lost hog

The first winter on the farm daddy bought a hog from the cripple man , the fellow had butchered it and loaded it on a cart bringing it to town to sell.
Dad brought the hog bringing it home to put in a smoke house on the hill close to the old house. dogs dug under the smoke house and carried the meat away the first night. I don't think we got a bite  of the hog.
I remember eating persimmons that fall when we moved on the place. dad said these kids can live on persimmons and we wont have to feed them.
dad bought milk cows and me and Richard went to work learning to milk cows. A first we ran the cows in for daddy and he milked but Richard and me were learning to milk in the lot by grabbing a teat and milking into our mouths as we ran the cows in.
I remember we had one named Pet, she was white and  we had  her before the war, dad bought her back. one big 
 cow we named Mable and another was brownie. The rest of the names are gone from my memory. I think Mable was part Holstein  because she was spotted and  the black spots had a red ', yellow ting to them. we also had a gurnsey  cow she always chased me and Richard up a tree when she calved. we called her Dude
One job that absolutely put terror in my heart was going into the cave way in the back and holding the lantern while Richard climbed up the ladder and hooked the pipe back together. The goats would climb up and knock it apart. I knew that there were copper head snakes in the cave and I was afraid of getting bite by one.