butchering a hog

[woodyz]

People who have been on here awhile have heard me post about doing this at my Grandparents every year at thanksgiving, after dinner the men would all get together and butcher the hogs my Grandfather had ready

I found this video that is pretty close to what we did, they waited til FEB, we always did at thanksgiving, but my Grandfather had a walkin freezer and an old mailtruck as a smokehouse, I suspect they wanted the first of the months of the year for the cold temps

They have a pretty big hog we never waited for them to get that big it seems to me.

We just put wood ashes in the scald water to help take the hair off'

We had round scrapers just like shown, we had an A frame made from pipe we hang them from and used a single tree for a spreader bar

The stew they are cooking is just a big common pot to feed everyone that came to watch

We cut it into quarters while it was hanging and had a big table where it was cut into smaller sized pieces where it went straight to hooks in the smokehouse or freezer, by Grandfather also had meat saws and a band saw looking machine he used to cut it up




youtu.be/HnMmP25BDPI

[sirderrin]

I was fortunate enough to have grandparents that still did it this way when I was a young'un as well.... I remember them cutting the hog's throat and letting it bleed out... Scalding and scraping... Fresh crackling being made on the spot with the rendered fat... Good memories of all the family pitching in ... I think we lost a lot of things when that generation pasted on ... I have not been to a family gathering since that has happened....

[woodyz]

We would have a Wolfe family reunion in Prairie Home, Missouri every year when I was a youngster, it would be at a farm where my Grandfather was raised, he had 8 brothers and 5 sisters raised there, and every year they would all get together at the farm near Prairie Home, there were several members of the family in Boonville, MO. where my Grandfather had worked building the original bridge there across the river and worked on barges on the Mo. river for 20 years

the family died off and the farm was passed around and then inherited, the reunions went past when I went off to the Marines and even after I came back home, but the last one I went to was after my Grandfather died and I didn't know anybody there, but when we went back up the family tree to a common ans-ester we could always find someone we would all remember

in fact I think it was '85 I went there and had a u-joint go out of my truck and it was like a family event replacing it.

[woodyz]

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