Help the pigs
Best friends Bubba & Charlie

Summer 2009

They've been together for years. They're lovable old fellows, both very gentle and very friendly. Everyone loves them. They're inseparable…

Most of the year they sleep together in their own shelter -free to roam where they please and to sleep with others. This summer they started camping out under the trees each night. Either one could get up and walk back to their shelter or any other, but they don't. They are together every night under the same tree.

They do some things apart. Charlie likes to get up before sunrise and graze. Then, as the sun rises up from behind the trees, digs out a spot in the cedar chips and lays down to soak in the morning sun. He gets up and moves back to the shade of the tree around 9 or 10 am. On warm summer evenings Bubba often gets up around midnight and explores for an hour or so, finding little treats like the apples that fell after the others went to bed.

But it's always when one is asleep and the other returns that the grumping begins. I've watched them many times and when one gets within five feet of their bed the other starts grumbling, louder and louder. Bubba often gives Charlie a very affectionate and gentle kiss on the bum with his nose before laying down, Charlie howls even louder -and there's no question that Bubba is giving the kiss just to hear Charlie complain, but it really is a gentle and affectionate kiss.

They both will take longer than necessary fluffing up their hay bed while the other grumbles. Even after they lay down alongside the other and stop moving the other continues grumping for another two minutes. This goes on every night, but every night they are always together, side by side -the best of friends.

Bubba's story     Charlie's story

Charlie
Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau

Bubba in bed
Bubba & Charlie camping out together
Bubba & Charlie searching for apples
Bubba and Charlie find apples