Willy's Life and the Hog Killings

This part is rated yuk - not for the weak of stomach or heart.  Willy will make this brief but in the last part of Willy's story of Early life, Willy mentioned Hog Killings.

Well, Willy is not talking about the wild hog that many go out and hunt these days.  No Willy is talking about the old hog that Willy's folks would grow out in the hog waller.  Yes, the mud hole.  And as a side Willy's mom always kept a slop bucket in the kitchen that she would put the scraps from meals in and every time the bucket would get full she would carry it to the hogs.  Well, this bucket sat between the snack bar and the sink.

Willy would always eat at the snack bar for you see there was about 10 of us eating there and more if we had company.  Many times Willy would turn around to get off of the bench at the snack bar and step in the slop bucket.  Not a lot of fun but funny now as I look back on it.

Willy digressed.  Willy's parents would have a hog killing in the cold of the winter.  It started by getting the old fat pig up in a trailer.  Willy's dad would then reach over the top of the trailer and stick the rifle to the pigs head and BAM  the pig was shaking and squealing to its death.

When the pig quit jumping and kicking dad and the rest of the neighbors would grab the pig hang him up in the front of the old quansett barn, cut his throat and let it bleed out.   The next step was to have a large vat of boiling water that the pig was dropped in and then pulled out of after a good scalding.  The next thing you knew all of the neighbors and the help were taking the pig and laying him on the skinning board and attacking the big old pig like ants and scraping the hide.

Cutting up the meat and quartering into its cuts of hams etc came next.  Then it hung and cured in the old garage.

Good eating when it was done.  And that is the hog killing in quick and simple terms.

10-4 Willly