A Year of Blogging: March 1, 2011

I've made it through two whole months on this blog! I am proud of myself, because there have been many times I wanted to throw in the towel. But I've kept pushing through, even when I recently found myself almost two weeks behind. It seems like a victory. A small one, but a victory no less. March begins 'National Craft Month'. This has me very excited. I love crafting. These days most of my crafting comes with knitting needles. I still scrapbook- or I have the intentions of scrapbooking. I have a scrapbooking tote full of partially finished books, and things that need to go into my scrapbooks. I've made scrapbooks for many family members, yet mine are unfinished. In the past, I have created designs on clothing and bags, made my own stationary and cards with rubber stamps, and worked with plastic canvas. My greatest desire for the house, other than having a kitchen with enough counter space to work on my cookies, is to have a dedicated craft room. There is no room for it in this house, but it's on my wish list. You know the list. The 'someday if we ever have a different (bigger) house....' list. I am hoping the craft stores will react to this month with excitement equal to my own. Sales at craft stores are great. Yes, they are dangerous too because I find myself getting inspired at every corner. So I'm hoping for great big sales on yarn and scrapbooking materials and anything that I want to work on. March 1 is National Pig Day. It is also Peanut Butter Lover's Day, but I'd much rather write about pigs. I must provide a disclaimer though: my vegetarian readers might be offended by this. You have been warned! Why would I choose to blog about pigs rather than peanut butter? Pigs actually are a part of my childhood. I grew up in the country. We weren't farmers, but we had friends who were farmers. Two generations back in my family tree, we were all farmers. My Grandpa Primeau wasn't a farmer, but he did raise pigs. Every year he got piglets from a farmer friend. I think he brought the momma pigs too, to nurse the piglets. Our first visit to Grandpa's house after the piglets arrived was always fun. My cousins and I ran to the barn, excited to see the cute little piglets. There were pink ones, white ones, white and black ones. We climbed onto the fence surrounding the pigpen to watch the pigs. It was fun to feed them. We put the food into the trow and then watched as the pigs came running. All summer long, we went to the barn to see how they had grown. I don't think we ever named the pigs. I know I never did. I don't think my cousins ever did either. We knew better than to get attached. Grandpa raised the pigs every year for one reason. To feed the family. He had a deal with the farmer. The farmer raised beef cattle, Grandpa raised pigs. When the time came each year, Grandpa did the butchering for the farmer. In exchange, the family was able to enjoy the beef as well as the pork. Yes, I said butchering. Growing up in the country, we never had the issues that some city kids have, when you realize what the hamburger you are eating is made of. We always knew where our food came from. My grandparents had a meat locker in their basement, complete with all the necessary butchering equipment. It took a few years before I realized this wasn't standard basement decor. The beef and pork filled our freezer for the winter. I am sure it was a big supplement to my parents' income, and took a little of the worry away from them. When it was time to butcher in the fall, we loaded every cooler we owned into the car. We took masking tape and markers, and went to Grandma & Grandpa's. One weekend was usually beef and another pork. The men did the butchering, the women packaged the meat and wrote the description on each package, and the children ran the packages to the various coolers- packing up each family for the winter. There was always lunch- a pot of chili or goulash, something that could be made to feed a lot of people and kept hot. And while it sounds like a great time for the family to get together, it was dirty, messy, and lets be truthful- nasty. But it was tradition, and we continued to do it for years. Grandpa stopped getting pigs somewhere along the way, I think I was a pre-teen. There are a couple of distinct memories from our butchering days. The first involves my Grandma. She was a very passive person, and Grandpa was always just the opposite. To this day, I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my Grandmother upset. One year when we were butchering, we went upstairs for lunch. Grandpa expected lunch at 1pm on the dot. 12:59 was acceptable, 1:01 was not. My Grandparents have always had a meat slicer in their kitchen- the kind you find in delis. It was most frequently used to slice bread. On this day, lunch was not quite ready at 1pm. The butchering had not been going well, and Grandpa was in an especially foul mood. When he got upstairs and lunch was not ready, he blew his top. My Grandma stood there, slicing the bread on the slicer. She had had enough too, and she took the loaf of bread and fired it at Grandpa. The 30 some people crowded into the kitchen fell silent instantly. Grandpa backed down, saying something like 'take your time' and meekly sat down in his chair. The rest of us quietly pulled chairs out, sat in them, and waited. Grandma picked up another loaf of bread and kept slicing. It was the quietest meal our family ever had! My other memory of butchering time is a little more bizarre. The tails of the pigs were cut off, and given to my cousins and I. We thought it was great fun to run around holding the curly tails. I have NO idea why. All I can say is, to quote Erich, we were 'weird ass rural people'. I don't remember what the attraction was. Maybe one of my older cousins will read this and remember. I just remember we were thrilled when Grandpa handed us our pig tail. At the end of the day, it was wrapped in butcher's paper and we took it home. The first year our neighbors (and childhood best friends) Drew and Joylane lived next door, Laura and I came home from Grandpa's and showed them our treasure. Drew and Joylane ran screaming in horror back to their house (which, in hindsight, is probably much more appropriate than running around with a severed pig tail in your hand). I have 13 cousins. The fifteen of us range in age from 39-23. Any of us above a certain age have common memories when you mention 'pigs'. The younger ones are not so fortunate. They can only hear the stories. You don't have the same appreciation for it if you didn't live it. So I dedicate this post on National Pig Day to my cousins- it only takes hearing that one three letter word to cause us all to cringe!