We might live in Florida now, but believe me, the Hogs are alive and well here. Maybe it's the fact that there's a new Razorback fan in the Acosta household (despite whatever her Daddy may tell you), or maybe it was my robust cheering during football season this past year, but whatever it was, it worked. Perhaps, a little too well...
The night before we left to go to Arkansas for Christmas we were driving home around 9 p.m. Obviously it was dark, and as we entered our neighborhood we noticed a car in the opposite lane shining its bright lights across our lane and into a green space to the right of our car. Herschel slowed the car as we passed trying to figure out what these people were doing, and that's when I saw it. A big, black pig. Eating his way through the meticulously landscaped neighborhood.
Spotting a wild pig is not that out of the ordinary in Florida. Being from Arkansas I equate it to seeing deer along the interstate. As you drive along, you'll often see pigs feeding on the side of the road. But this was not the interstate, and this pig was considerably larger than the ones I'd seen along the road. I was more than a little disturbed. Not to mention that Herschel added to my uneasiness by nonchalantly pointing out that the noise that we'd often wondered about coming from the green space behind our house, was probably not a bull frog as we had once thought, but more than likely pigs. Thank you very much for that.
So, to Arkansas we went. A wonderful time was had by all, and Herschel flew back to Florida for a week to work before rejoining me and Sophia in Arkansas. The morning he was to leave, our pastor came to pick up to take him to the airport and what should they find in the middle of the road, but a dead pig! According to their approximations, it probably weighed 100-200 lbs.! And according to my approximations, that's equal to a person. Wild. With tusks.
In case you're keeping score, that's one pig sighted and one pig carcass in the road. So everything should be good, right? Wrong. Here are some very poor photos I took with my phone of what we found when we were taking a walk around the neighborhood the other night.
On the second one, between the street and the sidewalk is ususally all grass. That's not the case any more. The pigs are here in full force and there are many other spots like this throughout the neighborhood. We've even received a notice from the HOA saying that there are 12+ pigs that they are aware of in the neighborhood. They are trying to trap and get rid of them, but apparently the last time the neighborhood was invaded by pigs a couple of years ago it took approximately 9-10 months to get rid of them. And there were only three or four then.
Now all of this alone is enough to raise my blood pressure and keep me indoors as soon as the sun starts going down, but my sweet husband so thoughtfully made me watch a special on the Discovery channel a couple of weeks ago about Russian boars and how they are overrunning the Southeastern US. Apparently they are mating with wild pigs and becoming increasingly aggressive. Terrific! Oh, and two nights after he made me watch this, he left town. I'm pretty sure Oscar just had to hold it if he needed to go to the bathroom after dark. I'm kidding...sort of.
So, I have a new found pride in the fact that I am an Arkansas Razorback fan, because the animals can be big and mean and strong and take you down. However, I would like for them to be that way somewhere besides my neighborhood. So, I hope you'll understand if I'm not calling the Hogs quite so frequently these days. And I definitely won't be doing any Sic 'Em Bears. Yikes!
No comments:
Post a Comment