Bicycling from Swartz Bay to Victoria along the Lochside Trail isn’t without incident. Just five minutes past the Victoria Radio Control Modelers Society (VRCMS) flying grounds at Michell Airpark, I meet a pig in a pigpen.
Welcome to Lochside Trail Pig Gig, Tourism Vancouver Island, Destination British Columbia .
I usually stop to see a model plane or two, but there’s a strong sow ‘ester blowing. Model planes are temporarily grounded. Two sows snooze in a shed. A third one’s submerged in soft mud. Her pink back and head face me. Mucky bliss. I see it in a pig’s eye.
“Happier-than-a-pig-in-mud, you’re beautiful,” I say.
Her quivering snout roots me out. “Is this another poke at a pig?”
A tranquil wallow is good for sweat-gland-free skin. Sunscreen, parasite killer, coolant, insect repellent— all-in-one lotion.
I take her pig-pic; she lines me up in her viewfinder. Once I’m in range, she twitches her right ear. I wave back holding my hand up to my ear like the Mickey-Mouse-Club graduate I am.
She tweaks her left ear. I respond in kind. A couple more times, right and left. I follow.
I swear, she’s leading this dance. She’s the in-sty-gator. Tweak, tweak. Her right ear, then mine. Doubles now. Tweak, tweak. Right then left.
A little twitch of the tail. I can manage that. Tweak right, tweak left, tweak right. I tweak back bilaterally.
At this point my friends are ready to bicycle on without me. Don’t they see this is more than the pair of us going hog-wild? Swine.
Pigs normally communicate with grunts and squeals. Is this a sign to relax? Have fun on this sunny weekend? Slather on some sunscreen? Watch out for parasites? Okay, corpulent hog lingo is under-rated.
I’m putting her on FB. She’s putting me on Pigterest, Snout-Time, Oinked-In, and Insta-Pig.
“Sows,” she practically squeals, “this one’s a corker.”
Meanwhile, this little piggy’s off to market… to Maddick’s Farm for a veggie sandwich with cham-pig-nons.
Lochside Trail Pig Gig, Southern Vancouver Island…
The (rear) End
Lochside Trail Pig Gig
“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
~Sire Winston Churchill