When I first bought Carla Emery’s “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” for Lisa (Christmas of 2005) we were in the beginning stages of our journey toward self-sufficiency. At that time, raising our own pork for the freezer was a dream, and actually being able to butcher our own hogs seemed almost impossible. Even after the dream started to come true a year later in 2006, the pages covering hog butchering in Carla’s book were ones that I did not think could ever apply to us. We processed several pigs via professional meat markets in 2007 and 2008, our freezer was full of home grown quality pork, and the dream had become true! Even then, butchering our own hog, preparing the meat ourselves, all with our own tools and on our own property, existed in my mind only in the misty-murky world of fantasy.
The world of fantasy has now mingled and merged with the world of reality! I sit here, now a day later, thinking back on this amazing moment in the history of my homestead. It has all caused me to be in a rather reflective mood, and during such times I have often found a desire to capture some of those thoughts and feelings in writing.
I will get to the actual hog butchering eventually, but my thoughts are first drifting back through the pages of time. Growing up with somewhat of a city-boy mentality doesn’t generally lend itself to a welcoming attitude about self-butchering a couple of 250 pound hogs. Especially when one considers the potential violent nature of the shooting and sticking (slitting the neck with a sharp knife) and the bleeding and the hanging of the carcass and the gutting and the smells and the skinning and the carving. Needless to say, I did not arrive at my current positive attitude concerning this process overnight. Looking back, I can see that God was working in my thought-processes for some time.
After the floodwaters receded, God told Noah that “every moving thing that livest shall be meat for you” (Genesis 9:3). I’ve always been a meat-eater, but for most of my life I had never given much thought about how the grocery store got it’s meat. In 1993 we moved to our present homestead in eastern Kentucky where hunting and fishing are a regular part of life for many of the residents. I began to listen to the stories so many of our friends and neighbors told about bagging wild game and I enjoyed the venison and deer jerky they shared. I always liked the romantic notion of becoming one with the wilderness, spending time in God’s wonderland of nature, and accepting the meat for my family that He provides in our own backyard. If it were really that easy, I think I would have become a great hunter long ago.
As the decade of the 1990s began to wind down, there began to be much discussion and hype about a possible catastrophe that could significantly disrupt “life as we know it” in America. They called it the “Y2K” problem. Warnings were everywhere in the media and very reputable mainstream sources, even from within the United States government, were recommending stocking up the pantry and making preparations for being without power or services of any kind for an extended period of time. Like millions of people (probably billions worldwide), we began to evaluate how our family could survive more than a few weeks in such a situation. And, like millions of people, we discovered that we were woefully dependent on others for nearly every necessity of life.
It was during this time that we made the fortunate decision to spend the money to drill our well down to over 400 feet to see if we could get good water. God blessed us with hitting a massive aquifer that created an artesian well! We now had an excellent source of water that came up to us, even without electricity. We also realized that wild game was abundant in our mountains, and Lisa did have the experiences in her growing up years of gutting, cleaning, and preparing fish, rabbit, squirrel, and chicken. If it came down to it, I would learn how to hunt or trap such small game. Cooking it would be a challenge with no electricity, especially after the propane in the grill ran out, but with God’s help, we would survive.
Fortunately, we did not have to discover how inadequate our situation was by dealing with a real emergency, and the computers took it all in stride as our calendar changed to the new millennium. Life was not altered for us in any way, and soon most believed that everything would press on as usual for America. A mere 19 months later, however, we found out that “life as we know it” could be changed in a moment of time as our great nation was shaken with the 9-11-2001 terrorist attacks. Americans everywhere felt a collective vulnerability and uncertainty about the future. What if something like that happened even closer to our home? What if the food supply to our grocery outlets became disabled? What if the nation’s electricity power grid became compromised?
I don’t think I was ever paranoid, but it did open my eyes to our surroundings. It started making sense to better use the resources God had made available to us here at Pure Water Hollow. We had a nice garden spot and some fruit trees and we planted grapevines and more fruit trees. Soon we were gardening more intensively, learning the art of canning, and harvesting many vegetables, cherries, grapes, peaches, pears, blackberries, and apples. Lisa began to study the wild plants and trees that abounded in our mountains to learn the edible and medicinal possibilities that existed for us.
I knew that protein was also an important part of survival, and I was pleased to get our chickens from a neighbor the spring of 2004. News reports about poor production practices, harmful chemicals and preservatives, and even disease in commercial meat and eggs had been flourishing for some time and the overall quality of the food we buy at the grocery had come into question. Apparently the meat and eggs available today are not as healthy for us as the meat and eggs available in the grocery a generation ago. We were thankful to have plenty of farm-fresh eggs that came from our own free-range/corn-fed chickens.
I was also excited about the possibility of having our own homegrown chicken meat in our freezer. I was not necessarily fond of what would need to be done to provide that, however. It helped that Lisa had experience with the butchering of chickens, so it wasn’t much of a mystery for at least one of us. I knew that God had provided these animals for our meat, but causing the life of one of God’s beautiful, breathing creatures to end at my own hand was another whole matter to work through emotionally.
Knowing that it was the right thing to do for my family, I was able to overcome my emotional reservations. I killed my first chicken January of 2007 as the hatchet in my hand separated the rooster’s head from its’ body. This was the first time I purposefully took the life of a living creature. I didn’t even let the scornful look I imagined in the eye of the bodiless head bother me. The rooster giving his life for our family was his purpose in this world and it was a good thing, so I thanked him for his sacrifice. I have since then taken the heads off many more roosters. I chop and pluck and Lisa does the evisceration and cleaning.
The first mammal I purposely killed was also in connection with chickens. It was a stray dog that had been killing our layers. We had tried to run him off, but he kept coming back. It was savagely devouring a chicken next to our driveway when I brought out the 12-gauge shotgun. He looked at me and I looked at him. There was no malice in my mind, just a sense of duty. I pulled the trigger with some regret but it was my responsibility to protect the chickens in my care and keep them safe. I was disturbed a bit with the way the dog’s body flopped and twitched after I pulled that trigger. I was thankful, however, that the threat to our meat and egg supply was gone.
Another time I shot a squirrel and Lisa fixed it up and we ate it. Shooting a dog that we did not know or a wild squirrel, or chopping the head off a chicken is quite a bit different than shooting a pig that you have fed, cared for, and raised for 6 months. Could we really do that? And at 250 pounds it would be quite a bit larger than a chicken. Could we do all that would be necessary to put pork on our table to feed our family? Would we want to?
The answer to that last inquiry was always more of a “yes” than a “probably not”, but as I said earlier, it was only in the fantasy world of my imagination. I had read many accounts of how the old timers in these hills had such high regards for their hogs in days gone by. A hog or two could supply the family with meat for the entire winter, and they could make good use of “everything but the squeal”. Hog butchering was a common occurrence in these parts for generations. I have long wished to learn about the “old ways” of things, back when man was self-sufficient and did not have to rely on Wal-Mart for all his needs.
If a family could be self-sufficient once again, there would be little disruption in their life even if the computer world goes on the biltz, or terrorists are successful in another massive attack, or if the commercial food supply gets poisoned, or our petroleum supply is interrupted, or if the economy crashes, or America’s energy grid fails. And if nothing dire happens in the future, being self-sufficient would still be a rewarding, satisfying lifestyle. Raising our own hogs to butcher ourselves was another step in that direction.
Continued in Part 2.
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