Getting Ready to Butcher

January 19, 1932  Pleasant weather.  We prepared to butcher.

Farmers raised their own meat – cows, hogs, chickens, and even ducks and geese for special occasions – and butchered them.  They butchered large animals in winter to make it easy to cool and to preserve the meat.  Pork was a staple of the Mennonite diet, so butchering a hog was an annual ritual. 

The day before butchering there was a lot of preparation work to do.   They had to bring out the equipment from the basement, the pans, the meat grinder, barrels, the large outdoor rendering kettle (Miagrope), and the work table for cutting meat and then clean everything.   And the knives had to be sharpened.  

The women would be busy butchering chickens for the next day and baking loaves of bread to feed the butchering crew the next day.  Then all would be ready for an early start to a long day of butchering.