Road-kill.

In the years we've lived in Texas, we have seen all types of animals in the road, on the road, on the side of the road... all dead, all coming under the heading of road-kill.

When we lived in Clear Lake, there were countless squirrels, a few field mice, hundreds of frogs and lizards, and the occasional bird, along with the sad bodies of lost and/or abandoned puppies and kittens . Since moving to the Hill Country, the list has grown to include possums, raccoons, buzzards, skunks, rabbits, abandoned and/or lost dog and cats, deer... and you couldn't call it a day without seeing at least one dead armadillo.

This morning as I drove into town, there was a wild hog on the side of the road. And not even up on the highway.... it's right on the road going out of our community towards the main highway. My husband saw it yesterday on his way out to his second home (Home Depot-- where they actually know him by name). He came back and told me about the 'huge pig' on the side of the road. He said he didn't know if it was hit by a car or if it had been shot. (Wild hogs can do major damage to a property and home-owners don't exactly roll out the welcome mat for them.)

So there I was this morning, driving down and around the hills going towards the main highway with Barry Manilow blasting in my car, and there it was..... the lifeless body of the wild hog..... and it was huge. We're not talking wild hog as in that cute little pink pig in the movie Babe. This hog was covered in black hair and was about the size of a full-grown German Shepard dog. Huge. And not too pretty to look at, I can tell you that.

I don't know what's going to happen to it...... how long will it lay there on the side of the road? The buzzards have already found it-- when my husband first spotted it, there was a huge turkey-buzzard near the body (probably thinking how best to attack this massive feast). I'm guessing that within a few days, there will be a flock of buzzards surrounding that hog, and it will look somewhat like a Norman Rockwell painting-- everyone gathered around the Thanksgiving table for a holiday dinner.