Comments on: “Everywhere there’s lots of piggies…”

By: amamgets

amamgets — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:20:04 +0000

The problems with feral hogs: they stink to high heaven, make holes everywhere (bad for the horses), mess up your watering holes, and don't kid yourself - they WILL charge humans.

Seriously. Shoot the nasty suckers. Then go get a cute Wilbur for the barn.

SO - my word verification is 'licanimp' which kinda, you know, sounds insulting.

By: Tito_Kohout

Tito_Kohout — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:42:45 +0000

Remember, it is now legal to hunt them from helicopters. I'm just saying.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:12:13 +0000

We have no hogs (thank goodness), but the dogs have stepped up to the plate and have reduced our lawn to one big hole in search of the delicious grub. The good news is I can't mow the lawn anymore…you could lose an entire mower in there.

By: Bo Townsend

Bo Townsend — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:46:56 +0000

Hogs or hawgs as we call them in East Tennessee, are something I found alluring when we first moved to Texas. Maybe it was because I was captivated by the idea of plentiful sausage running around loose or maybe it had to do with my love of the story of the Gerasene demoniac, or as I like to call the story, “Demons, hawgs and Jesus”. It seems Jesus coerces the demon Legion into a herd of "swine" only to have all that delicious barbecue run off a cliff.

Whatever the reason for my fascination with hogs, I vowed that one day my son and I would hunt these destructive yet delicious "pests". After a few unsuccessful hunts, we finally found a couple of hogs in south Texas. Bowman was the only one of eight of us to shoot not only one but two 85 pound sows.

He had been taught to clean and eat whatever he killed but I eventually gave in and helped him out. I guess it was the look he gave me as he was carefully cutting around the south end of a north bound hog; they are really unpleasant to clean. They have steel wire like hair, hoards of fleas and a legion of ticks scrambling away from their deceased host. After all of that, Bowman declared that he would just as soon never have anything to do with a hog again as long as he lived.

That's when I realized that maybe that had something to do with why there are so many of them running around loose.
Bo Townsend

By: Cathy

Cathy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:19:56 +0000

I could tell you my hog tale, which is about Charlie, the boar who was the go-to guy at the little pig farm my father owned for small respites from his lawyer life … and my story would have included the fact that my sister trained Charlie to roll over (very slooooowly, since he weighed 600 pounds) for a tummy scratch with a 2×4 board … BUT, I would rather give you a great tip. We had a similar situation with digging varmints right here in the city limits of Austin with a persistent armadillo who made our front yard look like it could have been used as a set for the movie, Holes. We continually filled the holes only to find a bigger set the next day. We filled the garden with moth balls which we had heard would drive away unwanted critters, but our armadillo must have thought they were dinner mints, because he continued to be our nightly guest. The reason: GRUBS. My mother suggested, "If you get rid of the grubs, you'll get rid of the armadillo." She told me that Antidote, which is a natural product my sister developed for getting rid of fire ants, (beneficial nematodes) will also get rid of grubs. About two weeks after we doused our gardens with nematodes (the good kind): no grubs, no armadillo, no holes! You might share this tip with Robert so that he can avoid another night of hog vigilanteism.

By: Heather and Martin

Heather and Martin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:09:34 +0000

Many thanks, Sharon, and yes, we celebrated our "joint centennial," as Heather likes to call it, earlier this year.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:21:51 +0000

Heather and Marty-

My first comment! I just celebrated earlier this month my entry into the next decade (do you both share it with me yet?) by spending a few days near Tucsan. There, I saw my first feral hog! Actually about four of them. Interesting creatures. Even more interesting to see how humans respond to them! Great blog. You write beautifully. Brought back (recent) memories. Thanks for all the love and care you are putting into this effort. Go Ephs! Your Atlanta fan, Sharon