pig loading fiasco

tabitha's father, mike has been raising us a pig along with three others. they are down at his pond. when he put the hog panels up around the pond there was plenty of room to walk around and manage the pigs a bit. months later the pond has been sealed to the upper brim and most of the enclosure is pond. we tried to get the pigs into the trailer to take to slaughter. no chance, they immediately retreat to the water. mike now has them without food and the feeder in the furthest section of the trailer. they cannot get to the feeder and are hopefully very hungry. hopefully, this morning he'll be able to load them with cat-chow-bribery and hopes of access to their feeder.
we yanked a tomato plant from our garden to perform an autopsy on it. it has strange black veins in the upper stem immediately before dying leaves. we feared we had the great potato famine virus that also affects tomatoes. the only thing that can be done if we had it is, scorched earth and plant somewhere else for the next five years. as far as i can tell we don't have it. the aphids are still rampant and consume tabitha's already too busy schedule. the garden is such a roller coaster for her. each success and defeat is absolute and usually opposite from the last. at any given moment she could be in complete elation or the depths of sorrow over it. this coupled with pregnancy hormones means that the extremes are far greater than usually possible.
the broiler chickens are huge, slow and tasty-looking. we have been moving them daily around our northen adjoining lot. they leave a path of devastation and fertilizer. we hope to clear that lot more thoroughly very soon. mike has offered to brush-hog it as soon as hay season settles down. it is a perfect place to move the chicken tractor around. i'll try and get photos up this evening of the tractor, the huge birds and the aftermath.