pig tail

“You ever had pig tail before, Mo?”

Nathan McCall, owner of McCall’s Meat and Fish, holds out the piece to me. It’s color is washed peach. It’s diameter is wrist sized, and about 1 1/2 foot long.

While it wasn’t often, an animal was slaughtered on the farm. More often a cow than pig. Either one was used for our own consumption. Just the main cuts…roasts, steaks, burger and liver. None of the offal was saved.

We raise one pig at a time. The pig pen butts up against the south side of the shop/ garage where my brothers, sister and dad work on farm equipment, engines and wood. The size of the pen is 5x5 with wood fencing. Its trough was once a steel tank that had been vertically blowtorched and split. It now rests in the ground, open end facing the sky, and close to the fence so we could easily pour in the content from the pigs bucket.

The bucket is that. A pigs bucket. A five gallon bucket with handle that sits close to the stove in the kitchen. Once emptied it is returned soon to be filled up again with kitchen, vegetable and fruit scraps.

The pigpen is the summertime stinks like hell. The dirt needs to be watered to create a mud wallow that keeps the pig cool. In this pen, it is more than a wallow. It is a thick, more than viscous paste. Amongst this paste and triple digit heat there is an insane amount of flies. I go out at high noon, stick my arm out over the pen to attract the flies, and let them crawl over my forearm to see how much I could take.

I never see the pig being slaughtered here. I only know that it’s the day, the time it happens, and that the tail is to be saved for my brother Peter ( a child here ) as he wants it for good luck.

Cows are different. One is chosen. The chosen one is culled from the herd as she doesn’t give enough enough. She is herded out of the corral to an open spot on the asphalt in front of the gas tank and between the milking parlor and house. She is taken out with one shot to the forehead, bled out and, with her back ankles chained is hoisted upside-down into the air by a small crane attached to the back of the truck. This is done quickly in order to quicken the bleed-out. Her head is separated from the rest of her body. Once this is done, her skin is peeled off, her stomach is gutted and the chainsaw is used to separate her into two sides. The butcher will take care of the rest.

From the upstairs window I only watch the act of skin getting stripped onward.

Some cows know. Carla is mean. Kicks all the time. Hardly stands still when stanchioned and being milked. She’s not worth keeping. She won’t give the shooter a clean shot. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. Silence settles upon everyone. It feels like something larger is going on here.

She is returned to the herd.

“Go ahead. Mo.” Nathan McCall encourages. “Take it home and braise it.”