My older brother whose teen years were in the last half of the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s remembered bringing water from a well two miles away, in barrels, on a stone boat pulled through the dirt by a team of horses.

He described our water as precious to begin with, and then “…the more it was handled the more valued it became.  We first pumped the water out of the well, hauled it home and dumped it in a cistern, then pumped it back out and carried it into the kitchen for Mother, or in for bathing and washing, and then we carried what remained afterward to the garden or to the pigs.”

Around 1949 or 1950, there were two massive pigs in the 20 X 20 pig pen down behind the barn. They had to be slopped daily and their names were Nicodemus and Yellow Hammer.

Nicodemus and Yellow Hammer were nasty. Children were trained early to (1) stay away from the pig pen and (2) if the pigs had somehow gotten out and were seen snuffling around down in the acre of potatoes that we planted each year,  we were to run for the house and tell somebody, “The pigs are out!”

My brother’s memory that we carried what remained afterward to the garden or to the pigs is supported by my own memory of the slop bucket sitting near the kitchen door closest to the back door to the house.  The slop bucket was a two gallon pail with a cover on it. It was not allowed to smell up the kitchen. Ever.  The cover comes off quickly, and goes back on quickly. (ADD: See my note in the comments below in response to david smith’s great story about slopping the pigs. The smelly in our kitchen didn’t become an issue unless we got into Day Three, which seldom happened. The cover on the bucket was for general aesthetics as well as potential odor.)

Everything remaining from cooking, before or after a meal, was utilized for the pigs, the chickens, the dog, or the cats.  Peach and apricot pits were the only food remainders that were simply thrown away. If we had thrown away the other things, we would have to start buying food for the pigs, the dogs, and the cats which wouldn’t make any sense–since we were surrounded by pig food, dog food and cat food. Here’s how the slopping of the pigs is done.

When the potatoes were peeled, the peelings went in the slop bucket. After the potatoes were boiled, if bread wasn’t being baked the next morning, the water they were boiled in went in the slop bucket.  If apples were used, the peelings and the cores were tossed in.  The shells from the eggs brought in from the hen house joined the apple and potato peelings.  A portion of last year’s pigs that had become this year’s pork chops also became dinner for this year’s pigs when the fat portions cut off the chop ended up in the bucket.

Fresh peas from the garden were painstakingly stripped of the little “string” along the back, pried open with fingernails and the six-seven peas within stripped out and put in a bowl balanced in my lap out on the back porch.  Thirty minutes of this kind of labor would produce enough peas to serve the family at supper.  Then the pods went into the slop bucket for the pigs to eat.

Stir-frying vegetables was not known or considered normal in those times in northeastern Montana.  And using an entire pea–shell and all–in a salad of some kind?  Unheard of!  No matter how desperate we might be for sustenance, none of us could imagine be reduced to such a state of affairs.  It was understood that pea pods went in the slop pail.

In June the fresh peaches would arrive on the evening train from Michigan, having been ordered at the grocer’s a few weeks earlier.  On the day of the canning, one dozen after another, the peaches would be lowered into scalding water to loosen the skins for easy removal as the peaches were becoming sauce or jam.  As the skins came off, they were accumulated in a bowl and dropped into the slop bucket.

When we would put the warm milk from the family cow through the cream separator in the basement, twice a day, the tall can of thick cream-only would sit in the refrigerator alongside a larger can of skim milk….so skim it was blue.

It was that kind of pale, pale blue hue that the brightest white snow seems to take on in January when it’s about twenty below zero and the sun is blazing bright.   At about 4 pm, just before it starts getting dark, the snow really isn’t white–it’s that amazing pale blue.  Well, that’s the color of this super skim milk.  Thin as water, because the cream had been separated out.

The reason it was separated is so that, once we had enough of it, it might be sold in a five gallon cream can, or, when Danish pastries are being prepared, or cakes, or something that calls for whipped cream–thick, yellow cream was needed.  Very occasionally the last three inches of cream in the bottom of the can would go bad, just because it didn’t get used up quite fast enough.  When that happened, it went into the slop bucket.

Table scraps did not go into the slop bucket. A bit of burned skin from baked potatoes that is too baked to enjoy eating; a piece of toast that somehow got really burned instead of just getting toasted; bits of the-end-of-the-roast that are more fat than roast–such table scraps were dog food.  So after the table was cleared, they are just run down the back stairs, out to the back porch where the dog’s bowl is–and his dinner is served.  Dog food was not purchased. The dog ate table scraps, and did very well by them.  He also thrived on some serious bones for two or three months after any butchering project, pork or beef. The only table scraps that were not dog food were the chicken bones which were gathered in a bucket and buried down in the pasture where we took our accumulated metal cans and trash every year or so.

Back to the slop bucket–it truly was slop, in the casual meaning of the word which is why it had a cover that fit tightly. It would never do to be able to smell the slop.

When we had country company, the slop bucket would be moved out to the back hall where it wouldn’t be noticed.  If we had town company, it got carried down to the basement so that they wouldn’t be aware of it.

About every other day, one of the older boys or Dad would carry that heavy bucket of pig slop across the   yard, through the barn or through the gate and out the other side, over to the pig pen where it would be thrown into the trough to join whatever was left from yesterday’s slop.

And there you have it: slopping the pigs. It wasn’t pretty, but it was still next year’s bacon.

…and the duck parties on…

Hat tip/Stella