We got her!

The giant sow that we have been seeing all week on the trailcam was patiently waiting for Bo and I yesterday when we went to check the trap out on the Jericho tract. That is her in the picture on the last post, and she weighed in at 250 pounds. Of course that was before Bo and I took the skinning knives to her.

Bo has been having so much fun going with me to check the trap everyday, and he has been very interested in how they look, feel and SMELL when I get them out. Most importantly he has not been squimish about me shooting them. So I thought that he was ready to see how meat/food is made…

“We’re going to skin the HOG?!” he asked excitedly when we got to the skinning rack.

“Yes son, that is how we turn the hog in to meat” I replied.

“Cool!!!” he exclaimed

Then we hoisted him up, and I went to work. Bo really thought pulling her hide off was neat, but wasn’t so sure when I opened the pig up and dropped the guts out.

“That’s GROSS, dada” he said loudly as the blood poured from her neck. “You now have boogs on your hand.”

What he meant was blood, but who could blame him for thinking that; Moments earlier it had been pouring out of her nose – therefore it must be boogs.

I finished up the cleaning, and it was time to wash the carcass down. Bo enthusiastically brought me the hose and helped me spray her down so that she was ready to be hung in the cooler. We then cleaned up and hurried home for dinner.

When we got there, he ran inside to tell mama about the hog we killed, “We got a big, MEAN hog in the trap, and we made her in to meat!”

He then blurted out, “And that big, mean hog went peepee and poopoo when dada shot her. But that is what happens when you die!”.

Amy almost fell off the couch with that comment. However after I told her how the hog’s bowels completely emptied themselves out while I was getting her out of the trap, she understood. Three year olds are already fascinated with the whole bathroom process, so to see the giant hog take a 2 foot long poop along with a gallon pee really made a lasting impression… He has now told the story at least 100 times, and that only happened yesterday!

That makes 3 sows this week in the trap that will not be filling our woods with their nasty, tick-infested offspring. I am truly ready for spring and turkey season, but I hate that I have to pull the trap now that I have them really coming in… I could really do some damage to the herd if I just had a few more weeks, and how I would love to get the cool looking boar pictured above. However you can’t have any corn down during turkey season, unless you want a visit from the game wardens – and they are really strict on it.

Oh well, I did manage to get a few of the worst offenders. And I will be ready on May 2 when I can put it back out. So hog trapping will be on hold until then, but hunting those big, ugly red-headed birds should make for some interesting reading, so don’t think for one minute that you shouldn’t check back EVERYDAY. And just because we can’t actually trap them doesn’t meant that I can’t do a few more posts on hog trapping and how to best catch them. So look for those posts too.

I am now headed out to work on getting that radiator in our Corolla. We managed to get the new tires on our van, but a lack of time has thrown off my original schedule. See you tomorrow!

Jeff

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