Thursday, July 24, 2008

Fair & Hog Calling

Here's raw footage from one of Iowa's great summer traditions.......a county fair!! Last weekend, my daughter attended a fair a couple counties away as the crow flies, in the home area of her college roommate. (My daughter is still sawing logs this morning as I swipe these photos from her camera!)
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The highlight for them was attending grandstand concerts two nights in a row. Country singer Tracy Lawrence is literally on my daughter's mind in this first photo! She calls this scene, "Tracy Lawrence is my conscience." (My daughter is a sweetie......I really wish she could find some nice farm boy to marry.......where are they nowadays, I ask.......there's few around anymore.)

The next night's entertainment was provided by the country-rock group Lonestar:

A rainstorm thundered its way through the fairgrounds shortly before the Lonestar concert was to begin. My daughter said everyone had to go wait in the cattle building. Finally, the rain stopped...........leaving behind.........what else..........MUD!!!

Yup......mud didn't seem to bother these hardcore concert-goers one single bit!! They took it all in stride.......or betwixt their toes, at least!

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Ok, and I think this is hilarious........as a gag, my daughter's roommate signed my daughter up for the hog-calling contest! We've never had hogs on this farm, so my daughter got up to the microphone and hollered her cow call, "Come, Bossie! Come, Bossie!" She said she felt like an idiot.......DUH......YA THINK!!! She was using a cow call in a pig-calling contest!!!

When I was a kid, we did raise hogs on our farm, and our hog call went something like, "HA-WOY, PIG, PIG!"........"HA-WOY, PIG, PIG"!! And, yes, the pigs would come a-running when they heard that! Bizarre, isn't it!!??

What does your hog call sound like?

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12 comments:

Jeannelle said...

C'mon, people.....I'm expecting lots of responses to this post!

Don't try to tell me you don't have a hog call! Ya gotta have one!

Jeannelle said...

You all are no fun! LOL

Pat - Arkansas said...

Hey, woman! Give me a chance. I'm moving slow these days.

In Arkansas, the hog call is (what else) Woooooo!PIG! - Sooie!

rhymeswithplague said...

The hog call I remember from my childhood -- and it was our neighbor's voice we heard across the pasture -- went something like this:

Soooooooey, sooooooey, suey, suey, suey, pig, pig, pig. Soooooooey, sooooooey, suey, suey, suey, pig, pig, pig.

And so on, ad infinitium or at least until all of the neighbors porkers found their way back to the feed troughs.

rhymeswithplague said...

I obviously left out an apostrophe there.

neighbor's porkers

rhymeswithplague said...

...and I documented it in my story Florabelle Oxley that appeared on the Prairie Home Companion site in either June or July of 2007!

Egghead said...

My grandfather raised pigs and they hollered Soooooooey, sooooooey, and the pigs came a running.

Caution/Lisa said...

Why would you want to call a pig?

BTW, my boys have debated you riding a cow all day. The 8 year old is the most uncertain of it. The 10 and 6 year olds bought every word you said. They assume you hang your groceries on the cow saddle. That's the truth. My poor, poor boys ...

Jeannelle said...

It does seem that hollering "soo-ey" of some sort is the most common for calling pigs. Don't you wonder how that originated?! I'll have to check that out. Makes me wonder, too, why my dad used "ha-woy"......maybe it was a corruption of "soo-ey". Who knows.....but, isn't it just SOO fascinating!

Please go to my next post and follow the link to rhymeswithplague's story on Prairie Home Companion!

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caution,

Why call a pig? Well not because you long to be close to them, obviously. All I know is, when I was a kid, we kept pigs out in a pasture. In the field we had a wagon full of ear corn, and we would throw some ears out onto the ground for the pigs to eat at a certain time each day. We'd call the pigs so they'd come and eat.

Tell your boys I actually don't even use a cow saddle......that's for wimps. I hang all the grocery sacks on my arms.....plus, hold the cow reins. One tough farmgal I am!

Louis la Vache said...

"Louis" thanks you for visiting San Francisco Bay Daily Photo. He noticed your Hymn Hideout and hopes you'll add too it soon! ("Louis" is a 'liturgy buff' and a tenor in his parish choir.)

In that vein, you might take a peek at this.

rhymeswithplague said...

Perhaps the first pig ever called was named Sue. And perhaps your father's childhood pig was named Hawaii.

Anything's possible.

Jeannelle said...

Oh, rhymesie.....you're just too much!! You made me laugh so hard, I snorted.....like a pig!!