He grew corn and hay, he harvested and mowed the fields, and he kept farm animals: a pig, a horse, and two goats. Working within his limited resources, Dad had to be creative about keeping these animals. His giant pig, Egbert, ate the rancid pie dough discarded by the local pie factory. He lived in the old cement icehouse, which had been used to store ice cut from the frozen river before the advent of electric freezers. Dad almost never let the pig outside to eat. Instead he boarded up the large rectangular entrance to the icehouse with a slab of plywood, which he would slide open and reach around to drop in the pie crust. Whenever I asked Dad if I could get a peek at the pig, which had taken on legendary proportions in my mind, he’d respond, “If the board gets moved over too much, seeing the light might cause him to charge. And he is big!” Whenever I passed the icehouse, I’d imagine the mad, massive pig charging through its barricade, impaling me with its giant tusks. Dad had rescued his goats from a laboratory.
