Pet pig perches in pocket

Sometimes, you get reminders that Escondido is still a country town in some ways. Like today, this gal comes into one of the coolest coffee hangouts here, Escogelato. It takes a moment for everyone to notice. And then, everyone does. This beautiful young woman has a piglet sleeping on her breast. She goes to the counter, orders a coffee, joins friends.“This is Millie,” says Juliana Lunde when I ask. “She is six days old. She is so cute, I made a pig pocket for her. Now we go everywhere together.”

Juliana is 28, married, and says Millie lives in the pigsty down on their farm with her siblings in the daytime. “But I will bring her up, and she will sleep on my lap. She really likes movie nights with us. Like, we just bonded watching a James Bond movie together. Of course she sleeps through them, so I can’t tell you if she loves James Bond. But even if I’m reading a book by the fire, she loves to be involved.”

It turns out Juliana has had pigs almost her whole life. “When I was a little girl, growing up in Valley Center, we had a pig named ‘Bacon.’ And we had that family pig for years and years, until he died. Of natural causes. And no, Bacon did not become bacon.” But Bacon, like his successor Hamentations, printed on Juliana’s consciousness. “Ever since, I’ve always loved pigs. So when I became an adult, I bought myself a male pig named Pilba for $100, whereupon my mom said, ‘Well I’m going to go ahead and buy myself a female pig.’ And she did. And before you knew it, they had piglets! We’d sell the pigs, but I have always kept one. Hamentations was just the sweetest, most chivalrous pig. And then I bought Virginia, his wife, two years ago. And that is where Millie came from.”

Is it a coincidence that ever since she was a little girl, Juliana wanted to be a “baby doctor”? Or that now, she’s a doula? “All of 2023 was my training, and right now I have two births under my belt: one in January, and one yesterday! Such a beautiful experience.” Even so, she had no idea Virginia was pregnant. “Last week, my husband comes racing up to the house: ‘Babies!’ And I run down and see six precious little piglets running around. Fun fact about piglets: the second they’re born, they’re running around. Unlike kittens and puppies that have to learn to walk, piglets just run from the start. So I looked at all of the piglets, and immediately, when I laid my eyes on Millie, my heart melted. Just her precious coloring: she’s orange, and with those little black dots on her, she kinda looks like a chocolate-chip cookie.”

And people’s reaction? “People see something, but they can’t put their finger on it. So they ask: ‘Is that a kitten?’ ‘Is it a dog?’ And then I unzip my little sweater and show them the little pig pocket. ‘No, it’s actually a pig.’ And typically, they will just melt. They will ask for a picture, or they’ll go over to their friends and say, ‘Hey come over here!’ I feel like when I’m holding Millie, I get a taste of what it’s like being a celebrity.”