Another childhood (sort of) story
One of my college friends invited me home to meet his family. It wasnāt a romantic thing, it was more of a Southern thing.
Anyway, his dad had some pigs. And his sister had left the shoat pen open after she fed them and the shoats got out. Luckily, that field had already been harvested so the pigs couldnāt do much damage.
Being smart, my friendās dad left the shoats alone and sure enough, most of them went back into the pen on their own. This one, this one didnāt. It was still roaming around.
B.ās dad was embarrassed to ask me, especially considering this was my 1st visit, but he needed help to get that one shoat back into the pen.
I have to describe the pen set up, now. There was a run, and all the pen gates opened onto it. It meant the farmer could just haul the feed into the center and then get into all the pens from that point.
The shoat was in that run, but it would not go into the open shoat pen. So B. & I stood at the open end, holding a bit of fence between us, and Bās dad stood at the other end, near but not blocking that gate.
He stomped at that shoat who came running towards B. & I, who raised the fence a bit. The shoat saw the fence and did a wide, running u-turn. As it reached the other end, B.ās dad took a swing at it with a tobacco stake. He didnāt hit, but it alarmed the shoat who swung wide around him and came running back.
Repeat a few times with that shoat running laps around that run. Until finally, the shoat realized, āI got a fence that way, a guy with a stick that way, but thereās no one blocking that way!ā and ran into the shoat pen.
B.ās dad shut the gate lickety-split, and thatās how I once helped catch a shoat. BTW, the pig herdās boar was named Nuts. And I do believe he was waist high on me. Not a small boar, by any means. The shoat on the other hand, didnāt quite reach my knee.