Homestead mailing list

[Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>]

Please accept my apologies for any misunderstandings on my part, and for any 
misinterpretations of my discouragement as it was not meant towards anyone in 
particular.  Everyone here has been directly nice to me, and refreshingly 
intelligent.  The shear volume of some 500 emails hitting my inbox (I did 
more than my fair share of contributing to that) and my interpretations of 
what seemed to me to be quibbling at times (and not even with me! LOL) and 
discouraging type in others, got under my skin.  It is no excuse, but my skin 
has not been as thick as it used to be as I have gone thru a lot of stressful 
crisis situations in the last couple of years.
 
I would like to share a story, a tad long, that I hope all of you seasoned 
homesteaders and hobby farmers will find extraordinarily funny, as an 
inducement to accept my alms (which technically is the wrong word, but I'm 
sure you know what I'm trying to say...)
 
For about 15 years I had what you wouldn't even qualify as a hobby farm.  I 
boarded horses south of Miami and catered to the wealthy (they paid their 
bills on time), and rubbed noses with people whom I personally thought were 
pretty snooty, petty, and phoney (did I mention they paid their bills on 
time).  I did the grunt work around the farm daily most of the time, with a 
few exceptions now and then due to health issues.  I cleaned stalls,, fed all 
the animals, bathed horses daily, trained horses, mowed the property, spread 
manure, kept the fences up, collected eggs, slaughtered the chickens, etc. 
and attempted many times to garden unsuccessfully.
 
At the time I was married to a real city boy, a former 3 piece suit, who was 
always pretty useless but had become even more useless except for keeping the 
couch in front of the TV warm, and emptying the fridge of beer daily.  His 
friends were afflicted with a similar condition, so he lived in the house 
with his friends emptying the fridge and one cabinet of only certain 
varieties of liquid daily.   Meanwhile I lived in "my house", which smelled 
blissfully of the faint odor of horse manure, alfalfa, clean shavings for 
bedding, leather and Murphy's Oil.
 
My real friends were the opposite of my ex.  One exemplary couple was from 
South Carolina.  I had met the husband, "Mr. Ed", after Hurricane Andrew as 
he had heavy equipment and helped haul out the 700 trees that came crashing 
down during the hurricane.  He also helped us rebuild portions of the house.  
Later I met his wife, and his son Joey became close friends with my own son, 
who was about aged 14 at the time of this story.
 
Now, Mr. Ed, he was originally from Georgia and has a very, very thick 
southern accent, so thick at times I couldn't understand him.  It took me a 
couple of days to figure out that "Mer Crickma" means Merry Christmans. Being 
a southerner, he always called me "Mizz Lezly",  as did his son.  Mr. Ed was 
one of those folks who can barely read or write, but is smart as a whip in 
practical things, and managed to become a multi-millionare the honest way, he 
earned it and lived a frugal life.  You would never ever know it by looking 
at him either.  His white gray beard was about 9 inches long, his straggly 
hair was way past his shoulders, and sometimes I wondered when the last time 
he took a bath was or when he last brushed his teeth. I'll take 100 Mr. Eds 
though over my ex.   His wife, Emma, was a widow who's former husband was a 
pig farmer who allegedly could slaughter 3 pigs an hour.  She continued to 
live in SC on the pig farm even though Mr. Ed was
 in S. Florida helping out lots of folks in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew 
(years).  On occassion, she and their son would come down to south Florida to 
visit.
 
Mr. Ed became a regular visitor, especially at meal time.  We spent many 
hours talking and he knew I was interested in all kinds things, including how 
to do things the old ways.  He even taught me to drive heavy equipment, and 
how to prime a diesel line on the tractor among many other things, includig 
make fences.  
 
Around this time I was also raising turkey and chickens, and a few years 
earlier had made a comment to him one time about wanting to learn how to 
slaughter a pig.
 
Mr. Ed was close friends with one of the neighbors around the corner, a 
professional trapper of unwanted critters - alligators, snakes, oppossums.  
You name it, he was hired to remove things - mostly gators off the airport 
runways and various ponds or pools.  One day Mr. Ed comes over and asked me 
if I had an extra stall that the neighbor could use because he had run out of 
space.
 
"No way, he's not putting an alligator in my barn," was the first thing out 
of my mouth.
 
"No.  It's not a gator, it's a pig," he told me.
 
"A pig?  What is he doing with a pig?"
 
"Well, Mizz Lezly.  They was these Cuban boys up there by the Burger King 
headquarters, and they let loose a bunch of pigs in the forest so they could 
breed there and they could go in and go hunting whenever they wanted fresh 
pig.  You know how them Cubans love pigs.  Well, that there forest is 
protected by the environmentalists, and Mr. Todd done be hired to capture 
them pigs because they be tearing up the forest plants."
 
Mr. Ed went on to explain how difficult it was to capture the pigs because 
they were so smart - but finally after months, Mr. Tood had finally captured 
a male pig.  Mr. Ed assured me Mr. Todd only needed the stall for a couple of 
days.
 
Recalling that I used to feed the pigs with my grandpa when I was a kid, I 
told him sure, go ahead and bring the pig over, and to put it in the end 
stall in the cement walled barn.  What harm could a pig do?
 
Well, this thing was the meanest craziest ugliest pig I had ever seen.  I 
hadn't seen many, and certainly not a domestic pig that was raised wild.  In 
the stall next to the pig, the horse's eyes about bulged out of his head as 
he peered over the wall at what must have looked like a tazmanian devil to 
him.  That pig was body slamming the walls trying to get out.  Fortunately 
they were concrete, and the doors were made out of 2x8 lumber reinforced with 
steel frames.  Every time I walked past that stall, that pig tried to charge 
at me right thru the door.
 
Oops, did I mention I like kinda forgot to tell my ex?  
 
Well not forgot, avoided on purpose, and swore the kids to secrecy not to 
tell city-boy that there was a pig in the barn.  He already had issues with 
the chickens and turkeys.  After all, it was only going to be for 2 days and 
what he didn't know wasn't going to hurt him.  Besides, the pig was in "my 
house", not his, and about the only time he came out to the barn was to see 
if I was going grocery shopping and could I fill up the fridge with some beer 
if I was.
 
Why is it though that things just never seem to go as planned?
 
The next day, Mr. Ed came over and told me that Mr. Todd said if I wanted I 
could have that pig.  What?  I hadn't asked for a pig - and I certainly did 
not want this wild mean tazmanian devil of a pig.  Mr. Ed told me that he 
remembered that a few years earlier I had told him I wanted to learn to dress 
a pig, and that he would teach me.  Ok, I was hooked, and the deal was made 
that he would come the following day at 4pm.  Not having ever seen this 
before, I had no idea what I was in for.  Not to mention that I had forgotten 
the next day was Thursday, the day the boyscouts met at 5pm for their weekly 
meeting - at the property immediately next door to us close to where the barn 
is situated.  Mr. Ed left and told me that I needed to have water boiling by 
4pm and then we'd slaughter the pig.  No problem.
 
The next afternoon just before 4pm, I set a big pot of water on the stove and 
set the burner on high.  My ex, was sitting in his usual spot on the couch, 
eyes glued to the tv, asked me if I was cooking dinner early since I never 
cooked before 6:30pm.  Nope, just boiling some water for something.  I didn't 
elaborate.  I still hadn't told him what was going to be going on in the 
barn.  But the kids knew, and unbeknownst to me, they told two friends, who 
told two friends, who, well you get the picture.  All of a sudden a whole 
bunch of kids came over.  This in itself was nothing unusual to my ex though 
- since a lot of families didn't seem to feed their kids much besides TV 
dinners.  My house had became a favorite hang out for dinner - homecooked 
meals was a novelty to some of these kids.  
 
4pm sharp, Mr. Ed comes in and asks me if the water is ready.  Of course, the 
ex could hear Mr. Ed ask me about boiling water and got one of those 
what-is-going-on looks on his face.  I quickly grabbed a beer from the fridge 
for him thinking I could distract him.  But Mr. Ed just had to go and ask 
where I was boiling the water.  I couldn't avoid that one, and pointed at the 
pot boiling on the stove.  Mr. Ed promptly told me that it wasn't enough 
water, he wanted a bathtub sized tub of boiling water.  I had no idea what 
the water was for.  I told Mr. Ed that I didn't have a big tub, so he told me 
he'd figure something out and to put more pots on to boil.  
 
So off we trotted to the barn.  When we got there he asked me for a 
"bapeeeen" hammer.  Clueless here didn't know what that was, or even what he 
wanted it for.  But I finally figured out more or less what kind of hammer he 
wanted and went back up to the garage, avoiding going past the ex still 
sitting on the couch.  By the time I returned, all the kids had shown up and 
were gathered around the windows on the outside of the barn, looking into the 
stall.  
 
Oh no!  See this corner was visible from the couch potato's line of view.  
Half way back to the barn, I heard the back door open and close, and knew the 
ex was actually going to walk "all the way" to the barn to find out why Mr. 
Ed needed 4 pots of boing water, a hammer and a dozen kids were looking into 
the barn thru the windows.
 
By the time the ex arrived, Mr. Ed, hammer in hand, and was in the corner 
stall, doing the do-si-do with the pig.  For the first time since its arrival 
the pig was not slamming the walls, which made me wonder if the pig actually 
realized that it was not a good thing to be trapped in an enclosed area with 
Georgia boy, hammer in hand.  About the time the ex-peered over the stall 
wall from the aisle, Mr. Ed had positioned himself and bopped the pig right 
between the eyes.  That pig dropped instantly, and my first thought was I 
couldn't believe how easy he had killed that pig.
 
But things just never seen to go the way you expect.  Why is that?
 
Mr. Ed had started to walk to the stall door, about the same time the ex was 
starting to lay into me, when that pig got up, some blood dripping between 
its eyes, and making some scary snorting sounds.  That pig was mad, and 
wanted revenge against his tormetor.  Course now all the kids were yelling, 
Mr. Ed is trying to avoid getting hurt, my ex is yelling calling me crazy and 
wanting to know what was going on, and well you get the picture - chaos.  My 
daughter wanted to get it over with begged her father to get a gun and just 
shoot the pig.  Somehow, he actually became useful, went up to the house and 
got a hand gun.
 
Naturally, about this time all the boyscouts were arriving, just 150 feet 
away, and the thought popped in my head that I didn't even know if it was 
legal to slaughter a pig in that rural area of town in your own backyard.  
'Course the boyscouts didn't even notice anything was going on -- that is 
until the .38 went off and reverberated loudly in the cement walled barn.  
This caught their attention, and the scoutmaster and the kids came running.  
 
About this time, Mr. Ed asked me to check on the water, and if it was boiling 
to bring it to the barn.  Mr. Ed and my son dragged the pig to the horse wash 
rack, which was close to the fence where the boyscouts were.  Of course, not 
only did I not have enough boiling water, but I didn't have anything to hang 
the pig up on either, so the pig was just laying on the concrete floor.  The 
sight of the dead pig of course meant the scoutmaster and the boyscouts 
cancelled their meeting and decided to watch the unfolding events over the 
fence.
 
I still didn't know what the water was for, and carried back two pots.  Mr. 
Ed poured the first pot over hoping it would scald, but as fate would have 
it, of course it did not.  The trip from the house to the barn was just far 
enough to cool the water down a tad.  He asked for more, and we set up more 
water boiling - even in two coffee pots, and two of the kids started 
shuttling the water back and forth on the go-cart.  As fate would have it it 
wasn't working and the top layer of skin and hair wasn't coming off, and time 
was dragging on and on in between pots boiling and shuttled on the go-cart.
 
Now about this time, Mr. Ed's wife and son show up on the scene.  See, this 
whole thing was supposed to take less than an hour and Mr. Ed was supposed to 
take them out to dinner, and now it was dark.
 
Emma took one look at how we were trying to remove the hair, and blurted out, 
"Aw lawdy lawdy, Ed !  What are you doing?"  He assured her it wouldn't be 
much longer.  Mr. Ed, my son and I continued our futile attempts to remove 
the hair by scraping with our knives.
 
Meanwhile the ex was watching silently, drinking away beer after beer, with a 
kind of look on his face that hinted I should seek shelter off property for a 
few days, if not permanently.
 
Mizz Emma was getting tired and pulled up a chair off to the side to wait for 
us to finish.  We scraped and scraped and were still not making any progress.
 
Finally, Mr. Ed looked up at his son and commanded, "Joey, git up to the 
truck and get me da blowtorch."
 
Mizz Emma burst out loud, "Lawdy Lawdy, I ain't never seen nothin like this." 
 She started rocking back and forth in her chair, I'm sure trying not to 
laugh out loud.  After all, she and her former husband used to slaughter pigs 
rather quickly, and we're now several hours into this chore and still don't 
have much hair removed.
 
Joey trotted back to the barn shortly with the blowtorch.  Mr. Ed lit it up 
and singed the hair off that pig.  The smell was....   In the background was 
the sound of another can of beer being opened, and the grinding sound of 
teeth of one very angry ex, accentuated by the occassional outbursts from 
Mizz Emma, "Lawdy Lawdy, I ain't NEVER seen nothin' like this."  
 
I finally told Mr. Ed not to worry about the skin, because at this point, no 
way was I going to keep the skin on the meat.  So he set about starting to 
explain how to slice open the gut and to be careful of the bladder and such 
things.
 
My son kept asking Mr. Ed for the testicals.  Now I guessed immediately what 
he wanted them for (he had gotten his own knife out) and being of a similar 
nature I so no harm.  But Mr. Ed and the ex started arguing with him about it 
and sent him packing.  I could see him supressing tears so I followed him and 
asked him if the reason he wanted them was to dissect them to see what they 
looked like inside.  That was exactly it of course.  I told him just to take 
them when the men weren't looking and just keep quiet about it.  
 
By this time another hour had gone by and it was dark.  The boyscouts had 
finally left, and the single lightbulb above wasn't much help to Mr. Ed, but 
he did finally get the guts out, which my son volunteered to take away so he 
could satisfy his own curiosity about those certain parts of male anatomy.
 
And the whole time, Mizz Emma was saying, "Lawdy Lawdy, I ain't never seen 
nothin' like this."
 
Mr. Ed halved the pig for me, and I told him I'd fininsh up the rest in the 
kitchen where I had a very big workspace.  
 
The ex went back to his spot on the couch, and was mumbling over and over how 
I was crazy, he had married a mad-woman, and how I needed to be 
institutionalized.  Fortunately, he passed out shortly thereafter, and I cut 
up and wrapped the meat for the freezer.
 
My daughter was fine with everything until I actually brought that pig into 
the house.  She spent hours cleaning every surface from the kitchen to the 
freezer at least five times just to make sure there was no singed pig hairs 
anywhere.
 
Something must not have gone right in all this though, because the meat 
actually did not taste good, and much of it went to the dogs.
 
One evening I was cooking up the last of it on the BBQ alongside of our 
dinner, when one of the ex's friends brought over a new neighbor to join 
their usual evening routine.  He kept looking at the pork and ribs cooking 
and smacking his lips and finally asked if he could have some of them pork 
ribs.  
 
"Sure I said, you can have them all," while trying not to laugh.
 
The odd thing, he ate them all, and said they were the best he had ever had.  
I had to walk into the house and out to the garage, so I could do the belly 
laugh thing, because this new neighbor, another 3 piece city boy type, had 
absolutely no idea of the story behind those ribs.
 
The end.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



>From erthnsky AT bellsouth.net  Wed Dec 10 23:33:16 2008
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Well, list, I am no longer the Queen of Long Posts...I now dub Leslie,
SheWhoWritesBooks <g>   Good story, though...
I am soooo glad you stayed...
When you did not answer my email, I was worried.  I think you are
perfect for this list, and I think you have a lot to offer, both in
economics knowledge and personal life experiences.
People on this list argue with each other..all the time...it usually
works out, and we all walk away a bit wiser.  We just try to be
respectful when we disagree.
(((Leslie)))

Bev

Leslie wrote:
> Please accept my apologies for any misunderstandings on my part, and
> for any misinterpretations of my discouragement as it was not meant
> towards anyone in particular.  Everyone here has been directly nice
> to me, and refreshingly intelligent.  The shear volume of some 500
> emails hitting my inbox (I did more than my fair share of
> contributing to that) and my interpretations of what seemed to me to
> be quibbling at times (and not even with me! LOL) and discouraging
> type in others, got under my skin.  It is no excuse, but my skin has
> not been as thick as it used to be as I have gone thru a lot of
> stressful crisis situations in the last couple of years.
>
> I would like to share a story, a tad long,
--
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to
hate. Hate leads to suffering.”        Yoda