My Dad My Hero

So this blog is supposed to be about Bounty Hunting and Bail Bonds but today is my Dads birthday and without my Dad I would not be where I am today. My daddy Ronald Pinard passed awayed March 2011 and this is his first birthday since. So I thought to up lift the day I would tell a little story about me and Dad.

Back in my sophomore year in high school I have started raising hogs to show and butcher for hams and bacons. My barn were I kept my horses, hogs, sleep, chickens (Mom’s stupid chickens) and steers was up a steep hill with nothing but a washed out dirt road. Getting the truck up there in the winter was not a fun thing. My Dads truck was an F150 but was not four wheel drive; however, it had a camper top which was great for holding a hog or sheep. There was no way we were going to get the horse trailer up there even with Mom’s four wheel drive truck.

The date was set and all the students who had hogs for the ham and bacon show had to bring there hogs to the fairgrounds, to be sent to a USDA slaughter house for inspection. The hogs would later come back in full halves to be butchers and the hams and bacons cured and smoked, but this story it not about hams and bacons, it’s about Dad and I getting that stupid big of that stupid hill in the middle of winter.

Anyone who has dealt with hogs knows that your run of the mill hog is not going to go quietly or willingly into anything. Our problem was we had to get the pig off the hill and into the back of the truck waiting at the bottom. I don’t know who thought about the idea first but we decided we needed to hog tie the pig. Not only were we going to hog tie the pig but we were going to hog tie it to a pallet!

I don’t know who came up with the phrase hog tie; however, you can hog tie a cow, you can hog tie a goat, you can hog tie a sheep, but you CAN NOT HOG TIE A HOG!!!! I think Dad and I chased that stupid pig around the pen for 30 minutes before we even got a rope around one leg, let alone all 4. We did finally get some more ropes around it and I laid on top of that pig while Dad tied it down to the pallet. By this time Dad, the pig and I were cover in hog shit and tired. I think the only reason we got that pig on the pallet was because it was just tired of running around.

The second problem was getting the pig on a pallet to the truck at the bottom! Dad and I had a solution to that as well. We tied the pig on a pallet to the back of the 4 wheeler. Down the hill we went. Dad driving the 4 wheeler dragging the pig on a pallet with me on the pallet to make sure the pallet didn’t run into the back of the 4 wheeler. At the bottom of the hill he used ramps to push the pig on a pallet into the back of the truck and off we went to the fairgrounds.

The looks we got when Dad opened the back of the truck were priceless and worth the 2 hours it took! The guys just picked up the pallet and moved it to the waiting trailer and untied the by then very unhappy hog.

With that pig I won Grand Champion Ham and Bacon that year so all was right in the world and Dad made some kick ass pork chops too!!

Hope you all enjoyed reading.

Dad thanks for all the good times. Thanks for being my grounding force and being proud of me. Thank you for being my problem solver and letting me do all the things you let me do. Thanks for all the memories. I miss you. I love you. You were a Greatest Daddy.

I LOVE YOU POPS

Susanne

Ronald John Pinard