My Alaskan mountain man

A pigs ear

Early the next morning Doc wakes me with a mug of coffee, “seems she slept through, thank you for taking the first shift. I will take over this morning, you go get yourself some breakfast. Henry says the wind from the storm has blown something over in the animal enclosure. I’m sure you will be wanting to get that seen to as soon as possible.” She smiles down at me with her kind eyes.

I get up, “I thought I heard a loud thump last night, I hope it’s nothing serious, it’s still snowing quite heavily out there”, I say as I look out the window to try and see what the damage is.

“I’m sure Henry won’t mind giving you a hand repairing it, whatever it is”, she says. “I tried to wash most of the blood from your coat yesterday after I removed it from her, it’s hanging over near the fire, I hope it’s dried by now.”

I take my mug of coffee and head out the room after one last look over at her laying there, just making sure I can see her chest rise and fall as she breaths.

***

“Good morning”, the Sheriff greets me with a tired look on his face.

“Mornin Sheriff, did y’all sleep alright?”

The Sheriff looks up with a half smile, “as best one can sleep at our age, camping on the floor of a wood cabin with only a roll mat and sleeping bag. I see one of your panels on the pigs hut has blown over, looks like the storm has made a pigs ear of your pigs hut. I presume it will need fixing soon. God knows how long those pigs will survive out there without their walls to keep them safe from the snow storm.”

I nod, “it will have to be a priority, think I may go out now to assess the damage and fetch some tools for the fixing.”

Sheriff, “you give me a shout when you’re ready to lift it back in place and I’ll come out to give you a hand.”

“Much appreciated,” and with that I grab my coat from the hook by the fire.

It has a dark stain along the inside of the lining, but you wouldn’t be able to say it’s blood. It feels dry so I put it on as I don’t have another. It’s probably time for a new one, Mindy bought me this coat about six years ago when we first started building the cabin. It symbolised the start of our homestead dream come to life. I should get rid of it, it just gives me a daily reminder of Mindy and our life that is no longer.

I open the door and the snow is thigh high, I lean round the door edge and feel for the snow shovel. I grab the handle and pull hard. It’s pretty wedged in there, I need to remember to turn it upside down when I put it back, so the bucket doesn’t get snowed in.

I use the shovel to push some of the top snow to the side, once I can get out of the door I start to shovel a path toward the pigs hut.

Sure enough the wall has collapsed in on itself.

I check in on the pigs. They are all huddled together and one of the younger sows is dead.

“Damn,” I sigh. I drag her over and outside of the fence. “At least that solves my problem for winter protean, since I didn’t get my hunt in.”

I walk back over to the hut. The pigs are in panic mode, “alright, keep calm, I’ll have your wall back up and you’ll be warm and toasty in no time guys.”

The wall looks okay apart from the fact it’s blown over. I shovel a path to the shed and grab some tools. I turn to the cabin and I see the Sheriff looking out the window. I give him a wave and he heads over to give me a hand raising the wall panel.

I use the shovel to shovel the cold snow out of the hut through the opening where the wall used to be, I shovel the cold wet straw out too. The heat lamp seems to be working just fine so it should warm the hut up again once the wall goes up.

When I’m ready the Sheriff helps me lift the panel in place and I nail gun it back in place. Thank god for power tools, or this wall would have taken twice the time to get up with a hammer and nails. Especially now as the snow starts to fall heavier then it was.

Sheriff, “ let’s drag the pig over to the shed, you can butcher it once she’s thawed a bit.”

I nod my head in agreement and we drag her over to the shed. I go back for my tools while the Sheriff takes a fresh bale of hay to spread through the pig hut. Once the tools are packed away, I go get the feed and fill the pigs troughs. Their water has frozen over so I break the ice and pull the shards out. I hope the heat lamp warms the hut through enough to keep the water from freezing over again.

The sheriff has already headed back to the cabin as the weather is picking up again. The blizzard makes it difficult to do anything else.

I check on and feed the hens in their hut before heading back to the cabin too.

The cabin is warm and I smell porridge cooking. Doc is in the kitchen, smiling from ear to ear.

“She’s awake!”, the sixty-eight year old says with glee.

I’m astonished, I look at the Sheriff for confirmation, he nods his head with a great big smile.

Doc, “she’s not out of the woods yet, but it’s a good sign. She is a bit confused about where she is and how she got here, so I wouldn’t go barging straight in. I think it’s probably best she rests some more and maybe later if she feels up to it, I can introduce the two of you”.

“That sounds just fine Doc. I’m so relieved she’s awake.”

“Come, get yourself some hot porridge and a fresh coffee. Looks like we are going to be snowed in tonight. Have either of you tried the radio yet?” Doc looks at the two of us with big eyes as she heads back into the bedroom with a bowl of porridge in hand.

Sheriff sits down at the table where the radio is situated, he switches the channels and speaks into it, but its just static. After some 10mins he turns to me, must be a bad connection due to the storm. We’ll just have to wait for it to slack off a bit before we try again.

We look at each other awkwardly for a time, then Sheriff states that he is going to try get some sleep and he settles into the arm chair.

I watch as he stretches his legs out in front of him and crosses his hands one over the other, with his chin to his chest and eyes closed. It doesn’t take more the thirty seconds before I hear soft gentle snoring noises coming from his direction. I can’t but help wish it was me sitting in that arm chair right now. I make my way over to the wooden two seater that was graciously donated to Mindy and I by my aunt Audrey. It’s one of those old fashioned wooden sofa seats. I lay across the two seater with my feet crossed over each other resting on one of the wooden armrests with my head resting on the opposite wooden armrest. Not the most comfortable position but nevertheless, the lack of sleep helps me nod off into a disturbed half sleep.