I love that first mug of coffee in the morning.

Strong, steaming hot coffee sure hits the spot at daybreak. After rolling out of bed, it is easily the first thing on my ‘to-do’ list. Let’s get that coffee percolating. It seems like I can’t even seem to get my eyes to open properly until I hear the sound of the coffee pot begin to gurgle to life. And the smell, I love that smell first thing in the morning! Brewed coffee. My go-to coffee is Highlander Grogg. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it. I buy mine from a great roasting house in Edmonton. One of my favourite ways to prepare it is to grind two scoops of Grogg beans with a scoop of Starbucks Pike Place Roast.  This combo has a great aroma, and an even better taste!

Not until I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my fingers locked around my warm, inviting mug does the morning begin to come into focus for me. Sitting at the table and looking through the door windows to my left, I see the sun struggling through the trees. It’s trying to steam the dew from the backyard grass as it pokes through the foliage.

Sip.

Straight ahead, to the south, it’s punched through that same treeline and is rolling over the pasture, mist rising. No cows or horses in sight. Hmmm, they must be further south by the dugout. Yup, so nice.

I think it’s going to be one of those perfect, quiet, sunny Saturday mornings.

Sip.

To my right I can see the barn through the living room windows. It always looks so nice to see the wooden barn walls slowly come to life as the sun begins to light up the faded and flaked brown and white paint. Glancing at the doors I notice something isn’t quite right. Damn, a pig has gotten out and is standing in the open barn doors.

Sip. Make that two pigs. Double Damn. Both pigs stop, one on each side of the doorway, to give their sides a good rub up and down on the door frames.  It always feels so nice to get rid of all those early morning itches, doesn’t it? Well, I guess I better go gather up those two after my coffee.

Sip.

Pigs, ha, geez.  Hey, wait a second.  We don’t have pigs!

Forcing a couple hard blinks I start to wake a little faster than I would have liked. With mug in hand I walk to the living room window to have a closer look, and I stand staring through the glass. Yup, those are for-sure pigs, and I see they’ve wandered a little closer to the house now.  Grabbing my jacket and cell phone and still holding my mug I head outside for a little closer inspection.  Hearing the door open and shut brings our two dogs, Keifer and Kirby, to life.  They have just now decided it’s time to rise and shine.  The minute Kirby steps from the doghouse she notices the newcomers.  The hair on her back immediately stands to attention while she gives the most earnest ‘Hey! You! Get the hell out of here!’ bark she can muster. Her threat is ignored.

Old Keifer the Hound is a lover, not a fighter. 

He takes the opposite approach. Seeing the pigs spurs his ‘come be my neighbour’ curiosity. I’m somewhere in between these two.  I don’t want them hanged at the gallows like Kirby, but I’m also not sure I want to be their best bud like Keifer. As I take a few steps toward them I give a big shout out. “Soooo-ey! Sooooo-ey! Here pig pig pig!”  They look up. Until that point I don’t even think they noticed we were watching. Upon hearing my call, they too become curious and begin to take a few steps toward us. Friendly I see.

Oddly, Keifer has become Sherlock Holmes.  Ever “Keifer the chicken”, has for some reason this morning become “Keifer the sleuth”. Off he goes and within seconds he has decided he’s either a pig or they are odd mannered dogs. He sniffs one and then the other and then the first one again. And then, for some reason he licks it!  “Keifer! That’s gross! You don’t know where that’s been! Come here boy!” Now I’m being ignored as he continues his investigation. Yup, I think he’s decided, he’s a pig.

Kirby can hardly contain her disdain. She’s always a bit excitable but she knows instinctively these are strangers, be they pig, be they dog, they do not belong here!  Woof, woof, WOOF!!

Time to make some phone calls.

“Hey Johnny, good morning”

“Yeah, it’s early, sorry about that.  Listen, Johnny, I’ve gotta ask you, do you keep pigs?”

“Two you say…Sows.  Oh ok.  Can you do me a favour and have a quick look-see in your pens?”

“Empty?  Uh hmm.  Yes, well I think I can help you out there.  I’m just now walking behind a couple of Sows in my barnyard.”

“Yup.”

“On your way?  Oh?  Ok, I’ll keep ‘em rounded up and wait for you here.”

And with that, the mystery of the pigs is solved.

Johnny is my new neighbour across the road to the north. He just moved in a few months back and it seems he’s come to own two pregnant sows.

Once Johnny arrives we start to walk the pigs down the driveway back to their home, and as a result,  Kirby is finally starting to relax a bit. She realizes these unwelcome strangers have begun their departure from her ‘territory’. Keifer, on the other hand, isn’t so sure they should go. As Johnny and I follow the pigs along, Keifer has joined the ‘herd’. Yup, he’s now become a pig.

“Johnny, once we get these pigs to your driveway, lets cull the last one out and try to keep him here.  I think Jess would be a bit disappointed if I let him move in with these two.”

Eventually I get Keifer to separate from his new friends, and join me and Kirby on our stroll up the driveway back to the house. With the pigs safely returned home, the dogs back to their normal behavior of lazing away the morning on the stoop, I can return to my table with a fresh mug in hand, sit and look out my south pasture window and relax a little. Yup, what a beautiful, typical, Saturday morning.  No cows or horses in sight. Hmmm, they must be further south by the dugout.

Sip.