The road to wisdom is strewn with contradictory pearls of wisdom. “Look before you leap,” says one. “He who hesitates is lost,” says another.

When I was starting out in life, I heeded the first admonition and snuffed out a wild impulse for raising hogs. I was saved by a book that recited more than I wanted to know about the creatures. They can be ornery, destructive, susceptible to numerous diseases, not to mention malodorous.

Prudence won, but I was left with a nagging discontent. “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires,” wrote William Blake.

Last fall, when I saw an ad for feeder pigs, I obeyed the second maxim: I leapt. Before the voice of caution could slow me down, I answered the ad, drove to the farm of Kenneth Whaley and bought two Duroc pigs.

As I was completely unprepared, ignorant and incompetent, I peppered Mr. Whaley with questions. He gave me a tour of his operation and made hog raising seem easy. Of course, making money was out of the question. Hogs used to be renown for paying off mortgages on small farms, but giant factories have battered down the price of pork and driven most small operators out of the business. Whaley and his son Duane have found a niche selling show animals to 4-H kids.

I’d read about a German law inspired by animal rights activists that requires hog farmers to spend a certain amount of one-on-one time every day with their hogs. Whaley chuckled when I mentioned it. He doesn’t need the prodding of a law. He knows his animals as individuals, talks to them, feeds them by hand. Most of the pork we buy in grocery stores comes from animals who spend their lives confined in stalls with barely enough room to stand up and lie down. Whaley’s hogs are free to run about, socialize and take the sun.

We visited an enormous boar, who was lounging like a sultan in spacious shed. Whaley clapped his hands and informed the big fellow that he had company. Slowly the 800 pound colossus roused himself and ambled toward me like a tank.

“He is friendly, isn’t he?” I said.

“He’s gentle,” said Kenneth, patting his prodigious rump. “But I don’t trust him.” I observed the boar’s impressive tusks and gave ground.

The pig project

The Whaleys turned out to be patient mentors. They made a project out of me. On the appointed day, Duane delivered a small Quonset-style pig house he’d made for me, an elegant edifice with a roof of green and red sheet metal. He backed his trailer up to the pen, tilted it and the palazzo slid neatly into position. I peered inside and saw two pairs of beady eyes.

I quickly grew fond of my pigs. They were playful. They had distinct personalities. At table they wore beatific smiles. Caught in the act of roughhousing, they’d give me a half-guilty, half-impudent look. When I approached, they’d scamper off in a great show of fear. Then they’d peer around the corner of their hideout and saunter out to see if I’d brought them a treat. They’d do a little jig when I delivered some table scraps. An ancient fruitcake I found in the freezer sent them on a sugar high. They chased each other round and round the pen for half a day.

We have so little time and I felt like a fool for having waited so long. To quote a jocular saying, “I haven’t had so much fun since the pigs ate granny.”

Pigs love to root and within a week or two the earth around their quarters looked as if it had been attacked by a roto-tiller gone berserk. By chance, I’d located their pen where the former tenant dumped his trash. Buried beneath the surface of the soil were bottles, utensils, parts of appliances and scraps of plastic — a treasure trove of toys.

My pigs were infinitely curious and often showed the reputed intelligence of their kind. When I tried to fix their water bucket so they couldn’t overturn it, they worked as a team to accomplish the task.

As they grew larger, they abandoned the pretense of shyness and boldly nuzzled me when I entered the pen. I remembered tales of drunks who’d fallen among pigs and were discovered the next day picked to the bones. I took care not to turn my back on them.

Numerous aphorisms attest to the intimate connection of pigs and human beings: “Don’t buy a pig in a poke,” “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear,” “Bring home the bacon.” Watching my animals “pigging out” gave me a vivid image of “Hog Heaven.” When the ice storm struck, they skated wildly around their pen, “Independent as hogs on ice.”

A noble pursuit

From my limited experience, I conclude that raising hogs is not an ignoble endeavor. After all, the swineherd in “The Odyssey” was a former prince. Animal husbandry promotes responsibility. You can’t call in sick. The critters must be fed and watered, not tomorrow, but today. They remind you that the planet wasn’t made for us alone. Tending them is an antidote to self-absorption and neuroses. I doubt if many hog keepers wind up on the headshrinker’s couch.

Duane Whaley’s kids have grown up looking after hogs, a character-building experience. He beamed with fatherly pride when he told me how his 8-year-old daughter plunged her arm up to shoulder to help her sow deliver her little pigs. I submit her experience as a worthy alternative to the controversial professor’s sex education course that ends with a reading of Dr. Seuss: “Oh, the places you will go.”

Sad parting?

Some think it’s cruel to raise animals only to butcher them. But domestic animals have made a pact with human beings: we eat them, and their species survives. What matters is how we treat them while they’re alive. Chickens need to stretch their legs and chase grasshoppers. Hogs should be able to root and explore. Animal rights activists may be extremists, but objection to animal factories is becoming mainstream. More people consider them cruel and find their products harder to swallow.

What if you grow attached to the pigs, asked my friends. But I did get attached to them. How could I not? The paradox is that you can care for your critters and accept their destiny at the same time.

“There’s a lot of tears,” said Duane of the 4-H kids on market day. “But they start over the next year.”

Was it difficult to take them on their final journey? No. The trip to the butcher seemed like a natural chapter in an eternally recurring tale. And I’d done it. I’d taken the leap and made the grade.

But the next day, the sight of their empty pen pierced me with a needle of remorse. The day before, they were frolicking there. Now they were so many chops, roasts, sausages packaged in a freezer. Such considerations make eating a more contemplative act.

– George Gurley, of rural Baldwin, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.