Penny the Pig

When they say enjoy it while it lasts because before you know it, it will be over, they aren’t kidding. You don’t realize how fast the time goes until you’re looking back at it all. I showed my last show and realize how far I have come and what showing livestock all these years has meant to me. It allowed me to grow into the person I am and also has driven me towards my future career after college graduation. You never know what you can learn from raising livestock, until you do it.

Now that I no longer get to do this, I realize how much I am going to miss the late night walks in the barn, the early morning feedings, and the excitement as you hit the show ring at the fair. Any livestock kid’s favorite week of the summer is fair and all summer that’s what you prepare for.

This last year taught me more than any other year; I stretched myself thin biting off more than I could chew with what I needed to do this summer. I designed my own internship and wanted to accomplish as much as possible and kept picking up new projects and on top of that I was trying to raise show pigs while keeping a social life. Ultimately my Friday nights ended up being my day to stay in the barn until 11 PM.

I didn’t plan on showing pigs this year even, but when I found myself at an auction I found one I liked and ended up being the final bid. I had to hustle to get everything in order to bring home this pig and also find her a friend because you can not just have one pig. I spent more money than I ever had on a pig and it was okay because it was my last year right? Well that led to me just getting crazy with my feed rations and feeding her everyday at the same time and giving her walks after she ate along with being rinsed off. This pig was more spoiled than some people’s dogs.

Naturally I all around put the most effort I could into this pig because it was going to be my last show. My original plan was to not show this year, so when I put everything together to show I got so excited that I had another chance out there. Of course after all of this it would only make sense for my favorite pig to go lame then six days before the show. She had a bum hip one day when I came home and I was so upset thinking could I have done something to prevent this? But there was nothing I could do, and all we could do was give her medicine to help with swelling and make her feel better until it could heal.

She couldn’t make it to the show ring with a bum hip, so she came back home and she gets to be stuck with me awhile longer. Things don’t always go as planned and this year showed me more than any other year did; that you can work harder than you ever have, but you can’t always control the outcome and you have to live with that and make the most of it and keep learning, even when it's over. The learning part of it comes from being in the barn, and thats where the hard work takes place.