Nutty, the Steer and Peter, the Pig

Today was a red letter day at the little Lucas ranch.

It was the day to take our big black steer and one of our pigs to the butcher.

 Danny got into the trailer to say goodbye with a big grin. He's not a bit afraid of Nutty.

We aren't that unhappy about getting rid of this big, horned steer. 

For one thing, he drinks a lot of water!

We had quite the time getting him inside the trailer. I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen so the children could all go out and help. It took about half an hour, but finally they got the steer inside the trailer.

Then they had to pump up the tire with a bicycle pump! Sam and the girls took turns pumping.

 

Jonathan had planned to take the trailer to the butcher with his truck, but we couldn't find the right kind of trailer hitch sleeve, so Sam ended up hitching our van to the trailer instead.

And then the van got stuck in the snow!

So they had to hitch a chain from Jonathan's truck to the van and pull it out of the barnyard that way.

A great cheer went up when the van came unstuck!

 

Of course, the children all run and jump onto the trailer to ride along.

 Carrie closes the gate behind them.

 And the next step is capturing one of the three pigs, Peter, James and John.

The children decided it would have to be Peter. 

James and John are going to be allowed to grow bigger.

 The children thought they would just grab this pig by its legs and it would be an easy task.

 Carrie grabbed it and you should have heard it squeal!

We had a rather merry chase.

"Here, piggy, piggy!"

 Sam, our best ranch hand, said not to chase it, but to coax it with feed.

 He got it close to the side door of the trailer.

 We weren't sure it would climb in over the layer of hay, so Sam moved a bale and then another one.

 Yeah! We have him!

 Ooops! Not!

 Try again.

 Action snap!

Sam grabs the pig, and everyone closes in !

 Dad and Sam wrestle the pig's front legs in while Carrie falls on her knees behind Sam to keep the pig's back end from backing up between his legs.

 Talk about squealing decibels! I just wish this had been on video!

 But they got him in.

 Boy, is he a hunk!

I ended up being the one having to drive that half ton steer in the horse trailer on some snowy country roads to the butcher, as Jonathan had to get on to work. I came home a little weak from worrying we'd end up in the ditch or worse,
 so we kind of ditched doing much more school than the children did while I was gone.
 And yeah, there are jeans that need to be mended and other things that need done around here,

(Sam said last night that these were his favorite jeans, so I promised to see what I could do with them)

but I'm taking time to blog while the kids are sledding up at the bluffs this late afternoon.
Blogging is a bit of the glue that holds my life together and gives me a bit of outside purpose when I'm just a country mom at home a lot.
Writing is the way I unwind!
I hope something I write is a blessing to the readers--or gives them their laugh for the day!
I hope to post a laugh or two soon!