Pigs in Paradise

      More Letters From Paradise
          Pigs in Paradise
I like pigs. I used to raise pigs. Pigs were often called a "mortgage-lifter." That was because when money was short, you could always sell a pig.  I did, several times.
Pigs are not dirty.  Pigs are clean, if housed in clean pens.  Not only could you sell a pig, you could buy one also. When I was farming, you could buy a small pig for about nine dollars. You carried it home in a burlap bag, or poke. Hence the phrase, "pig in a poke."  One sow I owned had a litter of 13 piglets, and raised every one.   Pigs are very smart too. You may remember the pigs in George Orwell's book, "Animal Farm." They were smart.
I once had a pig I was trying to confine with a single-strand electric fence.  This pig just walked up to it, pushed the insulator up, and walked out to freedom.
There are all kinds of pigs: Duroc, Poland China, Hampshire, and Yorkshire.  There is  also the "long pig," which was eaten by cannibals here in the Pacific many years ago. And what about "pigs in a blanket", or Kahlua pig?
But, I am supposed to write about pigs in Hawaii. Wild pigs are a problem here on Ohahu. There are so many, and they cause damage to lawns and gardens. A fellow had a contract paying him $58,000 a year to solve the problem.  Just recently an association of pig hunters have offered to solve the problem for free, if they could keep the meat.  This seems like a no-brainer, but we await a decision.
The latest news from the morning paper is that reproductive scientists, from our own University of Hawaii medical school, have created 10 piglets that glow green  under black fluorescent lights. Imagine, you could find your pigs in the dark!  The green color shows that the flurorescent genetic material injected into pig embryos was incorporated into the animal's natural makeup. The goal of the research is to introduce beneficial genes into larger animals, to create less costly and more efficient medicines.
Earlier this year, Turkey used the same method to produce  "glowing green rabbits." I also used to raise rabbits, but none of them ever glowed green. (The scientific stuff I stole from our newspaper.)

           Aloha
           Grant