The Pigs, Peggy and Polly

by Sam Neill

Peggy and Polly in their youth ...

... and in their glory

These two sisters are kuni-kuni, a South Pacific pot-belly pig. Extremely cute as piglets, they have grown into pigs that are…well… not very cute. Unless you’re a pot-belly pig bloke, if you follow. In which case you might think they’re the bee’s knees. If we could use a diminutive metaphor for two massive creatures.

Let it be understood: We are not fattist at T.P. On the contrary, more than one of us at H.Q. carry a few more kilos than is entirely necessary. But Peggy (blonde) and Polly (brunette but not noticeably smarter) may just have gone too far. They are, we’re not ashamed to admit, vast.

Still, they’re decorative. They also consume fruit windfalls, acorns, kitchen scraps, grubs – pretty much anything. But useful – not…umm…really.

We thought we might be blessed, last spring, with a couple of dozen piglets [See T.P. Blog 4 September 2007]  Alas it was not to be. The girls have mastered the dark art of the phantom pregnancy. Their boy-friend, Boris, is a reportedly a little deflated.

We have planted fifty or so truffle-infected oak trees at Redbank. There was hope at one point that the pigs could be used to find, and dig up, the truffles. Unfortunately Peggy and Polly are now so huge it would take three or four men to drag them away from the truffle. Another dream abandoned…

Our kuni-kuni will certainly not end up as pork. We just hope we can find… goals for them. Do pigs have dreams? Undoubtedly; but what exactly are they? If we were pigs, a comfy free-range existence at Redbank might be a dream realized. If so, they’ve got it all.

Updates:

25 April 2011 -- When it comes to taste in grapes, man and pig can be in complete agreement at time. Read more in our blog posting called What To Do with Cabernet Sauvignon