Today Sylvie saw a couple of steaks that our neighbor had given us thawing out on the counter (yes, I know I'm not supposed to thaw them there . . .). She yelled, "Blood!" and pushed me into the whole "meat is animal" conversation. "What! Are we monsters?!", she exclaimed. Well, yes, I suppose we are . . .
This got me thinking about all the things she eats without any knowledge at all. I decided not to go there today. But, for whatever reason, my mind jumped to our families' associations with hogs.
I grew up for the most part on my maternal grandparents' farm in Taneytown. It was a dairy farm, and besides cats and dogs, cows were pretty much the only livestock there. But my grandmother's parents were hog farmers, originally from Poolesville, who lived down the road. My great-granddaddy Charles Poole was an incredibly intimidating person, over 6 feet tall and generally grumpy. Apparently, he scared even my Papa when he was courting Grandma. Papa told the story of how once he was visiting their farm and helping out with butchering. He claimed that while working around the huge vats of cooking lard, Papa somehow lost his watch in the hot fat. In order to . . . to be finished tomorrow . . .
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