Things I never expected to be doing

 When I moved to Alaska, I thought I knew what I was in for.  Adventure. Exploring the wide open spaces. Camping in places unknown.Fishing. Hunting. Becoming an incredible photographer. Riding my horse all day. Growing our own food. Watching the sun set at midnight. You know, the usual Alaska as seen in the guidebooks.
Boy, was I wrong!. Now, I have done those things, with the exception of becoming an expert photographer. I am still pretty mediocre at that. But moving here has enabled me to create a list of things I never, in my wildest dreams, believed that I would be doing.
For instance, snowmachining my groceries to my house. We purchased our home in August. Struck by the quiet and beauty and incredible views of the volcanoes, we bought it. However, in Alaska, there are two kinds of roads. Maintained and unmaintained. Maintained means that the borough plows your road. Unmaintained means that when the wind blows from the north, you are moving your truck to the parking spot next to the highway and praying that your neighbors with the grader and plow will be kind enough to open the road so you can drive home. Otherwise, you are trying to pull start a snowmachine at 20 below and your brother is sending you text pictures of his pool in Vero Beach. Thanks Mike. I still haven't quite forgiven you for that one.
Tonight I added another item to my "Things I Never Believed I'd Be Doing" list.
Remember that scene in "Rocky" where Mickey had Rocky try to catch a chicken? At first, Rocky was skeptical, too cool, this is totally beneath me. Then he actually tried to do it and fell on his face... I hope this picture is starting to take shape.
Well, I had to tackle a baby pig.  My children had decided to raise pigs for the 4-H Junior Market Livestock program, so we now have three piglets in addition to the horses, dogs, cats, rabbit, and partridge in a pear tree (just kidding about the last one). When I went out to check on them tonight, the lower lid of one's eye was swollen and red. Another thing about Alaska is that veterinarians are few and far (literally) between. There are two large animal vets on the Kenai Peninsula. One is in Homer and the other is based in Kasilof. Only one makes farm calls.
Being that it was after 7 p.m., and this was definitely not an emergency, I opted to clean out the infected eye with saline. I looked up some information on the internet but most of it dealt with eye infections in guinea pigs. My daughter and I climbed into the pen - the plan was that she would hold the pig and I would wash out the infected eye with the saline. That was the plan. The three pigs immediately knew something was up. They glared at us, then promptly scattered. Trooper, the one we were after, managed to stay in the middle of the others so we couldn't separate her. We tried to corner her, but the expression "fast as a greased pig" came to mind as she slipped from our hands again and again. After five minutes,  I finally tackled her, ear-splitting squeals and all, and held her belly-up on my lap as my daughter squirted saline into its eye. Mission accomplished.  I'll call the vet in the morning, but tonight, I just had to laugh.
Tackling a pig. Just another day in Alaska.