Memories of the Hog Farm

How many of you have lots of memories of your distant childhood?

Happy and pleasant ones, I hope. It’s odd but the older I get, the more vivid these events of the past are getting sharper and more detailed. If you are a senior, you are shaking your head and you know what I am talking about.

I am 91 years old going on 60 most of my early childhood 3 years through 12 was spent with my grandparents, daddy’s side of the family tree on their farm in their unpainted wooden house. When taking a nap was on the floor, I could see the chickens walking under the house through the cracks.

If you subscribe to this excellent newspaper, then you have read about farm life experiences which are unique to any other lifestyle. We are surrounded by gorgeous acres of beautiful cattle and healthy crops.

My grandparent’s farmland was river bottom, which is very dark and sticky after a rain. Once I saw my granddad bend down and scoop up a handful of that dirt, sniff it, and smile.

Only farmers do that. Precious memories.

Everyone on a farm has a job. I was only about five when they assigned me my first official job, to slop the hogs. My enjoyment of farm life dropped a lot. Everything from every meal was scraped into the bucket I was to carry it out to the hog trough and dump it all into it over the fence which was a little high. At first, I was horrified at the loud screaming and pushing and grunting.

On one trip it occurred to me that if I had accidently fallen into that trough the only evidence of my existence to be found would be perhaps some pieces of my dress and maybe not even that.

To granddaddy’s disgust those pigs were good at rooting out the dirt and mud from under their pen and they would get out.

Herding pigs is like herding cats. I always heard him say some new words when he and grandmother were racing around like maniacs trying to scare them back into their pen. I learned a lot on the farm.

Procedures are quite different happenings in the life of most people today. Everything has changed, more modern, even for farm raised kids.

Today huge equipment is out in the field. You won’t see any pickers.