What’s time to a hog?

 What’s time to a hog?

All kids are familiar with dad jokes, and at least pretend to be embarrassed by them. It did not occur to me till much later in life that these jokes might be amazingly different depending on one's location in space and time. The jokes in rural areas were often themed accordingly and might need some translation.

Polling hogs:

Dad asked me if I had ever heard of polled hogs. I told him I was familiar with polled cattle, specifically Polled Herefords, but was not aware of polled hogs. “What are they?” I asked. He said it's when you stick a pole up a hog's backside and hold him up in a tree to eat acorns! “Oh, Dad!” I said, shaking my head.

What’s time to a hog?

A while later, I told my father that I was exploring along the creek one day and came across an elderly man poling a hog in an oak tree. I asked what he was doing, and the old farmer said he was holding the hog in the tree to eat acorns. “Doesn’t that take a lot of time?" I asked. The old farmer replied, “What’s time to a hog?”

Hogs in general

In all honesty, I learned to despise hogs in general. I had to water them, which meant a long hike down the hill with a bucket to the creek and a longer walk back up the hill to the hog pen, where I would pour the water into the trough. In this case, the trough was a hollow log chain sawed flat at the ends with boards nailed to it.

When I poured the clean water into the trough, the pigs would promptly get in and wallow in it! This meant further trips back and forth until they had created a wallow. I would then make more trips to clean the trough and refill it with fresh water. 

I was happy to see them turned into bacon!