Twenty years ago, between Dad’s family and his cousins family, we’d do 12 or 14 every year over Thanksgiving Weekend.
We’d pop them in the noggin with a .22 Magnum, slit their throat and winch them on to the bed of Dad’s rollback.
It was always a big family thing, with over 2 dozen sons, daughters, spouses and kids working together to get them scalded, scraped and butchered, hopefully by early Saturday so we’d have time that weekend to shoot our rifles in for Monday’s first day of buck season.
Lotta work, but a lot of great memories too.
Wish we still did stuff like this, but over the years, the patriarchs died out, and the families got more spread out, and the tradition sorta fell through the floorboards.
As I said before, I’ve always felt that I was very lucky to be part of this, but the times are a changing.
( I sometimes wonder if I could remember enough to do the butchering now, and the kids, Ben and my nephews and nieces would remember enough to help, or would they be in the road Mosta the time?
I sometimes think that maybe an EMP or some catastrophe wouldn’t be such a bad thing, as it might teach us again to rely on ourselves and our families more.
Christ, I sound like an old man!
7mm
