“Pig Preparation and Giving Thanks”

By Caciques Noah Boskey and Aubrey Faggen 

At The Island School we raise pigs on the farm that we use for food throughout the semester.  The community takes care of them by feeding them food scraps and making sure they are well.  Each year, the day before Thanksgiving we slaughter one pig that we use for our main course on Thanksgiving. This morning the community had an option to sleep in or watch the pig slaughter.  Many students were debating weather or not to go but as we circled up many chose to watch it. We had a quick circle with a briefing and then we all made our way to the pig pen in the farm. Joseph and Spencer took us in like we were professionals and had us help them prepare the pig.  We took rocks to clean the body and poured boiling water on the pig to loosen the hair so we could skin the pig.  At this point of the semester it was great seeing everyone taking a risk as we scrubbed and cleaned off what we are going to be eating the following day.  Everyone who came to the slaughter ended up helping in one way or another which showed how much we have grown over the semester.  I can speak for myself (Noah) when I say that if on the first day of the semester I were asked to help slaughter a pig I would rather have just watched or not even gone.

Throughout the day we had our second to last Marine Ecology, our last harkness discussion in Literature, and our final touches on our Human Ecology projects.  Everyone keeps saying to live in the now, not the past or the future, and today that showed because as the semester slowly cools down we all our focusing on working hard in academics and taking in the island for as much time as we have here.  Everyday we get to challenge ourselves and at this point of the semester we get to see how much each one of us has grown on this three month long journey.