Sentience Sentience
Ossabaw Island Hogs
Every Saturday and Sunday in the summer and fall, I visit Explore
Park, off of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Roanoke, Virginia. A hike through
the woods, then I am in a world proving that the animal tales of children's
literature are not necessarily anthropomorphic fancies. It is the world
of Babe and Charlotte's Web. The barnyard revolves around the pigs.
Should tales like Babe and Charlotte's Web be commonly understood as true,
animal citizenship and potential for community will shatter the world with
more meaning than the transforming dimensionality of the possible suggested
by Alien landings or visits with Angels. As Grandpa Beebe observes in Marguerite
Henry's Misty of Chincoteague, 'Facts are fine, fer as they go, but they're
like water bugs skittering atop the water. Legends, now -- they go deep
down and bring up the heart of a story.'
The pigs at Explore are sisters named Susie and
Wolfie, born 4 years ago at George Washington's
Birthplace in Westmoreland County, Virginia . Their ancestors escaped from
the Spanish or were left by them over 400 years ago on Ossabaw Island, a
barrier island off the Georgia coast. These Ossabaw
Island pigs survived and adapted to the scant resources. At Explore,
they participate in interpretation of the living history of colonial America
specialized livestock.
Susie and Wolfie are sweet and earnest in their responsibilities. Susie
has proven an active and aggressive intelligence. Both Susie and Wolfie
seem to be increasing in their expressiveness and sociability as they are
exposed to more personal attention by Explore staff.
Item: Susie regularly tests the padlock to see if it is loose. When it had
been loose, she pulled it off of the chain, undid the chain from the gate,
opened the gate, and she and Wolfie made a run for it, heading for the woods
and the Fronteir area. After being captured and returned to the barn, Susie
looked foiled. Wolfie sparkled with a clear sense of wasn't-it-fun. Both
Susie and Wolfie seem to enjoy the idea of escape for adventure. At their
winter barn, they have escaped into the unoccupied areas and raced around
with an obvious delight in mad rampage.
Item: A visitor once asked Kim, the livestock caretaker, if the pigs ever
stick their snouts in the wallow and blow bubbles. Kim said no. Susie was
in the wallow at the time and promptly stuck her snout in the wallow and
started to blow bubbles.
Item: Wolfie got stuck one day under the pen gate. The next time I saw Susie,
she went to lie down in this same place but before lying down, made an elaborate
formality of closing the pen door. Previous to Wolfie's accident, this had
not been her custom.
Item: I sing melodies to Susie describing her wonders. Susie sits on her
haunches and grunts and sings back. When Wolfie is sung bedtime lullabies
to, she lies down and pretends to sleep. If a faster paced song is sung,
she will sway and throw hay in the air. Wolfie will also sing along for
part of the song. Both Susie and Wolfie prefer songs in the melodic spirit
of Leonard Bernstein musicals.
Item: A very pretty, small, chestnut mule Sally arrived in a fenced area
next to the pigs. During her first days there, Susie and Werewolf were very
animated and alert to her presence. They would periodically run to her,
hold up their snouts to kiss her, and then run over to me and talk in an
excited manner. After a couple of weeks at the park, however, Sally proved
dangerous. A very loving Hogg Island sheep named Sadie got in her pen and
Sally killed her. Susi and Wolfie went through a couple of weeks of mourning
and clear horror of Sally but now ignore her with equanimity, much to Sally's
disappointment.
Folio
Fabulous 
mailto:alstallsmith@earthlink.net