In my childhood days, the month of November brought busy work and fun times to this country girl. To say November was the best month would be a stretch, but let me explain myself.
Before the busy-ness of November, October had us harvesting our crop of sweet potatoes. Daddy and Mama had prepared a place to "bank" our potatoes for keeping them through the winter months and have some for starters for our crop the next year. The banked potatoes were piled in a trench that Daddy had made for the base of the bank. About four feet wide and 10 feet long; covered in pine straw or wheat straw, layered very thick to keep the potatoes dry and off the ground.
We piled the tubers to have them spread out and shaped into a teepee form. We then covered them with more straw to help with insulation. Next, the bank was layered with dirt and then some old tarps to help keep out the rain. The whole bank was trenched around with a berm to hold back the water from getting inside our food source. The last thing was some sheets of tin to lay on top, held down with blocks of wood to ensure the winds of winter didn't blow the covering off our delicious sweet potatoes.
Imagine, if you will, the "bank" looking like a little A-frame cottage with a covered porch that had an opening into the potato bank. Old corn sacks or a flap of tarp hung at the entrance to allow us to take our potatoes out as needed.
***Warning! Don't just crawl into that potato bank until you looked carefully for %$#*&@ SNAKES!***
The potato patch was now in use by our slaughter hogs to eat and root through for the gleanings. Sweet potatoes weren't wasted. Even the stringers and old vines were now hog-fattening food. So, at the earliest days of November Daddy picked out our slaughter hogs that went into the hog pen to be fattened off with extra enriched food so as to have good pork and lard. Daddy bought hog shorts (supplement feed) from Gilmore's store in Wallace that was sacked in beautiful printed cotton cloth which Mama made into pretty little dresses for her daughters. We got a Purina "twofer" in buying hog shorts. Fat hogs and pretty feed sack dresses. I was an original Martha White/Purina sack dress girl.
Top that y'all…
November brought cold weather, the time for syrup making, pecan gathering, wood splitting, and plans for Thanksgiving. Best of all was the time of hog killing. Mama & Daddy swapped opinions with neighbors on when the best time may come for the nights of "blue frost" or better yet, those chances of a "bark buster."
Hog Killing Day!
The radio gave updates on the expected temperatures. The hogs were fattened and still eating like hogs. The prep for this COLD day for a community hog slaughter was full on ready. Kinfolk and neighbors were notified. We piled up wood near the wash pot. The wood was to be used for boiling water to scald the hogs after they had been killed, to cook out crack'lins for lard, for cooking the hogs’ heads & making hog head cheese (souse), and last but stinkiest was for boiling the chit'lins (hog guts).
Nuff said…
Daddy's sawhorses were planked and covered with newspaper overlaid with butcher paper for meat prep. Daddy and Mama had bought a big roll of butcher paper and sacks of rock salt for the curing barrel. We piled hickory wood against the smokehouse. The pit that held the slow smoking coals was cleaned out and ready for the start of fires that turned the hickory wood into a nice, smoldering smoke for curing the hams, bacon slabs and long links of stuffed sausage.
Knives were sharpened, as was the hatchet and axes. Wash tubs were set near the old chinaberry tree where Daddy had rigged up his truss. The truss was used for hanging the hogs when the throats and bellies were sliced open to bleed out in tubs and let the intestines fall into other tubs; while the heart, liver and lights were caught in dishpans. A big, old wooden barrel was set in a hole dug in the ground and slanted so as to hold scalding water for the hog bristle to loosen. One memory is of using green pine tops (straw) or chunks of pine rosin in the scalding process. I believe that step was to allow the pitch to help loosen the bristle, while allowing us to get a grip on the hair/bristle pulling.
Once the hog was deemed ready for taking off the bristle, the command was, "Y'all need to pull fast before the hair sets." Meaning, "If the hair sets on that hog, somebody gonna hafta shave that shoat." Daddy didn't spend money on razor blades to have 'em dulled on a hog. His Gillette strop was for flapping our legs to attention.
The day of hog killing started for us at about 4:00 A.M. Mama and Daddy clattered things around in the kitchen while the smell of coffee, bacon and Martha White wonderful floated us to awake. Outside we were put on notice by the old rooster crowing his flock into daybreak. Mules snorted notice for trough filling…
Daylight brought the families of Hobbs, Dawsons, Bells, Filmores and Grissett kin. Lots of greeting, laughter and hollered out directions from Daddy and his menfolk. Brothers, their friends and boy cousins got put on notice to stand by at the hog pen for assembly line hog slaughtering. Meaning a shot from Humpy's little .22 rifle to stop the chosen hog and start the making of our meat for winter/spring consumption.
The first of usually 5 hogs down was dragged on a ground slide pulled by a mule or our little Farm all tractor to the scalding barrel. The wash pot was fired and water was heated for scalding the hog. Girls drawed up water from the bored well to use for the next scalding. Things were fast paced and the morning was COLD. Perfect for our mission.
Mama and neighbor/kin ladies bustled about doing all the important detail work. I.E., handing off things needed in the process of pork processing; and preparing for the noon feast for everybody to enjoy the delicious fried porkchops, liver with smothered onions in gravy w/rice, baked sweet potatoes, turnips, broadax lima beans, cornbread and biscuits for sopping up redeye gravy and cane syrup all washed down with steaming cups of coffee and fresh morning’s milk. The night before Mama had made sweet potato pies and big pans of sweet potato pone for snacking by the work force and toddlers.
Yes Father, it was so good.
My family ate well from our own efforts of growing big gardens and having plenty meats, eggs and milk. I believe even Jesus was at those hog killing dinners. I know for sure he was thanked for our blessings of the day. We were very blessed, y'all. Even with all the messiness of grease in our lives, we knew this day was something special.
First hog was scalded, secured by running a gimmel stick through the hamstring (tendon) hind legs, then attached to the truss hanging in the chinaberry tree to allow for the throats to be cut and the bleeding out and cleaning out the interior parts like the intestines and other organs. The work was intense and done with dead-aim focus to get the meat cut into parts for going into the salt barrel for preserving, the smokehouse for curing, and the other wash pot for rendering the lard while making some delicious crack'lins. The ladies did the sausage making by cleaning the chitterling casings for sausage stuffing, and chopping the meat for making hog head cheese (souse). That by-product was made from having the hogs’ heads boiled in the wash pot until the meat was "falling off tender." The picked meat was mixed with spices (lots of Mama's dried rooster spur hot peppers), molded into a tight compressed ball, and put into a bleached flour sack to be hung in our kitchen pantry over a dishpan that caught the grease that dripped out.
As the last hog was killed, cleaned of bristle, trussed up and opened, we knew Mama and her lady friends were just about ready to serve us our wonderful dinner. The menfolk had slowed to take their pleasure of dips, chaws and smokes. The boys were busy hauling off the spoils into the woods. Girls were assigned to wash and clean utensils, pots, pans, buckets, and wipe down tables and work benches. Little kids were warned away from playing too near the wash pot fires or the smokehouse where a grand old heap of hot hickory coals burned in wait for the hanging of the hams, shoulders, bacon slabs and strings of link sausage.
The smokehouse was the center of interest with everybody poking a head in the doorway to check what was going on. The smoking process took several days to do the meat curing correctly. The temperature had to be at the right degree which made the job an around-the-clock one. The work crew ate when they got a break. Mama and the ladies made sure the men and babies were fed. Everybody else gobbled and smacked, then hung around the wash pot to grab crack'lins to snack on until they were grease-sick or staggered away home.
Daddy handled the salting down of the whiteside and some other parts he wanted to cure in the wooden salt meat barrel. The one thorn in his side for that important job was having Aunt Dellie Grissett rearraigning the meats after he had placed it like he thought it was best to have the rock salt distributed evenly. Two strong minds caused strong words to be spoken behind strong backs. If Aunt Dellie knew about the hog killings in time, she made herself available as meat packing supervisor. One memorable time she excused herself early enough to go on home while Daddy emptied out the day’s packing to do it all over his way. Earnest versus Dellie equaled frazzled nerves.
Poor Mama.
As the last rays of sunset gave off the red glow of that wonderful November day of hog killing, all our kinfolk and neighbors drifted away home with shares of hams, shoulders, ribs, loins and plenty liver and lights for hashlet making. Most importantly was their shares of CHIT'LINS. We young'uns went to bed infused with hog grease outside and inside while Mama and Daddy got down to the important work of stoking the firepit in the smokehouse, and filling the lard cans with rendered grease from the wash pot.
They took turns napping through the frigid night so as to insure their children had food for the winter. More days of finishing the details of that job before some real rest was taken. The memory of that happening makes me tired just thinking about it. I am thankful for having lived that experience though.
In loving memory of my parents:
Earnest & Ila Smith
Neighbors: Albert &Eunice Bell, Charlie & Clara Dawson, John & Lola Hobbs, Lawrence & Stella Filmore, Uncle Arliss & Aunt Cloyce Grissett
***Aunt Dellie Grissett especially in loving memory.***
You can check out Earline’s blog and buy a copy of her first book “Life With the Top Down” at: http://www.earlinesdoins.com.
