squealing and headed for the pig barn.
A couple days later dad had gone up to the pig pen for something and decided to check on all of the pigs. “The Prize Boar” was still in the pig barn.
When dad came into breakfast he told mom that he was probably going to have to sell the boar because it couldn’t walk, it was dragging his hind legs and dad couldn’t figure out why.
I was sitting there listening to this but did NOT say a word. Kung Fu Panda obviously hit the boar right on the backbone and did some nerve damage.
I did not tell my dad until long after I was an adult and we were living in Oregon. He was telling someone about the boar not being able to walk and he never could figure out why. I finally fessed up.
The good thing was after a few days the boar did get the feeling back in his hind legs and he was able to walk again. Lucky for me ALL parts worked and there were lots more little pigs.
Thanks, Bonnie. These are the kind of memories we should all be sharing with each other.
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