But Rosa could tell you how it was done. On a clear, cold day in the winter, John Bertsch would put a huge iron kettle of water on to boil over an open fire out in the barnyard. The kettle hung from a very tall tripod made of three wooden poles with a chain and a hook suspended from the top over the open fire on the ground. They had to scald the hog in a big trough by pouring that hot water over it, so they could easily scrape the outside of the carcass to remove the bristles and hair. The hog scrapers they used looked like a metal saucer turned upside down with a wooden handle fastened to it. The hog was really clean when they got finished.

Pop would use the same tripod hanger to suspend the hog after it was scraped so the men could handle the hog more easily. They would slit the hog down the middle on the underside, and use a spreader, which was a wooden stick, to hold the hind legs apart. Someone with a big dishpan would catch the entrails.

Some pork was ground for sausage and stuffed into hog gut which had been washed and washed and scraped. Then they would run water through the guts until they were as clean and white as the driven snow. Rosa would butt in and help do the sausage for she had watched so often from the window that she felt as though she could butcher a hog by herself.