Hog killen was a big deal back in my youth.
My paternal grand pa had a big vat and fire box with a port-a-bar and multiple chain hoist. Everybody in the neighborhood brought their hogs over. Single shot .22 out of the milking chute in the barn. Production line, scald, hoist and lay on table to scrape the hair off, pick up to gut and split, move to cutting table. Offshoot guts to salvage organs and small intestine for cleaning for sausage casings, big intestines for rendering. Each individual determined how they wanted their meat done, fat cubed and into the pots, straining the hot lard and filling the 'stands, save the cracklins and chitlins. Working heads for souse. Salting middlings and hams, cold smoking sausages.
Always some corn liquor at the end of day, as the fires burned down the music came out.
Life was a lot simpler then. The above photo reminded me...
