Hog killing day On the farm you did not go to the store when you wanted some meat. There were two reason for that, Number one is you didn’t have the money to buy the meat and number two was that the closest store for that would have meat to sell was 35 miles away and with a wagon pulled by two horses or two mules was a considerable journey. Of course some of our relatives had automobiles and later on we did also but we still did not thing it wise to travel that far for pork when you could kill your own hogs.

            The task of killing hogs was a day’s work. One well placed bullet form a twenty-two would kill the hog in an instance but to butcher the kill was what took time and hard work. In preparation you dug a pit into which you could fit a wood fire and a large metal barrel which was laid on an angle which would still hold water. You had to build a platform in front of the barrel that was large and strong enough to sustain the weight of a 300 to 500 pound hog. Hopefully you had enough sense to kill the hog in close proxsementy to the platform. You also had to build a boom using three strong logs which were tied together with log chain in the form of a teepee. Another strong pole which had to big and strong enough to support the weight of the hog was attached to the teepee logs in the middle and used as a lever. You killed the hog then cut his throat to bleed him. You took a short pole about three feet in length and sharpened the pole on both ends. (The length of the pole was determined by the size of the hog) You ran the sharp ends of the pole thro the hamstring just above the back feet of the hog thus spreading the legs of the hog as far apart as you could. You attached the short pole to the longer pole with a log chain. Using the longer pole as a lever you lifted the hog onto the platform and placed its head toward the open mouth of the barrel. When the water in the barrel was at the right temperature, a learned science, you pushed the hog into the hot water. After a little while you pulled it out a little way and checked to see if the hairs of the hog could be easily pulled out. If not you put the hog back in the water and repeated the exercise. If they could be pulled our easily you rotated the hog so the part not in the water could be treated with the hot water. Then you pulled the hog back on the platform and everybody who could find a spot around the pulled hair as fast as he could before the hair become set and could not be pulled. When the hog was clean of all hair you used the lever to lift the hog and cut its head completely off. Then with it suspended off the ground you placed a number two wash tub under the body and opened the hog from the bottom of the hog from one end to the other and let the insides of the hog fall into the tub. When the job of gutting the hog was finished you then again laid the hog on the platform and began the job of butchering to hog. Feet were usually cleaned and canned to be eaten later. The head could be made into head cheese. The small intestinal tubes could be cleaned and used to stuff pork Sausage into. The meat was usually placed into a smoke house where a small fire was started and green hickory chips were placed because they were green they the chips would smoke more than burn. The original reason for the smoke was to keep flies form laying eggs in the meat and they hatch into maggots and ruin the meat. And of course people grew to love the hickory taste of the meat.

            What I liked best was that we always had fresh pork loins for supper on the day we killed hogs.