DEERFIELD — Mike Pekarski is happier than a pig in, well, something smelly and septic.
A relative newcomer to Facebook, the owner of Pekarski’s Sausage at 293 Conway Road was perusing the social networking site last year when he saw the metal artwork of old friend Trisha Moody-Bourbeau and had an idea. Why not commission Moody-Bourbeau to construct a life-size metal pig sculpture for his business?
Fast-forward to April 29 and Pekarski was on hand to see Moody-Bourbeau drop off the piece she completed two weeks earlier. Moody-Bourbeau showed up with her father, Richard Moody, at roughly 9 a.m. to make the special delivery. The father-daughter duo brought the unnamed artwork to Pekarski’s Sausage on a dump trailer attached to Moody-Bourbeau’s truck and used a Sky Hook crane to put it on the ground outside the building.
“The pig has landed,” Perkarski said with a smile when it touched down. “That looks awesome. That is so cool.”
He declined to say how much he paid Moody-Bourbeau, who he approached about the project in the fall. He said they have been friends since seventh grade and from graduated Frontier Regional School together in 1988.
Made of repurposed old metal tools, the pig is roughly 3 feet long by 20 to 22 inches tall, and is 22 to 24 inches at its widest point. It weighs roughly 250 pounds and took 63 hours to complete. Moody-Bourbeau said the sculpture includes lawnmower blades, pickaxes, horseshoes, pliers, wrenches, sockets and bolts. It sports a hook for a tail and a shovel for its rear end. She said she did not count how many pieces she used.
“I’m very happy with it,” Moody-Bourbeau said. “I think it’s my favorite piece so far.”
Moody-Bourbeau, a hairdresser by profession, has been a part-time metal sculptor for four years.
She said she sculpted “Draco the Winged Dragon” for Springfield Museums, another dragon for a Montague couple, and a horse that can be found on her own property.
Ever the perfectionist, she was quick to second-guess herself and mention what she might change if she could do the pig again. She said she did not intend for it to be so round.
“He ate well,” her father said with a laugh.
Moody-Bourbeau put flat pieces of wood under the pig’s metal hooves to prevent them from sinking into the earth.
On Monday, Pekarski said he has not yet named it, though he wants to avoid cliché names like Wilbur, a character from the children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web.”
Pekarski said he expects the sculpture to be another draw to his business, which he said gets customers from far and wide. The company’s guest book shows messages written by people from Agawam, Greenwich, Connecticut, Bow, New Hampshire, North Port, Florida, St. George, Maine, and Liverpool, England.
“We are busy and we bring in people from all over the Northeast. We have people who frequent us from 300 miles away or more. I think it’s going to be more than a curiosity,” he said, adding that he plans to move the pig near the Pekarski’s roadside sign.
“There’s a lot of people that want their picture taken by the sign and you see that all over social media.”