I made a post about times getting tough and how on account of fuel prices and taxes getting so high that I might have to start using some of my grain and start making my own fuel. I later recalled a story about old Pete.
I’ve written about old Pete before and how he was a real good machinist and mechanic, but Pete was a wealth of knowledge in other ways too, from surviving the old days — and by that I mean he was a Great Depression survivor.
Those old guys like Pete made do with what they had and learned how to survive with nothing. When those old guys started reminiscing amongst themselves, I would always listen up close because they’d have something to say and I might have something to learn.
Pete got to talking about the old days and the old ways when he was a teenager and how times were tough. Dirt floor poor wasn’t just a term to them it was a reality.
Pete was telling me that he had an uncle that made moonshine and it was some of the best and smoothest to be consumed and traded.
Folks back then had no money so they traded something they had for something they needed. They also had a system of doing things back then much different from today, in that nothing went to waste! I remember my grandpa saying when they butchered a hog the only thing that got away was a squeal — they used it all!
Well, Pete said his uncle farmed and he raised corn, pinto beans, hay, and hog; the usual farm stuff. Everyone had a milk cow and chickens too. With those few items, that was all you really needed to survive.
The cows were fed hay and corn to produce milk and beef, the chickens made eggs and meat, along with the hogs. Anything that wasn’t traded or consumed went to that bunch of hogs; but mostly he’d feed them his spent mash. He’d trade what shine and stuff he didn’t consume for the things he needed.
Pete told me they had a terrible drought and the corn burned up so they cut and shocked it to grind for feed. It was the end of June coming on to the first of July when the monsoon finally hit and started raining, so they planted pinto beans because they were a short fast crop.
Unfortunately, Pete’s uncle was about dried up with no corn to make shine with. So outta desperation, he decided to try to make shine with pinto beans and went to cooking a small test batch. He said it turned out fairly well (coming from a desperate man), and he fed that bean mash to the hogs and things were right as rain and he went into full production mode. He made so much moonshine and fed so much bean mash, that he had the fattest hogs he’d ever had.
Pete told me that the mash didn’t have all the goods out of it, and he reasoned the hogs got so fat was because they never were able to stand on their feet.
