Hog Butcherin' Day

3/28/08 - 2nd Day - Late Afternoon. This morning was likely our last cold morning. We had a cold front go through and we woke up to 34 degrees this morning. The mornings have been in the high 40's up to the mid 50's in the past week or so. The 15 day forecast doesn't show any mornings even in the 40's after tonight, and Wednesday and Thursday our mornings are supposed to be up in the mid 60's, so I saw this morning as an opportunity to butcher one of our hogs. Now, I have butchered just about every type of animal before except a cow or a hog. We've been planning on butchering a pig for years, but it has never worked out for us. I am scheduled to take another hog to the butcher on April 9, but I have a total of three males that need butchering and I didn't want to keep feeding all of them. One of the males (the friendliest little one) was one the children named "Ham Hawkins", and he was the smallest of all of our pigs. I wouldn't have put him much over 135 lbs. So this morning we got our stuff ready for butchering and Danielle and I walked down to the pig pens with a .22 intent on doing the deed. For those of you who have read with amusement some of our earlier pig escapades (like The Battle of Butcher Holler), you might have expected our plan to go horribly wrong, but the Lord seemed to be with us this day. We were able to lure young Mr. Hawkins out of the pen by himself without letting all of the 6 pigs out. Then we fed him some slops right near the back of the pickup and he held fairly still to eat. He was calm and happy. Then, when I shot him just where you are supposed to shoot him, he dropped like a lead weight just like he should have. I stuck him and he bled out honorably in about 10 minutes, and then Danielle and I hefted him up onto the tailgate (this was the toughest part of the whole job). I had borrowed a gambrel from Logan last night and we hooked it up to my engine hoist and we had a good makeshift pig lifter-upper. Everything else went fairly smoothly, and we had him quartered in less than 2 hours. All of the family helped, and Danielle and Tracy started almost immediately in cubing and canning the meat. The only special "cuts" we are keeping is the two hams, and I am currently smoking all the ribs for supper tonight. I am going to be curing and smoking the hams, but the rest of the pig will be cubed up and canned or some of it might be ground up for sausage. The whole process went fantastically well, and I was pleased to get the whole family involved. Danielle and Tracy just told me they have the first canner load almost finished, and we will do another canner load or so tomorrow. Interesting that we will be able to have some good pork, from the hoof to the root cellar in the work of a single day! We have raised a lot of pigs, but this is the first pig we have had born here on the land, and have taken it all the way to butchering age, and have butchered it ourselves. I feel very good about it.

So, last night we went over to the Ante's house for supper and we had a wonderful meal I wanted to tell you about (I know you all SO love my descriptions of our delicious meals here at the ranch). We have been wanting to introduce the group to traditional southern cooking and meals, so that everyone will feel comfortable in raising indigenous southern crops (like sweet potatoes, okra, greens, etc.), especially those that grow so well here in our area, so we made up a pot of greens to take to the supper. Kris Ante made corned beef, boiled potatoes and carrots, cabbage, and corn bread. Everything was very delicious, and the greens seemed to be a hit with the Ante's, and especially with the children. Part 13 of the Off-Grid Living series is about growing local and indigenous foods for many reasons (including reclaiming our cultural heritage), so we are very pleased to have our garden greens growing so prolifically this spring. We made two huge pots of greens with pork this weekend and the greens garden is still going gangbusters.

Today, after the butchering, I had a huge garden salad from the garden. The only thing it was missing was fresh tomatoes, but I will have to wait for them. Anyway, I had a salad of about 3 different types of lettuce, mustard greens, and spinach, with cheddar cheese and brisket, topped with blue cheese dressing. Yes!

Ok, I have to go, the garden is calling. Lord willing I will report on the pork rib supper for you soon.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker