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Saturday, October 27, 2012

 
RANDOM ANIMAL

 
RANDOM MAY TRIP W/ THE DANES

 
RANDOM MARQUETTE

 
RANDOM LURE

 
RANDOM LANDS & PEOPLES

 
RANDOM JAOHNNY IN WI

 
RANDOM HOARDER WORLD

 


RANDOM ESTATE SALE TOURS

 
RANDOM 31 OBJECT

ANTIQUE 41" hand FORGED IRON 2 fisted MEAT CLEAVER carcss splitter OHIO FARM-$81 

Every hand forged iron cleaver I’ve run across over the last 50+ years is now dwarfed by this 41” long, 12 ½ lbs., double-fisted giant I found on a farm in southern Ohio. It is most certainly per Civil War, likely 1st quarter, 19th Century. Just for the fun of it, I ran a few searches on both eBay and on the “Net” in general for pieces described by terms such as “Huge meat cleaver” and “Giant meat cleaver.” The nearest I found was ten inches shorter and lighter in weight by almost half. 

 







This one is a serious cleaver meant for use by someone with some serious butchering to get done – most likely by someone who was a butcher by trade rather than a farmer who made it for use a few times in the late fall each year.

 
I probably should have leaned it up against my truck to give you a more dramatic concept of scale, but 41” is 41”.

 

My little red object is merely to show the center of gravity, an important thing if you’re the person wielding one of these big rascals. And I speak from experience.
Having literally grown up in a slaughterhouse, at age four or five I sat on a lard can day after day in the “kill room” eating an Eskimo Pie as I watched the process from start to finish. A pig or steer would be led in to the small concrete room and within a short period of time rolled out as two halves each swinging from a hook attached to a roller on an overhead rail. From there the halves would be pushed along the rail and directly into a cooler where they’d age for fourteen days or so.

 
The surface has rust, but I’m sure those who collect iron know the proper way to remove it, so I’ll leave that to them.

 

From either end, sighting down the edge shows a straight tool used a’plenty but none the worst for wear.

 








While some might consider it odd that one so young would be allowed to witness what went on, but I thought it no more unusual than watching my friend’s father unpack and hang dresses on racks in his clothing store, or watching another childhood friend’s father arrange apples in bins at his grocery.
As we all grew into teenagers, able to participate in the trades, I was skinning and butchering; another was telling farm women how nice they looked in that dress; and the other was running the cash register in the grocery store.

 
Back in those days, the early 1950s, there were no games – no horsing around and most certainly no cruelty associated with killing and processing. From what I’ve seen, the slaughterhouses of today, some, not all, operate under an entirely different code of conduct. Thinking back on it, about the only bad memory I have related to “the kill room” is the time I thought it might be a fun place to take a date. Turns out she was a screamer. Who knew? I remember she made me take her home immediately even though she hadn’t gotten all that much blood on her sweater.





 
RANDOM DENTIST DRIVE

 
RANDOM ARNE ON AMTRAK

 
RANDOM ARNE

trans siberian



 
SATURDAY INQUISITION BLOGGING


the devil takes a witches soul, while her accomplice is broken for the wheel. 1517.


 
RANDOM ARNE

trans siberia

 
RANDOM PIMED CAR

1956 dodge mayfair

 
RANDOM DENTIST DRIVE

 
RANDOM EBAY OBJECT

 
RANDOM ESTATE SALE TOURS

 
RANDOM HOARDER WORLD

 
RANDOM JOHNNY IN WI

fom a upstairs window. big low arched window.

 
RANDOM KITTY PRON

 
RANDOM LANDS & PEOPLES

still open!

 
RANDOM MARQUETTE

 
RANDOM MAY TRIP W/ THE DANES

 
RANDOM SQUIRL

 

SATURN'S DAY BUTTER MOLD BLOGGING

Friday, October 26, 2012

 
RANDOM PRETTY

 
RANDOM MAY TRIP W/ THE DANES

 

RANDOM MARQUETTE

 

RANDOM LURE

i think i have 1 of these

 
RANDOM LANDS & PEOPLES

 
RANDOM JOHNNY IN WI

 
RANDOM HARDER WORLD

 
RANDOM ESTATE SALE TOURS

 
RANDOM 341 OBJECT

4 ART POTTERY studio VASES + tray- $45





 
RANDOM DENTIST DRIVE

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