The Death of the Pig

Can A Pig Die Twice?

Ours Did.

This was the sad scene I came home to last night.  After a long day at work, I picked up Stown from school and we went shopping.  Socks, underwear, new shoes, the grocery store.  We didn't get home until nearly 7:30.  As we unloaded the car, I raced ahead of Stown to unlock and rearrange our deep freezer for the chickens he was carrying.  To my horror, this is what I saw.

I panicked. Checked the plug - fine.  Checked the breaker - fine.  I grabbed a thermometer and started stabbing roasts, hams, even packages of bacon.  Too late.  Everthing was 58-60 degrees and judging by the blood loss it happened a few days ago.

I broke into tears.  We had just picked up the pig a month ago and now it had died, again.  I cried and started going over all the dinners we were going to miss... no pork posole, no grilled chops, no Christmas ham!!  Stown stepped up with a hug and told me to go take a hot bath and he would put the rest of the groceries away.

We spent the rest of the evening quietly mourning our losses and counting our blessings, for we did get some good meals out of it in the last month.  I found a package of chops that had made it into our other freezer and rejoiced in the fact that the butcher had made a slight mistake and we were owed 15 lbs of Italian sausage.  So, I guess we will still get a few more meals.  All in all, I am grateful that we still have so many blessings in our life.  After sleeping on it, my heart is still broken and my wallet will take time to recover - but atleast I have a job to go to this morning.  Maybe I can even save enough to invest in a new freezer this time (the dead one was a used freebie we received in May). 

The worst part is that Jim doesn't know yet.  He had a strange work schedule yesterday and  was asleep when we got home.  I didn't wake him, why, there was nothing he could do anyway.  And to add insult to injury, yesterday morning was the trash pick up.  Now, I have to haul all this meat to the dump and pay to have the freezer disposed of. 

That's Life.