Loss

Last night, as soon as the sun set, I hurried across the lawn to put the goat away before Oliver could hear me coming and run out of the warm barn into the cold night. When it is windy or rainy or freezing cold, I always try to beat him and never make it more than half way before he's at my feet. Last night I made it to the barn and he didn't greet me. I called his name as I poured the clattering food pellets into the goats metal dish. Still no Oliver. I went to his house and tapped and called to him and started digging out the straw bedding, careful not to be bit by a sleepy, grumpy pig. Still no Oliver, but I heard faint breathing, faint snorting.

Tim had started the car and was ready to head to Oak Harbor for groceries and dinner.
"Oliver isn't coming out for his dinner. I need help."
"He's probably just warm and sleepy in his bed. Should we go to Oak Harbor and see if he comes out and gets his dinner when we get back?"
"He never misses dinner. We should dig him out. Make sure he's okay."

His house is buried in the sand and straw under the goat beds. He has piled all the straw he could around his house, packing it in until only a pig-size tunnel remains through the center. I started pulling out handfuls of packed straw, hopeful that I had heard his dreamy snorts above the goats bleats and that he wasn't out in the snow somewhere, missing. I found his head. His eyes fluttered and his body moved just slightly. I wrapped him in the towel I had brought down and rushed him back to the house. We cranked up the heat in the 'farm room', I put him on my belly for body heat and got a hot water bottle on him to get his temperature back to normal. Tim's research said even a frozen stiff pig with no heartbeat or breathing can usually be thawed, given some warm apple juice, and be back in action. I was hopeful my shivering bundle would be back to rooting around by the time Daniel and Amanda made the hour and a half trip home from the mainland.

Outside in the barn, the water dishes had started to skim over with ice inside the barn - much colder than I thought or than the other below-freezing nights had been. In the chicken house, the water was frozen solid. I broke my "no heat in the barn" conviction and set up a heat lamp over the water. In the corner by the ramp to outside, I found I frozen hatchling - still wet from the egg but not a survivor. December 1st was my projected hatch date for this latest clutch of chicks and it looks like one came a little earlier than the others. I secured a board across the bottom of the doorway to the outside, closed the little door to keep more heat in, shut the windows, and clamped a board across the bottom of the nest in hopes of keeping the other seven chicks safe and warm under their mother as they hatch. December is the wrong time for new babies, and it will be incredible if any of them survive, but all three of the first clutch seem to be thriving, so I have hope.

When Brother Daniel arrived, Oliver had stopped shivering and was starting to open his eyes, but still not very responsive. Over the next few hours, things didn't improve much, and by 2am, Oliver had gone. Perhaps from some other internal problem that had left him extra vulnerable to the cold. Today we will bury him in the sun, under an apple tree - the place he would most want to be.

Oliver was a good pig, adventuring in Alaska with Daniel for the first year and a half of his life; snuggling in bed or slipping into a sleeping bag out on camping trips. This fall, he loved life on the farm; chasing the chickens looking for whatever goodies they might have found, racing across the lawn for Grandpa's treats, and laying in the sun on warm days. We will miss having a little critter, so dense with personality, so sure of what he wants, and so eager to see us. We will miss our little guy without a purpose, without a job, who's life was just for fun.