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Pig butchering for Turkey Day
Cold, Hard Football Facts for November 21, 2007
 As you imagine from a guy that's built his life around beer, food & football, the Chief Troll and members of the 225 Club (the CHFF Tailgate Team) do Thanksgiving a little differently than most.
Last weekend, the 225 Club descenced upon a farm in rural New Hampshire where one pal, an oh-too-thin guy named Mike Wilson, housed four pigs. One of the chubby bastards (meaning one of the pigs, not a member of the tailgate team) took a .22 between the eyes. They then proceeded to turn him into hams, hocks, bacons and pork chops. The fresh-made sausage, meanwhile, will be consumed Thursday morning during their big Turkey Day morning tailgate party, the Pigskin Gala, which proceeds the local Thanksgiving Day high school football game. (The bacons still need to be brined and smoked, so won't be ready for a few weeks yet.).
In any case, for those of you who don't mind seeing how the sausage is made, there's Wilbur during butchering as he hung from the lift of a John Deere so he could be drained of blood, gutted and de-haired. He was way too big, 420 pounds, because we let him sit around too long this season. But he lost 17 pounds in blood and another 80 or so in innards. Still way too big, but figured you wanted the details. (As you may be able to see in the photo, proper pig-butchering etiquette dictates that everybody have a beer in their hand.)
We'll let you know how it tastes.
For those of you into cute little pig pictures, here's a "before" picture of Wilbur. We have no idea why Wilson has a hammer in his hand when the guy behind him is sporting a Ruger .22.
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