Frosty November morning’s make my memories swirl. I hearken back some 20 plus years ago to my times spent in my mother’s ancestral birthplace of Left Beaver in Floyd Co. Ky. I wiled away a lot of hours there with my second cousin Chris, running the creeks and mountains, huntin’ possums with an old mongrel named “Beardog” and catching chubs and horny heads with worms we dug from behind the hog pen.
However the frosty morn memory that is still vivid is the rousing of the troops to kill a hog at daylight. My uncle Edgel always rose early. He had the fire built and the water boiling in an old Valvoline barrel set near the creek bank. I think he always planned this when he had a lot of family visiting as “many hands make light work”. We would all shuffle sleepy eyed toward the fire. As we passed the pen, the hogs were noticeably restless, maybe because they hadn’t been fed, or they smelled the smoke of the fire only a few scant steps away.
My cousin Pogo arrives with an old J.C. Higgins .22. He drops to one knee and rests the barrel on the middle slat of the fence and waits for the big white hog to turn and look him in the eye. He waits and waits for a perfect shot, just as he did the week before in Wyoming when he brought down a giant elk. Now the elk was bagged with a 7mm Wetherby at 300 yards and this shot was merely 6 feet but we all knew that it had to be precise. The two made eye contact and the crack of the rifle sent the hog to his knees and the other four scattered to the corners.
However the frosty morn memory that is still vivid is the rousing of the troops to kill a hog at daylight. My uncle Edgel always rose early. He had the fire built and the water boiling in an old Valvoline barrel set near the creek bank. I think he always planned this when he had a lot of family visiting as “many hands make light work”. We would all shuffle sleepy eyed toward the fire. As we passed the pen, the hogs were noticeably restless, maybe because they hadn’t been fed, or they smelled the smoke of the fire only a few scant steps away.
My cousin Pogo arrives with an old J.C. Higgins .22. He drops to one knee and rests the barrel on the middle slat of the fence and waits for the big white hog to turn and look him in the eye. He waits and waits for a perfect shot, just as he did the week before in Wyoming when he brought down a giant elk. Now the elk was bagged with a 7mm Wetherby at 300 yards and this shot was merely 6 feet but we all knew that it had to be precise. The two made eye contact and the crack of the rifle sent the hog to his knees and the other four scattered to the corners.
Pogo stood with his chest puffed out and just smiled. Then he took a drink of liquid breakfast from the Mason jar.
The hog was then dragged out and laid beside the fire. The scalding water was poured onto its side and we all commenced to scraping the hair off. The steam and smell that emanated from this, turned the stomachs of the "furrner's" from Ohio and Michigan but we all stayed and finished. We hung the old hog by the hind legs with a Red Devil from the big locust tree, and with one swift slice the innards spilled forth and were delivered into the rushing water to feed the crawdads. The meat was quartered and we hauled the pieces in a wheelbarrow to the shed where Edgel worked his magic with an Old Hickory knife.
The tenderloin was cut out and went immediately into the house where Aunt Mae fried it up to serve the crew along with biscuits, gravy, potatoes and eggs.
The hog was then dragged out and laid beside the fire. The scalding water was poured onto its side and we all commenced to scraping the hair off. The steam and smell that emanated from this, turned the stomachs of the "furrner's" from Ohio and Michigan but we all stayed and finished. We hung the old hog by the hind legs with a Red Devil from the big locust tree, and with one swift slice the innards spilled forth and were delivered into the rushing water to feed the crawdads. The meat was quartered and we hauled the pieces in a wheelbarrow to the shed where Edgel worked his magic with an Old Hickory knife.
The tenderloin was cut out and went immediately into the house where Aunt Mae fried it up to serve the crew along with biscuits, gravy, potatoes and eggs.
Nothing better than a good country breakfast after a morning of hard work.
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