Well, I thought that was all you needed to know, but.…

One week ago this past Friday, we backed our livestock trailer up to a chute leading into a series of pig paddocks in the woods. There, we swung open the door, and three newly purchased piglets fled from the trailer, through the chute, and into the largest, one-acre paddock. And almost as immediately slipped through the fence on the far side — the one that has held 300-pound hogs and 10-pound piglets alike, without escape, for nearly 20 years — and scurried to freedom in the woods and pastures beyond.

An anxious hour of fruitless searching later, we brought in the big guns. Within minutes Becky, our English shepherd, had tracked them down in the tall grass framing the lane at the top of the woods. We then proceeded to herd the weanlings a good hundred yards and back through the chute. This time we steered them across the paddock from which they had initially escaped and into (we hoped) a more secure, smaller paddock.

Having quickly hooked up an electric wire that runs around the base, we retired to a well-earned rest. A couple of hours later we checked on our captives, only to discover that this time they had breached the fencing of the smaller enclosure. Fortunately, they had only migrated into the larger paddock (whose fence they had breached earlier), so we once again moved them back into the smaller paddock.

The problem was that these piglets were smaller than the usual weanlings we bring home. The electric wire was set at eight inches above the ground, which these three easily limbo’d under. Thirty minutes of lowering the strand in critical areas and we again high-fived ourselves and resumed our non-porcine activities: outsmarting pigs is one of our everyday accomplishments.

Saturday morning dawned with clear skies and piglets in the paddock. Throughout the day we would periodically look in on them. The respite was short-lived. Sometime between afternoon naps and coffee, they had found a new exit strategy and took it. We looked high, we looked low. We looked in the woods and in the fields. We brought in Becky, drove the truck up and down the road, called “piggy-piggy,” and notified neighbors … all to no avail.

Guests were arriving for dinner within the hour and we still had food to prepare, so we abandoned looking temporarily. But on their arrival, a search party formed and renewed the hunt. Again, a thorough combing of the area yielded no piglets.

On Sunday, with a full work schedule to complete, we still took time for multiple searches in an ever-expanding grid. Still no luck. I opined that although we could keep looking, the three little pigs had more than likely already been eaten by coyotes, died from lack of water, or crossed the road and taken up life as river pirates on Paint Rock creek. My naysaying was ignored, and I was enjoined to cheerfully return to our search party of two.

Monday, Labor Day, was repeat of the day before: farm work, searches, no pigs. Around 7 in the evening, just before sitting down to a nice dinner I had prepared, Cindy first did a quick check-in on Facebook. Whereupon she discovered that a neighbor’s son on Big Sandy Road — a mile away over two ridges — had posted finding three piglets and had confined them to a makeshift pen. Was anyone missing pigs? the poster asked. Frantic messaging and calls tracked down a few facts. One: The post had been made at noon on Sunday, the day before. Two: The piglets had escaped the holding pen that same afternoon. Three: Numerous other neighbors had seen the pigs on the edge of a wood near the road.

We rushed through dinner, then headed to Big Sandy, a road that wends through a small rural valley, like ours, of homes, gardens, chickens, and the occasional larger livestock. We began knocking on doors, you-who-ing as we went so the residents knew someone was approaching. We handed out farm cards, told each household what we were looking for … three little pigs. Most everyone we spoke with had seen them at some point over the previous 24 hours.

How those tiny pigs had travelled the distance they did in such a short time we still don’t know. But they seemed now to have taken up residence in a small wooded area and adjoining side yard. After chatting with the couple whose son had caught our pigs the previous day, and finding out the husband’s father had built our chimney 20 years back, then catching up even more … we headed home.

Tuesday: Cindy drove over to Big Sandy in the morning, found the piglets in the same spot, fed and watered them, then returned home to discuss a resolution with me. Now, the end of the saga, in retrospect, is somewhat anti-climactic, considering that we expended an extraordinary amount of time in discussion and preparation that afternoon to retrieve our pigs.

During the day we continued to receive messages and calls, each alerting us to sightings, leading one to suspect that not much happens in that valley — which, to be fair to the residents of Big Sandy, is the same for our valley.

Finally, around 5 p.m., we headed back out in the truck, armed with slatted livestock panels reinforced with attached wire (making them escape-proof), a crate, more feed, more water, and, knowing from firsthand experience that pigs are indeed fast learners, an understanding that we probably only had one shot at their capture.

Sure enough, there, alongside the road, were the three little pigs. We stopped at the neighbor’s house to inform him we were going to set up a temporary fence in his yard. By now, of course, he already knew the whole saga of the piglets and he quickly gave his blessing. At the woods’ edge the pigs busily rooted around in the grass, while on the road’s edge passersby who also were aware of the Great Pig Escape stopped, wanting to know if they could help. Thanking them, we waved each on down the road: this was a job we needed to finish ourselves.

After some hurried last-minute discussion, we unloaded our panels, setting up a square that was open on one end. We placed a little feed and water in the pen. And then, 72 hours after escaping, with virtually no hesitation, the three little pigs walked into the enclosure and we closed the fourth panel. Within minutes we had them in the crate and, panels loaded back up, scarcely believing our good fortune, we headed home. The Great Pig Escape was over.

Addendum: A week later, they still reside in the livestock trailer. And there they will stay for another week, until, fat enough and big enough, they are unable to squeeze through the fence in the woods. (Even in these past few days, they have already doubled in size.) In the woods, they will join the three other weanlings we bought last Monday to replace the ones that got away.

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