Bedford Now One of the pure joys in life is solving riddles.

Being a reporter, my natural curiosity drives me to figure out what things are, why they’re there and what effect they have on others.

All these questions came to me last week as I kept driving by this big brown structure on Samaria Rd. just west of Jackman Rd.

What the heck is that? I thought. It looked like a statue, perhaps a pig. Pig statues wouldn’t be entirely out of the ordinary in this pastoral landscape. It probably was made, I quietly deduced, by an artistic son or daughter of a pig farmer.

The thing was, it didn’t look exactly like a pig. It looked just different enough to give the impression that it was an artist’s rendition of the natural world.

It should be noted here that I don’t get my first sip of coffee until I arrive at work. It also should be noted that I have always enjoyed above average eyesight.

So the reporter instinct in me took over. One afternoon here at the office, I decided I would drive right up to the pig statue and ask around. Someone around there had to know what it was and why it was built.

So there I drove one afternoon. I pulled into a driveway that took me right past the brown beast, but I didn’t even look at it. I was looking for other clues that could reveal the artist’s identity.

I followed the drive to a building set back from the road. Inside a garage a few guys were talking. I jumped out of my car and with the urgency of a reporter gathering facts at a murder scene I asked: “What is that thing out there?”

Jeff Zink, the man I directed my question at, wouldn’t answer at first. He first wanted to know who I was, and why I was on his property. I identified myself as a reporter and he immediately wanted to know about one of our sales representatives.

I gently guided the interview back to the mysterious structure. What was it? Who’s responsible for that big pig out there by the road?

“Oh that? That’s a bucket,” Jeff said.

“A what?”

“A crane bucket, you know, the ones they use on backhoes. Can’t you see the teeth on it?”

“Oh, you mean the claw thing?”

Jeff nodded.

It occurred to me I had never looked at the thing straight on. Every time I’d seen it, I had been barreling toward it at, ahem, the posted speed of 45 mph. I never bothered to look at its front as I whizzed by.

Now, a little explanation. On the back end of the structure there is this thing that connects the “bucket” to whatever crane or backhoe it attaches to. This connector is shaped in a way that, under some extreme circumstances, could be perceived to look like a pig’s snout and ears. The curved underside of the bucket, which is facing the clouds, could have been the pig’s back, and the teeth, well, from the side, it just looked like its back leg.

And why did Jeff Zink have this “bucket” on the front of his property?

Well, he’s the owner of Zink/Covell Excavating. He’s an excavator. Excavators use backhoes to dig out trenches and ditches for water lines and other stuff that goes underground.

He bought the rusted out bucket at an auction in Chicago for a couple hundred bucks.

The mystery solved, Jeff and I shared a drink, a laugh, and I made my way home.

Another day, another riddle solved, but it still looks like a pig to me.