This is a new one!

[Thumper]

I belong to a few motorhome/camping sites on FB. One of the members was cruising through Missouri when they ran across a bacon vending machine! (See first two pics). He didn’t mention if it was cooked or raw, but it appears to be packs of raw bacon. Might be a big hit at a campground!

I did a quick net search and found others in Ohio. This particular machine (pic 3) sells pre-cooked, ready-to-eat bacon.






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[BarryBobPosthole]

I’ll bet it smells good!

[johnboy]

Looks like decent bacon. I'd eat that. Price is reasonable too. Bacon prices up here are ridiculous (like every thing else).

[Bwana]

Yum!

[Bwana]

On a related note, have any of you gents ever made your own bacon?

I tried it this spring and have to say it turned out DARN good!

I bought a case of pork bellies (3 bellies = 45 lbs worth), made one into burnt ends, and the other two into some really darned good bacon if I do say myownself.

[BarryBobPosthole]

I haven’t had it since I moved away from home, but when I lived at home we’d butcher a hog or two in the fall and our butcher used a sugar cure and smoke on our bacon slabs and man oh man they were tasty. I don’t miss feeding and watering those effers before and after school every day.
BKB

[Hombre]

Bwana, I did some bacon when the Covid shutdown was a thing. I got the recipe from Trav, and it was great!

[Trav]

I do it all the time, this was the last timeIMG_1298.jpg

[BarryBobPosthole]

Trav, do you use prepackaged cure or do you use a recipe?
BKB

[Trav]

I use a recipe and some times I tweak it a bit. Last time I did a batch with Jalapeño salt that was really good. I have a few packs left if you want some.

[Thumper]

I haven’t had it since I moved away from home, but when I lived at home we’d butcher a hog or two in the fall and our butcher used a sugar cure and smoke on our bacon slabs and man oh man they were tasty. I don’t miss feeding and watering those effers before and after school every day.
BKB

I spent every summer with my grandparents in the mountains of Western N. Carolina. They'd be parked in our driveway (in Orlando) waiting for me to get home on my last day of school, then bring me back just in time to start my next year (in second grade, I didn't want to go home, so I stayed and went to school up there). My morning routine was to get up at the crack of dawn, get a fire built in the kitchen wood stove, slop the hog (just had one), let the chickens out of the henhouse and throw some scratch out for them, then collect the eggs for breakfast. By time I got in, my grandmother would have the biscuits in the oven, the bacon frying and was ready to start the eggs I'd just collected. I remember she'd always throw the empty egg shells into the oven after she'd turned it off and removed the biscuits. She'd crunch up the dried out egg shells and add them to the chicken feed ... said it added calcium to their diet for strong egg shells. I don't know if that was fact, or just one of her things (?). I suppose I could Google it, just haven't thought of it until now. My grandfather wasn't home much as he was a "traveling salesman" (literally, for the furniture industry) and it was usually just my grandmother and me (we were extremely close).

After breakfast, I'd cut firewood/kindling (if needed), then pick a few tomatoes and/or cucumbers out of the garden to put in the kitchen for a lunch salad, maybe a few ears of corn for whenever. Then I'd head out to explore the mountains, play and/or fish on the river (they lived right on the Tuckaseege River). I'd usually make my way up to Caney Fork Creek and explore, then cut through the tobacco fields back toward the river and see if any arrowheads had been plowed up. I'd make my way back home for lunch, then I might head out with a bucket to pick blackberries and or elderberries and my grandmother would always tell me to watch for copperheads or bears. Upon my return, I'd help her make jelly ... dang, I think I could go through a whole loaf of hot, homemade bread if you placed a pound of butter and a jar of that jelly in front of me!

Many days, I'd grab an old innertube from the barn and tell my grandmother I was "headed down the river", then float a few miles down to the dam. There was a little country store there with one gas pump island, two pumps (methyl and ethyl). I'd drag my innertube up there and the owner would give me a peppermint stick from the big penny jar on the counter, then call my grandmother to come pick me up in her big ol' Chrysler Town & Country station wagon. I once found an old, handmade, wooden boat sunken into the mud on the river, It was a tiny, little "one-man" sized thing that I dug up and let sit on the riverbank to dry out (it was waterlogged). I patched a few leaks with some old "tar" looking stuff that I found in my grandfathers tool shed and it worked pretty well. I made a paddle out of a piece of old 1X6 and a broken shovel handle, nailed them together and was ready for my maiden voyage. The paddle broke about 5-mins into the adventure, but I could still use the handle as a pole. I somehow made it through the rapids alive and in one piece, but when I got to the dam, I realized that ol' boat was way too heavy for me to drag up to the store. One of the old dudes, who'd been sitting at the pot bellied stove and community spittoon, b/s'ing with a group of old farmers, came down to help me drag that thing up to the store, then helped load it in the back of the old Chrysler when my grandmother showed up. After that, I decided the innertube was much more practical. I remember that river could be slow and lazy when the dam was closed, but I usually preferred to wait for the big ol' (steam?) whistle to sound off downstream announcing the opening of the dam. That's when things got exciting, the hidden rocks became exposed and the slow, lazy river soon turned into many stretches of raging rapids!

We had a spring on the mountain above the house and I'd many times hike up to the source to explore or build a fort to fight off renegade Indians. The spring fed into a concrete reservoir and was piped from there to the house (it's only water source). Man-o-man, it was ice cold right out of the faucet. I'd many times take my bicycle and peddle the 2.5 miles up Caney Fork Road to Judaculla Rock, It was uphill all the way and gave me a heck of a workout, but coming back was a treat as it was at LEAST a bazillion MPH coast all the way back down to the highway, all without knee/elbow pads or helmet! (yes, that's sarcasm) The rock was just an unmarked place to play and explore when I was a kid. the locals knew about it, but there was no real fanfare. I went up to visit a few years back and the rock is now a protected site, fenced off and signage explaining the carvings and petroglyphs. They've dated it at 200-1400 AD.

Wow! I guess this is turning (or HAS turned) into a Thump post, but Posty's hog slopping post brought back fond memories. I could go on and on, but I'll spare youse dufes. Odd thing is, I was ALWAYS on the go ... and NOT fat! We had a tv (b&w) and I remember there was zero reception until my grandfather ran some wire up the side of the mountain and placed an antennae in the top of an old tree. I have no idea if it received more than one channel (doubtful), but I honestly don't ever remember watching it .... don't think I ever had time! In fact, I don't think I ever completed a summer when I had time to finish all my planned projects and excursions. The crazy thing is, nobody ever knew exactly where I was or what I was doing. I guess folks wouldn't worry about it unless I didn't show up for supper! A different era, a different time ... and I miss those days. I can't explain how happy I am that I didn't grow up in an age I never went outside due to the fact my eyes were glued to a frigging video game of some sort.

[johnboy]

Makes me nostalgic for 'the good old days' when a kid could be a kid. I remember riding through our little town on my bike with a rifle or shotgun strapped over my shoulder (rats or rabbits) without a care in the world. Nobody thought anything of it. Some poor kid tries that today and they'd be swat'd. Totally different world back then.

Been having a hard time finding anything new and interesting to read so have been going back to the old stuff. Working my way through the many adventures of Travis McGee right now and it gives me a touch of melancholy to realize how much we have lost.

[BarryBobPosthole]

I was just telling my oldest grandson, just turned 12, that 12 years old was my most favorite age. we lived on a small farm and I had access to woods and water. The world was me and my buddies’ oyster. We dammed up creeks, chopped down trees with hatchets, killed all manner of critters (mostly to just look at them) with bb guns and 22s, fished our guts out, camped out and skinny dipped in the ponds and the river, and learned a lot about how stuff worked. Wealso learned the best time to fish the neighbor’s ponds was on Sunday mornings when they were in church. Unfortunately, most times so were we. Bit it was something I remembered and put to use later in life!
BKB

[Thumper]

TBH, I don't think my parents ... well, mom anyway, dad was at work .... ever knew where I was during the day. Unless school was in session, it's not like the days were planned out. I'd just wing it and my buddies and I would just do whatever we decided would be fun that day. Heck, many times it didn't even matter on a summer night ... all they knew was we were going camping and/or fishing. I suppose if we didn't return sometime the next day, they "might" drive around looking for us after checking with a few other parents to see if they knew where we were. Heck, it's not like they could call us on our cell phones.

[Chicken Dinner]

I think it was the summer I’d just turned 13 where the only time I put shoes all summer long was to go to church and we weren’t regulars. Good times.

I’m reading a good one right now called The Whiskey Rebels. If you’re into historical fiction, you might like it.


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[Thumper]

C.D. that reminds me, I NEVER wore shoes during the summer. My normal attire was just a pair of shorts and VERY seldom wore a shirt. Heck, we were surrounded by lakes and spent half our time in the water, even if it was just to cool off. Shirts and shoes were just a hassle we didn’t want to deal with.

I think it was the first day of school in the 3rd grade that I got half way (we actually WALKED to school back then) to school and my buddy happened to look down, then asked me where my shoes were! Ha! I’d forgotten to put them on! I had to run all the way back home, put on my shoes, then run all the way to school so I wouldn’t be late. True story ….

[BarryBobPosthole]

My uncle taught school in a little town high school in SW Arkansas. There were two brothers there that I went to first and second grade with that were in my uncle’s VoAg class. My incle and his fellow Ag teacher knewthey should start thinking about feeding their cows when Edison and Everett startedwearing shoes to school.

BKB

[Thumper]

We had a kid in our BCT (Basic Combat Training) class that said the pair of boots the Army issued him was only the second pair of shoes he’d ever owned in his life. His first pair is what he wore to the induction station! All I remember was he was from one of the coal mining areas of Appalachia.

I recall when we had spaghetti in the mess hall, he had no idea what it was, but totally fell in love with it. If ANYONE had any leftover spaghetti, we’d scrape it off onto his tray on our way out. I don’t think he ever reached his limit and would keep eating spaghetti until we had to fall out for training.


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[jb]

63, Marine Boot, I had fire watch the second night we were there and kept hearing the toilet flush in the bath area down the hall.
Had a kid from Arkansas, last name of Ivey, about midnight, walked down the hall and there was Ivey standing next to the toilet, asked him what he was doing, said it was the first time he lived were there was a toilet inside, was trying to figure out how they worked.
Always think of Buckrub when I tell that story.

[DeputyDog]

I used to work with a guy whose Grandmother lived way back in the hills of Kentucky. He told a story that until the day she died, she refused to get an indoor bathroom at her place. The reason was, "I don't want somebody taking a shit inside my house!"

[Hombre]

DD - Hard to argue with the logic of that statement.