What. Was. I. Thinking? “We’ll get pigs in early December,” I said. “It will be awesome,” I said. “I won’t spend anymore time running hoses and water three times a day to keep them cool,” I laughed. Yes, I ran a lot of buckets of water. A lot. I could have filled a small to medium pond with all the water I hauled this winter after everything froze. Even with a heater in their water, the nipples froze solid. I bought a heat gun. That was able to thaw the nipples as long as it had not dropped below about 22 degrees that night. Even if I got them thawed, I’d be out there every 90 minutes to two hours thawing them again. If the sun was out, and they were active, they would keep the water flowing. If it was crappy, and it was crappy a lot, they would stay snuggled in their hut until they wanted food or water, and then waddle out.

It really was supposed to be an easy coast to the middle of May. How hot could it get? It’s not going to get hot. I know it isn’t. That is when Al Gore yelled at me. “You lie!” He was yelling at the president, but he really meant it to me. Greta Thunberg stood up using all five of her actual names to condescendingly sneer at me, “how dare you!” I was clearly wrong with my beliefs and thinking. The oceans are rising and flooding California coastal cities, New York City, Florida, and Obama’s brand new multimillion dollar home in Martha’s Vineyard has him and Michael living in the attic. There are no more polar bears. No more polar icecaps. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Of course, none of that is true, but El Niño is. I have experienced those weather patterns a few times in California, and frankly they were brutal. Interestingly, I think when Tiffany first moved to California we had a La Niña. La Niña is supposed to be less impactful, but it wasn’t. In Northern California it means torrential rainfall. We got about 90 inches in somewhere around 2 months. Flooding and mudslides were the norm. Not whining, just saying that I get it. For us here in southern Missouri it apparently means the nicest weather I can recall on my birthday in February, and now some days that leave Tiffany pining for air conditioning in March (which is not going to happen).

As a result, I daily find myself spending some time spraying very, very happy hogs, and enjoying the entertainment even though the 90 degrees it is at this moment will drop to freezing in approximately 39 hours.

And I can use the hose… that is not frozen… and not haul 50 lb buckets of water from the house.