This little pig was dinner!

 One item we have as a stable on our "Survival Weekend" is the cleaning of a freshly killed wild hog.  You can see the farm hand Doll (That is what he goes by) cleaning our little piggy for the boys to learn the basics of meat preparation.

 Here is all the guts and innards coming out.  The whole thing is really clean and simple.  Doll said he will skin anything that he can eat the meat off of.  He did say that cleaning fish is for the kids, and I agree.  That is why god created catch and release.  One thing about wild hog cleaning is to make sure the fur ever touches the meat.  There are oils and stuff that will give the meat a gamy taste to it if that happens.

 I know alot of you are like "teaching the youth of America how to clean animals is wrong" well just think of how many thousands of dollars you don't have to spend because these hogs are killed.  Hogs are a nuisance and a bad one at that.  They root and tear up farm and cattle land resulting in higher prices for vegetables and meat in the grocery store.  On my ranch when it rains the hogs come up from the creek and root and tear up everything.  Killing them saves money.

 Doll was like a surgeon with his buck sheath knife.  When you know how to clean an animal properly it is really an art more than a butchering.  You can see here the legs (hams) and the spine (pork loin and pork chops) still on the rack.

 The feet were so cute and I brought one back for my wife.  She is a science teacher and has an ever expanding "Death Collection."  The one thing she said to me when I brought it to her was that how you never think the pigs had pads on their feet.  What says "Love"  more than a fresh hogs foot?  I also brought her back a cow skull and a giant turtle shell with the bottom still attached. 

You can see that this was a smaller hog and she did not have much bacon on her back nor did we pull the loins off.  I like how Doll uses his trusty pruning shears to take the feet off of the legs.  The meat will sit in this ice chest with ice on it for about four days.  Each day the water and blood will be drained and fresh ice put on top.  This gets the blood and the game taste out of the pig.  Last year one of the gentlemen had the pig turned into tamales and they were great.

I still think of those poor people that went mushroom hunting and got lost and had to stay in a hollow log.  Then they almost ate their dog.  How bad of a mushroom hunter do you have to be to almost have to eat your dog?