We always looked forward to long weekends growing up.  One extra day away from class.  One extra day outside.

President’s Day was always one of those weekends in northern Minnesota when you still chanced bad weather - bitter cold or heavy snows, but more often then not, you usually ended up with the first major thaw, or at least warm up, of winter.  20F to 30F degrees, the snow would start dripping, and it would be time to start the butchering.

It was hard to butcher when it was too cold.  Butchering is a messy process requiring liberal amounts of water and a lot of going in and outside.  But it also wasn’t good when it was too warm.  Typically, butchering was a multiple day process - sometimes as much as a week, and you couldn’t have the meat hanging when it was too warm.

So President’s Day was about perfect.

When I was young, butchering was a big family affair, and even got the neighbors involved.  Typically, we butchered one beef and six pigs each year.  That was usually enough meat to get us through the entire year as well as our grandparents and a little left over for some of the neighbors - everyone liked my folks mix of spices in the bologna.

We would start on Monday, with my Dad’s counsin coming over with is 22 rifle and skillfully dispatch the animals.  They would be hoisted, skinned, gutted, trimmed, and split, laid in the back of waiting pick up trucks, and off to a community owned butcher shed that had all the equipment for making sausage, hamburger, and in general cutting.

My Parents were masters at this.  My Dad could skin an animal faster then anyone I’ve seen - and rarely leave any meat to spare.  He could cut of the animal with the skill of a surgeon.  My mother was the mixer and general supervisor once the animals were in the butcher shack.  With any luck, by Thursday night - maybe Friday - they would have both the big chest and the upright freezer full.  Hams, bacon, sausage, hamburger, steaks, livers, roasts - everything.  In short, a job well done.

I can still remember the last time we butchered.  It was just Dad and I, and it was one lone pig on a cold President’s Day weekend.  The feeling wasn’t quite the same, once it was dispatched, we carried it on plywood into the warmth of the barn to skin and trim, but the same skill and precision was there.  Mom was battling cancer at the time, but her and Dad went out to the butcher shack, one last time, and they did their job well as always.

Society today wants to get us squimish about what we are eating.  The poor cow that makes the hamburger or the horrors of the pigs as they are lead to market.  These animals were not necessarily our pets growing up, but we knew them.  The pigs were fed morning and night.  The steer was fed by a bottle, then pail, then slowly raised until it went to the feedlot.  They grew up under our watchful eyes.  But there was nothing sinister in what we did - they were more then dumb animals, but they were also key to our survival.  We treated them right, not just because it made better meat, but also because it was the right thing to do.