Simple instructions for making lard

Rendering Lard is not all that difficult, it just takes some work. Step #1. Buy a couple of pigs in April or May. Step #2. Rebuild and tighten the fence you thought would hold pigs. Rebuild and tighten again. Step #3. Give the pigs a couple of bags of feed (or several) until the garden comes in. Step #4. Give them every extra squash, green bean, or other leftover edible from the garden, even the vines and peels. All your food scraps and anything else you can find. Step #5. In about October when frost comes, confine you pigs to a raised pen so they can no longer eat their poop and feed them straight shelled corn, as much as they will eat. For about two months. Step #6. Kill the hogs. This is an all day job for 5-7 normal people or a morning job for two old farmers. Step #7. Set aside all fat while cutting up your pieces of meat. You will have loin (Pork chops), hams, shoulders, fatback, middling, a couple of roasts, ribs and trim to make sausage. Step #8. After salting all the joints, fatback and middlings (or sending them for bacon) trimming the sausage to make it lean, putting the loin aside to be sliced later and wrapping and freezing the tenderloin and liver; then cut all the fat with the lean cut out (or your lard will go rancid) into 1/2 inch cubes and put it in a large wash pot. Build a small fire to get it started and cook until it comes clear. Do not scorch or allow to cool. Step #9. Dip from the wash pot through a new cheese cloth and strainer into new lard stands. Put lids on and use to raise your cholesterol to a decent level. See, that is not so hard. Thanks to Bill Dunlap of Lightwood Gatepost Land and Cattle Co. Lakeview, NC for this wisdom. AND Thanks to the wisdom God gave the girls at Prairie House for NOT ALLOWING PIGS here. Blessings to all who know how or have done this. Love, Aunt Jo