Does anyone remember? I do. Share your memories..

[locknut]

I remember cooking the fat down in those big iron kettles on an open fire in the wintertime.Nothing better than hot cracklins' fresh off the press.

 

[Bill 55]

Thanks to the next door ( Half a mile ) neighbor we still have a hog butchering every year. I won't miss it. It really brings back memories plus I buy a hog from him. We send the hams out to be cured, but I do my own bacons. I usually end up with 70 to 80 lbs of sausage that I stuff with the lard press/sausage stuffer I inherited from my father inlaw. We also use his butcher boards that were cut off the farm. They are basswood that is 2 1/2 inches thick 18 in wide and 10 feet long, I always take his lard pot along. We no longer render lard but do take all the bones and boil them down in the pots then strain out the bones and use the meat and broth to make some of the best cornmeal mush you ever put a tooth to. Dang I am getting hungry. I am also out of sausage. I may need to buy an extra half this year and make it all into sausage.

 

[forgeblast]

We make our own apple butter, we sauce the apples, (peal, core, cook) and can a bunch of sauce, then what is left over goes in the crock pot with the lid proped open with a spoon over night. Sometimes we have to let it cook for another 10 hours (to make the butter consistancy) and then we can it.

 

[toppop52]

While clearing fallen branches yesterday morning from the trees bordering the creek, during one of my breaks, my mind started reflecting on some memories from my earlier days. With the advent of cooler temperatures, I started thinking about hog killing that was done in late Fall and the early Winter months, when I was growing up. This practice was a Community effort. The place where this was done varied throughout the years. Firewood was gathered, and the scalding tubs were set up. Hoists, tubs, tables and all other necessary equipment were all mainly brought on-site. After killing and gutting the hogs, they were placed in the tubs for scalding. They were then hoisted and the hair was scraped off the skin. The carcass was then cut up into different sections. The hams and shoulders were salted down and wrapped for storage. Sometimes the loins were cut up and sometimes they were left whole. Ribs were cut and the slabs used for bacon were normally left whole. Trimmings for sausage were gathered and the sausage was also ground on-site. BTW, you were required to bring your own seasoning. The fat was placed in lard cans and was later rendered for lard by the individual owner. The events were always carried out in an organized and friendly atmosphere, and all that participated, went Home with the cuts that were derived from their hog or hogs. Men, Women, and Children all participated. The Wives and Women would serve the BEST coffee that you ever tasted, and the food that they prepared and served, would make a King sick from envy. Even though you were tired, after all was said and done, you went Home with a sense of accomplishment. Especially, knowing that you had meat to help sustain your Family during the upcoming Winter months. Please share an early memory that you remember. I am positive that your fellow members, here on TBN, would enjoy reading about a past memory from earlier days. By doing this, you will have a chance to reflect upon the memory. Thanks for listening.

Involved in hog killings many times as a boy growing up in North Carolina, also horse shoeing, hoof trimming, sewing up a hog and a couple of chickens the weasel got.

 

[seymojo536]

Growing up, I don't remember being poor. I remember not having any money, but we were never poor.

 

[orezok]

I remember when there were trolley tracks running down the middle of "Main" street in just about every town.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

I remember killing hogs when I was 8-10 years old. My favorite uncle would drive down from Virginia to help. He is 78 years old now and I am 53 and will see him next weekend.

But there are a lot of things I remember...

Shooting bumble bees off sunflowers with my Daisy BB gun

Picking wild blackberries for home made pies

Playing for hours on the creek bank and building dams with rocks and sticks

Saving my milk money for school all week and on Friday getting off the bus at the little country store to buy a RC and cheese crackers for a quarter and getting change back

Thinking life could not get any better than this when they made the Triple Decker Moonpie

Swinging on vines in the woods, and using the heavy kid to test them first

Getting up at 6:00am on a Saturday to watch my favorite cowboy Roy Rogers and Trigger

Playing cowboys and Indians, making our on bows and arrows, putting river bank clay on the ends of the arrows and shooting at each other

Playing army and using dirt clods as grenades, you did not want to the group in the building beside the barn, you would come out with red dirt all over you

Nailing a board in a tree in the woods and calling it a tree house

Climbing saplings and parachuting down, just hoping the tree would not break

Standing up in the back of the truck and riding to grandmaws on Sunday for dinner, best fried chicken and biscuits ever made

Going to the Burger House once a month, fine dinning in your car

Looking for hours at the stars at night, before street lights were common, seems like there were a lot more stars in the sky back then

Laying in the yard on a hot summer day looking at the different shapes the clouds would make, look that is a bear, dog, man with a beard

The smell of gun powder on a crisp fall morning while squirrel hunting

Sneaking to the two ponds thru the woods to fish and bringing back a stringer of bass and sun perch

Working the horse drawn mowing machine being pulled behind the tractor by dad and cutting hay

Learning to drive in a hay field, 1952 Chevrolet 5 window pick-up truck, too small to lift the hay bales so I got to drive, couldn't wait to be big enough to throw the hay bales, until I was, then wished I could drive the truck

Taking a wagon and making a coasting go cart with a steering wheel, man would that thing fly down the hills

When I was allowed to mow the grass on the riding lawn mower, only had forward and reverse, but I was driving

Taping up one end of the Christmas wrapping paper tube and using it like a gun to shoot bottle rockets at each other, thank god we never got caught doing that

Playing freeze tag, football, baseball, and roller bat in the front yard

Being draged thru the yard after lassoing the cow that got out, tieing it to a tree in the woods till dad got home that afternoon. Lots of memories of being draded by cows, ran over by cows, bucked off horses...

Walking into the Smoke House and smelling the hams and bacon curing

 

[creekbend]

Growing up, I don't remember being poor. I remember not having any money, but we were never poor.

I can identify with your post 100%. We only had extra cash when the Tobacco was auctioned off. We had no running water. We hauled the water from the well in buckets. There was a cover over the well casing and we would drop a cylinder tube down the casing and haul up the water. We called it a "Baler" and it had an eye bolt on top that we would pull to release the water into the buckets. We also had an "Outhouse". We took a bath in a galvanized tub in the kitchen during the winter and in the extra smokehouse in the warmer months. But we were never, ever POOR. We had a "Roof over our heads", "Clothes on our backs", and "Food in our Bellies". WE WERE NEVER POOR.

 

[bullbreaker]

I'am only 54 but I remember :

It seemed like every middle class house had a black cat clock.
S%H green stamps and catalog
If you lived in big city milk was delieverd 4 am
The iceman horse and buggy.
The organgrinder with monkey that would climb apartment building walls for pennies.
The rear driver of old hook and ladder trucks(firefighters).
BTW Anybody here old enough to remember when wives didn't snap back at their husbands ?

Boone

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I can identify with your post 100%. We only had extra cash when the Tobacco was auctioned off. We had no running water. We hauled the water from the well in buckets. There was a cover over the well casing and we would drop a cylinder tube down the casing and haul up the water. We called it a "Baler" and it had an eye bolt on top that we would pull to release the water into the buckets. We also had an "Outhouse". We took a bath in a galvanized tub in the kitchen during the winter and in the extra smokehouse in the warmer months. But we were never, ever POOR. We had a "Roof over our heads", "Clothes on our backs", and "Food in our Bellies". WE WERE NEVER POOR.

Hah. Me too. I had a quarter sized scar on my stomach for years, where I got too close to the pot belly stove in the winter after a bath in the galvanized tub. We had to pump our water; if the can containing the prime water was ever empty, it meant a trip to the creek. We had a water bucket and a dipper in the kitchen; I can remember ice crystals on the top of the water bucket several times in the winter. Ah, the good old days!