Once a week or so, I stop at a nearby pig farm and visit the pigs. Mostly, they ignore me, but once in awhile, a pig – like the once in the center – will stare at me and try to figure out what I am doing with my camera. Pigs are wicked smart, I am told, but mostly, they seem to lay around in the mud or huddle together for warmth.
I know what these pigs are destined for, so I don’t get too close to them or give them names. I do like to stare at them for awhile and they like to stare back. It is somehow peaceful and affirming. For much of my life, I never even saw a pig, let alone got to stare at one.
God Bless librarians. They care about people, they love books and read them, they even come to hear writers talk about their books. Red was, as usual, a smash, and I had a full house at the Connecticut Library Association. Librarians love books and they have the best questions about them.
Red was much loved and petted, and he loved every second of it.
I talked for about 90 minutes and then rushed to the hotel for an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio. My book is still alive and kicking in its new life. I have temporarily overtaken Esther The Wonder Pig in some pet categories, and today, was number one in the Animal Behavior and Communication category on Amazon.
I have a ways to go to catch up with Sy Montgomery’s very wonderful Soul Of An Octopus, a terrific book and am giving the Puppy Nanny a good run for her money. I also got my first vile and disheartening review on Amazon, it seems there is one every year. For some reason, this one stung, it seemed especially dishonest to me, and hurtful. I am all too familiar with the poster, who hid behind a pseudonym, of course.
And I am sick of angry and broken people, which is not exactly empathetic. I normally have the hide of an elephant, I’ve been at this a long time, but I think the flood of lies and fake news is rubbing me raw.
And then I got in trouble over a best-selling pig.
This morning, I got a bunch of e-mails scolding me for getting competitive with Esther, once a little pig but now a huge pig with a devoted following. I was flip with the pig, fantasizing about her being served for brunch at the Round House Cafe. I do have a competitive streak.
“I am really disappointed in you,” Katz, wrote one unhappy blog reader, “I know you like to poke at your fans on occasion and delight in their outrage if they hold different positions than you…but this? was totally beneath you…I’m not outraged, I’m just sad that in a time of political chaos, you would choose the side of pettiness and ugliness…I expect more from you, get to it.”
Hmmm, I got a bunch of messages like that, and what I was thinking that being humorless is a lot worse than being ugly, and I should know. I’m glad C was not outraged, that would have been disturbing.
Another reader reminded me mournfully that Esther The Wonder Pig is a creature of love, and should be revered. Okay, I wish her well, I still hope to kick her ass (?) on the Amazon book lists, she has been a best-seller for months, I want a shot at it. She’s a big and hearty pig, she can handle it.
Lighten up, folks, when I stop laughing, I’ll be dead. We do live in grumpy times.
All in all, a mixed bag on the book tour, fun, exciting, good and challenging.
You can order my book and I will sign and personalize it, and Connie Brooks will send you a classy tote-bag. She takes Paypal and major credit cards and she and her staff are unusually nice. You can also call the store at 518 677 2515.
We got back this morning, and Maria and I (we have much fun on book tours) I are off to tell Connie at the Mansion that her portable air conditioner is on the way. It’s her 79th birthday, and if you wish, you can write her c/o of the Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y.,12816.
Heavy fog this morning, it didn’t bother the pigs on the pig farm down the road. They curl up together in the mud and keep each other warm. They have covered shelter if they want t They don’t.
Drove past a pig farm up the road this morning, and it was hot. The pigs love to lie in a shallow pond and sleep when the sun is strong. They have shaded shelters nearby, but the mud offers them protection from the sun and perhaps some coolness. It is always an interesting sight.
Nikilene Norman, the daughter of Ken and Eli Norman, has grown up around animals, and is confident around them. At Joshua Rockwood’s farm today, she decided to race the pigs and their piglets back and forth across the fence line, the pigs squealed with joy and rush back, and forth with Nikilene.
Watching this scene, I thought about the idea of animal abuse, and it has become almost meaningless, an awful word tossed around like confetti, quite often where it doesn’t apply.
Abuse is not an argument on Facebook or the private opinion of citizens driving around in a car. Abuse refers to the death or grievous injury of domesticated animals by cruelty or neglect. Although we hear it a lot, it is actually uncommon. Animals in America, especially pets, are treated better than any animals in the history of the world. That is not, of course, the story your hear.
In my experience very few people acquire animals to hurt and mistreat them, even when they sometimes lack the resources or judgment to care for them properly. If you want to see abuse, go to an industrial factory farm – the animal rights people don’t seem to spend much time or money on those farms, the New York Carriage Horses are much easier targets. More than nine billion animals live on those farms, many in absolute horror.
Any single one of them would be blessed to get to Joshua’s farm,where they roam freely, eat grass and good hay, have water from tanks and fresh streams, shelter from the sun and cold.
Anyone who has been around animals – farmers, vets farriers, trainers – can spot an abused animal in a second. They are thin, often covered with sores. They are usually dirty, they slouch, are sluggish or skittish, sometimes aggressive out of fear. Their eyes are white or runny, their tails, if they have them, are down, the skulk and slink. They are utterly transparent and recognizable. There are no abused animals on Joshua Rockwood’s farm, there were none in March, just after his arrest, when I first saw them. There have never been any.
No one has found any in the stables of the New York Carriage Horses either, and lots of people have looked. You need to be utterly ignorant of animals not to see that those horses are the luckiest horses in the world.
There were none, just hours before his arrest, according to two veterinarians who examined them.
How did we get our heads screwed on so backwards when it comes to animals and abuse?
I think it’s because none of the people making decisions about animals know much about them any more, we have all moved away from the animals and the farms, and we only know animals as pets.
Nikilene knows animals well, she has lived with them all of her lives, her parents have always let her explore and take risks. I remember when she first saw our donkeys, she was half the size she is now, she jumped up on her back and rode one around the barn. We were shocked, int the Boomer world, that would have been abuse.
Nikilene knows on sight that pigs love to race up and down fences, squealing and jumping and having some fun. There is nothing that animals deserve more than being known and understood.
