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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Robert Walton wrote:

> My Salvadoran in-laws were here, so we did it Salvadoran style.
snip
> They cut up the meat right away and that worked better since the temps
> were not with us. It was only in the mid 40s that night and in the 60s
> the next day. I'd have canceled and done another time, but all the
> help was here and we wanted pig for Christmas.
>
> In lieu of trying to dip the hg in an old bathtup of water, we just
> splashed buckets of scalding water on the part we were scraping. Next
> time, I'll rig something up to dip the hog.
>
> Left the big pieces out on a table overnight to cool, I'd have
> preferred hanging, but got out voted. El Salvador is warm, so you cut
> the pig up fast, no hanging.
snip
> . Just cured a side of
> bacon and a skinless shoulder on this hog.

Awesome Rob..I know that was work. I snipped your post to show why I was 
confused as to whether you skinned or scraped the hog...was part of it 
scraped and part of it skinned?
When did you get the pair, and how big were they when you got them?
We raise hogs through the winter months..it keeps the smell down and 
they till up the garden area for me as I move their pen around.  We 
usually get them in August/September, and kill them March/April.  We 
haven't been brave enough to do it at home, mostly because we don't have 
the help.  I do have a couple of neighbors with experience, though, and 
now I have some Mexican friends from work who also have experience, so 
next time I really would like to do it myself so we might just try a 
summer raising.
A guy I know uses a trailer, like a large landscape type trailer, as a 
pig pen.  He's modified it, of course, but he can move it around and 
clean it off easily.  The pigs never touch the ground, and I have mixed 
feelings about that after seeing how much they love to dig and how 
healthy it is for them to do so, but it works for him.
Another guy I know just keeps them on the edge of the woods with 
electric fencing, and yet another guy raised them on a wooden deck.  We 
used a moveable pen made of 4 hog panels.  How did you contain your piggies?

Bev
--
Bevanron of EarthNSky Farm   Sleep well tonight, for somewhere in the 
ocean's depths, MY son is protecting YOUR freedom.