By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
The pig was going nowhere. And that was that.
It took her most of an hour of digging in her heels and screaming at the top of her lungs to convince Jimmy that this was so. Pigs scream really loud, by the way. We were sitting inside our house, about a football field away from Jimmy’s place, and we heard her plainly.
Jimmy lives in a little house at the farm which he has transformed into a really nice home. Ellie Mae is a miniature pot-bellied pig who lives there with him. Problem is, Ellie has gone through a transformation herself this last couple of years. Starting out as a tiny little cute thing, she now outweighs Jimmy. She is still his baby, though. I personally don’t understand it, but he really loves Ellie. He takes good care of her, being particular about her diet, her safety, and her medical care. So when she needed to see the vet, Jimmy was going to get her there.
She used to love to go for rides, but she has grown a bit since her last ride. So when Jimmy looked out at that van with the wheelchair lift, he figured this was a godsend. He opened that door, lowered that platform, and thought Ellie would welcome that elevator ride. She didn’t. She wouldn’t even get close. She started squealing at Jimmy’s first gentle shove. And the more insistent Jimmy got, the louder she got. Shelly who lives closer to Jimmy than I do, heard the commotion, thought Ellie was hurt, and got up out of her sick bed to offer her apples and pecans and tried to sweet talk her into cooperating. But it just wasn’t happening.
I took a few pictures, but I missed the best ones. You’ll just have to imagine all the contortions they went through. Jimmy is not a large man. Ellie is a very large pig. The man did his best, but the pig won. The vet is going to make a house call on Ellie.
Now, as to the van with the wheelchair lift. What, you may ask is it doing at my house, when I’ve already been writing about how my friends the Michels need one so badly for their severely disabled son Jonathan. Well, here goes: I knew they needed one, but there was no money NDIS providers Melbourne. I found an older, one-owner, low cost van, and fronted the money for it, figuring to fund raise to pay for part of it. The Michels could maybe help pay if and when Jonathan ever gets any kind of disability help.
My friends here on the farm Jimmy and Douglas, are both very good shade tree mechanics. We bought parts and fixed some things on it to the point we thought it was in pretty good shape. Then when the Pinnacle Church set aside some money to help the Michels, everybody thought they could use some of that money to get a professional mechanic to do some fine tuning, maybe replace the tires. That’s when our hearts got broke. The professional said it was not worth what it would cost to fix it right. He didn’t feel like it was even safe to drive.
So we brought it home and parked it. If it was no good and unsafe I wasn’t going to palm it off on some other disabled person. Then Jimmy lost his car in a wreck. He put the van on his insurance and started driving it. It has been driving fine. It could have easily taken Jonathan on several trips already. I don’t feel good asking anybody else to put money into it, especially the Michels, but trip by trip, I think it is going to fine to loan it to them. Wren Michels can fix anything. I probably should have just turned it over to him in the first place, but I just didn’t want to stick them with a lemon. We are going to put some more tires on it and give it a try. Maybe send an escort car along on the first trip, in case it breaks down. I mean it’s here, let’s use it. Sooner or later the Michels will get a better one, and by that time we’ll know whether we feel good about passing it on to somebody else.
Ellie Mae didn’t take advantage the opportunity, but I am pretty sure the Michels will.