Just Down the Road   

Those seven days of Indian Summer certainly were splendid. Blazing sun highlighting brilliant leaves, gentle breezes with high temperatures in the sixties. Another chance to wear summer clothing, drive with the top down, have a yard sale, and mow lawn.

 That amazing stretch of drying weather allowed Mr. R. to finally finish harvesting first cutting hay. He processed about six-hundred bales of bedding/mulch hay that otherwise would have been wasted. He and Junior are now concentrating on cutting firewood. 

 During the foliage peak, Junior and I enjoyed a long four-wheeler ride. We
followed an extensive network of established and crude trails for miles through colorful woods, brushlots and fallow fields. Some sections were not for the feint of heart. On several occasions I refused to traverse steep gullies so Junior reluctantly drove my machine to level ground. Sometimes we stopped to watch wildlife or enjoy the lovely scenery.

 On the way home the road we were following abruptly ended in a farmyard. Junior complained, "See, I told you we shouldn't go this way."  Before we could escape, people walked toward us. I apologized for our intrusion; they said we're not the first strange people who came their way. I'm not sure how to interpret that comment, although we must have been quite a sight - a long-haired teenager (wearing a helmet) and an old fogey roaring up their driveway on twin four-wheelers.

Surprisingly, this unexpected encounter developed into a unique experience. A former dairy barn had been converted into an efficient hog facility. Twenty large pens with self-loading automatic feeder/waterers each contain forty hogs. The manure from slurry tanks under the slatted barn floor is semiannually pumped and spread on cropped fields. 

 There are no breeding boars, sows, or piglets. A Pennsylvania corporation
owns and trucks eighty-pound hogs to this farm, supplies feed to raise them to
approximately 280 pounds, then trucks them to a processing plant. The farmers get paid to shelter and raise the hogs. There is only a one-week respite
between batches of eight-hundred hogs.

 The frolicking hogs appeared to be well cared for. From outside the barn we heard no hog sounds and detected no offensive odors. This well-managed
facility briefly annoys humans during spreading time and possibly when the
squealing hogs are transported. Short-term hog odors and noises are a mild inconvenience. Yapping dogs, neighborhood conflicts, burning garbage, wayward children, etc., are real problems.

 By local standards, this rural hog farm is large-scale. In comparison, farms in some states contain thousands of hogs. Recently, a Nebraska company submitted plans to construct a monstrous 36,000 hog facility. Planners and residents took a stand and embraced the NIMBY attitude - Not in My Backyard! Can you blame them?

 After enjoying the antics of the hogs and asking countless questions, we thanked our hosts and continued our adventure. It was chilly and getting dark when we arrived home.