What Could Go Wrong?

Sally-Ann Thunder-Ann Whirlwind Crockett*! 

What a name. 

I remember them shouting it, stomping it, dancing it, as they marched around the property, getting ready for a new pig.  If it was a girl - a sow - they had her name.

This wasn’t always the case.  Some new arrivals waited days for their names; there might be a fight between Anna the Naming Queen and a brother who had a masculine preference.  Or maybe no one was ready for the newcomer, so names were thin.

But when Sally-Ann Thunder-Ann arrived, she was named.  She moved in, prospered as pigs do, and grew into her name. I don’t recall that she injured anyone right away. Was she the pig that took the head off a chicken raiding her feeder?  I don’t remember. 

We hadn’t realized that such a name of power might be a mistake until the day came to load her up for her final trip -- to the butcher. That day. It came.  It took all day.  It took all of us.  It took ropes and ramps and bait of many kinds. It took time and patience. And, finally, it took the life of one goat kid that got in the way.

By the end of that day everyone on the property knew one thing: Sally-Ann Thunder-Ann Whirlwind Crockett was the embodiment of her name. She was the whirlwind; she made the thunder.


There’s a sow at home right now. Her name is Serena.

 

*The name comes from the book of that title by Steven Kellog.

By Kate L.