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Pigs can be used in so many ways. My favorite food, bacon, comes to mind. But what about proving a point in court?

A Colorado farmer discovered one day that an unattractive tract of land at the back of his farm had sold. It was just a hubcap roll from a major highway, but a hard-to-get-to place. When the new owner had the land surveyed, he discovered the farmer’s fence, which had been standing for decades, was three to six inches over the line and he needed every inch.

The farmer went to the new owner to introduce himself and see whether something could be worked out to save the fence. The newcomer told him to move the fence or it would be settled in court. A judge told the farmer to move the fence.

Well, the farmer believed in the rule of law. He moved the fence.

At breakfast the next morning, the farmer told his son to move their 35 hogs from one side of the farm down to the fenced field next to the newcomer who was building a house now.

He also told his son to regularly dump barrels of water in a large area near the fence to create a wallowing pit, take all the food scraps from the house each day and add them to their daily food ration, and throw a little extra food in their troughs.

It wasn’t long before the newcomer was at his door demanding that he do something about the stench. Hogs that are overfed with protein-rich table scraps produce an abnormal amount of manure and a powerful stink.

The farmer told him that just as he had a right to demand that he move the fence six inches, he also had a right to keep his hogs in that area. A judge agreed.

When I read this Colorado story, I remembered a hog story that I had written back in my days as a correspondent for The Associated Press. Sent to Virginia by the New York office to write about a man who was fighting City Hall to keep his pet pig despite an ordinance that said “no farm animals allowed,” I located the owner, a loquacious type more than happy to talk to a reporter.

He invited me to his home, where I met his pet pig. This was long before “support animals” were even thought of, but he talked about being as attached to his pig as folks were to their dogs. He showed me the tub where he bathed the pig twice a week. He even sprinkled “Brut,” a fashionable men’s cologne, on the pig, which he had given a name.

“Sweet Lips.”

This was back before “viral” was applicable to anything other than communicable diseases, but the story appeared in newspapers around the globe. The pig’s owner even appeared on the Johnny Carson show to plead his case, but he lost before the Virginia Supreme Court.

This was back in the day when “the rule of law” meant justice and, like bacon, was to be treasured.

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. You can reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com