A Story of Piglets and a Missing Eyebrow

bigbendmarine

5 year old buck +
Appreciating many of y'all above the Mason Dixon line don't have to deal with feral hogs, I'll add one more reason to a very long list of reasons to be thankful for your fortune....

So I'm now suffering from "alopecia idiota" (idiotic hair loss), specifically with the vast majority of my right eyebrow missing.

"How did THAT happen?" you may be asking yourself. Well, this past weekend I trapped six hogs -- one sow with five piglets, and never one believing in wasting resources I set out to clean them with the hope of finding help. Alas (and not completely surprisingly), several friends who'd voiced a keen desire for fresh pork went MIA on me at cleaning time including one I NEVER remember letting me down before, even having helped me with midnight pig cleaning efforts in the past. The reliable friend ALWAYS has been up for any outdoor adventure, but as he was just getting off a 14-hour Emergency Room night shift when I reached out to him, he begged me to forgive his absence and save one piglet for him, which due to his years of reliability I agreed to honor.

So what in the heck does this have to do with my missing eyebrow? Well, being of 1/4 Spanish descent and now in my 50s, from time to time I get a wiry wild hair (or two, or three...) growing in my eyebrow and my wife is not big on me showing off my advancing age with bushy brows.. so she bought me a Norelco grooming shaver a few years back. Does anyone see where this is going? With my buddy telling me he hoped to grill the piglet whole, I thought I'd do the right thing for him and shave it clean before field dressing it to ensure the piglet was hair free / no hairs spoiled the meat... and... the only shaver I had at my disposal was, yes, the Norelco groomer.

Remove the eyebrow guard I generally keep on it... and zip zap the job was done, thorough disinfection followed, and I put the shaver up... BUT WITHOUT PUTTING THE EYEBROW LENGTH GUARD back on!

The next morning, still a bit groggy after waking up, I see a wiry hair in my right brow and reach for the shaver. Make ONE QUICK swipe across my brow, looking down into the sink to see if the single hair targeted has fallen AND TO MY HORROR I see what looks like a brown caterpillar plop down! So I look back up into my mirror and see a guy with one thick eyebrow and one not only missing but with shockingly white skin due to the prior thick brows preventing ANY tanning in the brow area. What started as a 10-second mission became a 15-minute exercise in doing my best to get my wife's mascara to hold onto incredibly short stubble in order to "beef up" what little remained.

The only blessing in having the Spanish eyebrow gene is that I know this too shall pass, and likely fairly quickly. :emoji_smile:
 
Thanks! I need that! It reminded me of my two pirate ancestors.


Two pirates, one old captain and one young rookie, are sitting in a bar. The older pirate captain has a wooden leg, a hook for a hand, and an eyepatch on one eye. The younger pirate, impressed and more than a little bit scared, asks the old pirate captain how he got his accessories.

"Well, I was out at sea on a stormy day and I fell overboard. A shark came up and bit me leg clean off." says the old pirate captain.

"Wow," says the young pirate, "and how did you lose your hand?"

"I was fighting a Navy officer, and he lopped me hand off with his sword. Still lived to tell the tale, though," the old pirate captain says with a grin.

"Amazing. What about your eye?" the young pirate asks. The old pirate captain's face turns dark.

"I was standing on the deck and a huge seagull did a poo right in me eye."

"But you don't go blind from a bit of bird poo!"

"True," says the old pirate captain, "But it was me first day with the hook."
 
great story and Farmer Dan geneology

thanks for posting

bill
 
And that too will pass.

I dont give hogs to anyone anymore. I have had all sorts of folks express a desire for wild hogs. Their excuses have run the gamut from too hot, too cold, too big, too little, oh I wanted a white one, too late at night, too early in the morning, you mean I have to clean it. I kill from fifty to 150 a year - and the coyotes and buzzards get every last one - never heard them complain.
 
I'm a veterinarian. Got my eyebrow split open working calves one Sat. morning. Wife was busy in the clinic, seeing small animal clients, or I'd have had her sew it. Ran across town to our family physician, who proceeded to pick through my brow hair to suture it.
"Aren't you going to shave it? That's what we'd have done?", I asked.
"Oh, No." He said, "That's one of the first things you learn in residency...You don't shave eyebrows -especially on women!, 'cause sometimes they don't grow back!"
Hope yours grows back fast.
 
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When I lived in SC I trapped and killed many hogs, over 300 one year. We had a list a mile long of people that said they wanted hogs, but when called most didn't have "time", or would tell me if I would clean it and drop it off at the processor they would take it. One person even said they couldn't afford the processing fee and if I would pay it they would take it. Our list got shorter and shorter and it got to the point we stopped and let the hogs rot. Josey Wales said "worms have to eat too".
 
11 more harvested this past weekend, 19 if counting 8 that one of the sows was soon to drop. Gave a couple away and did my best to clean as many as I could... did end up sacrificing 2 of the smaller ones to an intense lighter wood pyre I'd originally lit to burn the skinned hides. Blessedly, I avoided burning off the other brow.

Hog Trapping 2.jpg
 
And will just add, this pretty much captures exactly how I felt at the end of the day...

Tired.jpg
 
And guessing I'll be resorting to SwampCat's feeding the coyotes in the near future if the pace keeps up... but, dadgummit, tough giving up the good vittles to other rascals!

SwampCat's spot-on regarding how tough it is to talk folks into actually doing a bit of work for FREE meat, though you'd think with gas almost $5 a gallon, and meat prices sky-high that folks would be fighting to get in line for free meat. Don't think it speaks well for our nation's work ethic today.

Pics below all include hogs harvested off my place... and promise, nothing the least bit gamey about the sows and piglets we've harvested to date.

Meal 1.jpg

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Meal 3.jpg

Ribs.jpg

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Sausage and Ribs.jpg
 
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And not having shared any trail cam videos in quite a while, this one includes a broken-ear boar I call "Big Ugly" that's likely going to prove hard to trap as he's been around a while.

In the video, Big Ugly catches a younger boar flirting with a nearby sounder and puts the smaller boar on the defensive. Heard that same holler very close nearby more than once when pulling camera cards from my woods... when in the woods by your lonesome, it'll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up a bit!

 
And guessing I'll be resorting to SwampCat's feeding the coyotes in the near future if the pace keeps up... but, dadgummit, tough giving up the good vittles to other rascals!

SwampCat's spot-on regarding how tough it is to talk folks into actually doing a bit of work for FREE meat, though you'd think with gas almost $5 a gallon, and meat prices sky-high that folks would be fighting to get in line for free meat. Don't think it speaks well for our nation's work ethic today.

Pics below all include hogs harvested off my place... and promise, nothing the least bit gamey about the sows and piglets we've harvested to date.

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Dang, that looks good!
 
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