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After Dad got his knife sharp, he reached down and picked up one of the squirrels. He cut it across the back. Then he laid the knife down, and with both hands, he placed the ends of his fingers in the cut that he had made on the squirrel's back. With both hands he slowly began to pull the hide off of the squirrel.
When he had the hide off, he turned it over on its back and he cut it from its head down through its belly, to the tail. Then he reached in, pulled out the guts, and pitched them on the ground. I can remember the dogs. They would fight each other over the guts. Ernie and me liked to watch the dogs fight. To us that was fun, but Dad didn’t like it. Sometimes Dad would jump in and kick the dog that was acting the most piggish. That way the other dog could have some too.
After Dad got all the squirrels skinned, he put them in a pan of water and washed them off real good. Then he put them in the other pan of water and handed them to Mom. He said, "I want them cooked for dinner." Mom took the squirrels in the kitchen, put them in a big black kettle, filled it up with water along with some hog lard and salt, and set it on the wood cook stove to cook.
After the squirrels got tender, Mom got a bowl and put some flour and milk in it. She mixed it up. Then she poured it in the kettle on top of the squirrels and began to stir. She called it "squirrel gravy" and it was good.
When we got there we dropped the turtles on the ground. Virgil said, "Art pick out the one want for dinner and we will clean it for you." Art walked over and looked them. He pointed at the biggest one and said, "That one there." Joe reached up in his shoulder holster, pulled out a pistol and with one hand he took aim just for a second. He shot the turtle right down through the top of the head.When we walked back to where Virgil and art were at, I could see that Virgil had already cleaned the big turtle and Art was getting ready to fry it in the black iron skillet. As they all stood there talking I noticed a little tree about the size of a boy's arm all bent over and tied to the first limb was a burlap sack. Something in the sack was moving around. Virgil saw me looking at the sack. About that time I asked Virgil what was in the sack. He laughed and said, "Tony, that's them other turtles. I put them in that sack and hung them up there so they couldn’t get away. For dinner that day we had fried turtle and cooked new taters that came out of Virgil's garden along with fried corn bread, green onions and black coffee.
We walked on to the house. Me and my little brother Ernie watched as Dad skinned the groundhog. He laid it down on its back and he cut a circle around each leg up at the foot. Then he cut his belly open all the way from its mouth to its tail. Then he cut it from the circle around its legs down to the split in its belly. He skinned it out of its hide. Dad always cut the fat off of groundhogs and rendered it in to oil. Then he would put the oil into a jar and keep it for cuts, burns and fever blisters. Dad took the hide, salted it down and tacked it up on the side of the smokehouse. He sometimes would make shoe strings out of a groundhog hide.
After he did all of that, he gave Mom the meat and told her to cook it for supper. Mom put it in a big kettle and cooked it until it started to boil. She let it boil for 15 minutes. Then she took the meat out and washed it off with cold water. She also washed the kettle to get the wild taste out. She put the meat back in and this time she cooked it until it got tender. Then she would roll the meat in flour. She put it in a big black cast iron skillet and fried it real slow with some onions in with it. After we got done eating there never was any groundhog left.
