By: Squealexander Hamilton, Pig reporter
Well, well, well… forget road trips and minivans for a minute, folks, I have to spill the tea while it’s hot. We had ourselves a royal visit! The farm rolled out the red carpet for a true celebrity. Chris’s 90-year-old mother, Margaret, came to stay at the farm, and let me tell you, the place lit up like a carnival when she arrived.
Now, I don’t toss the word legendary around lightly (unless I’m talking about myself), but this was BIG. For the first time in over ten years, maybe longer, she left her retirement home for an overnight adventure. And what drew her out? Not Vegas, not Paris, not even bingo night. Nope. It was the puppies. That’s right. The magical gravitational pull of floppy ears, puppy breath, and wiggly tails got her packing a bag and hitting the road. That’s some real puppy power.
And the welcome she got? Oh, honey, it was red-carpet worthy. Every animal here acted like she was the Queen of the Farm. Cletus the goat nearly climbed out of his pen just to plant a kiss on her. Red the horse strolled right up, no hesitation, and gave her a big horse smooch. Even the chickens flapped around like feathered paparazzi. The whole herd was enchanted.
Now here’s where it gets extra special. The very first puppy born in this litter was named Margaret, in her honor. And then there’s Joan, named after Joan of Arc…her favorite saint. You could see the joy in her eyes when she met the pups that carried her name and her inspiration forward. It was like past, present, and future all wagging their tails together.
Naturally, I… Hamilton the Brilliant … tried to snag an exclusive interview. She’s a retired teacher, so I figured she’d be full of wisdom I could sprinkle into this blog. And she was, but imagine my shock when I learned she didn’t even know about my writing! Ninety years of learning, teaching, and living, and somehow Hamilton’s Chronicles had escaped her reading list. I nearly keeled over in disbelief.
Still, I forged ahead with my hard-hitting pig journalism. First question: “Exactly how many watermelons have you eaten in your lifetime?” (According to my calculations, the average human eats about 14 pounds of watermelon a year, which means she should be somewhere around 1,260 pounds by now. Then you divide that by 20 pounds, which is the average weight of a watermelon, and you get 63… 63 watermelons!!! That’s nearly a full wagonload!)
Then I moved on to the essentials: “Do you like to take baths? How do you like your mud, silky and smooth, or chunky with a hint of gravel?” I even asked her the age-old farmyard riddle: “If you could only eat one snack forever, would you pick corn on the cob, or leftover birthday cake?”
She just laughed at every single question, but I could tell she wasn’t used to being grilled by a pig reporter. (Most humans aren’t, which is their loss, really.) Don’t worry, I gave her the full Hamilton experience, snout to notebook.
She laughed, she cuddled, she soaked up every ounce of love the farm had to offer. Watching her smile at the puppies reminded me that sometimes the greatest adventures aren’t about going far, they’re about letting love pull you into a new chapter. And these puppies? They made magic happen.
Snoutfully Yours,
🐽 Squealexander Hamilton
Your ever-wise, occasionally underappreciated pig correspondent
