Making Pork Sausage

This has to be my favorite part of the pig. Even more than bacon and ham, I love pork sausage. I had the butcher give me the scraps so I could make my own instead of having them make it for me. Who knows what they would put in it. It couldn't possibly be as good as MY sausage.

Start out with a good amount of pork scraps. For the record, I had 35 pounds of scraps from two pigs. The sausage recipe I use comes from my trusty butchering book: Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game. I had to modify it a bit because the recipe called for 50 lbs of meat.










Get the ingredients together: salt, pepper, sage, red pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Grind up all the pork and put it into a big pan.











Add 1/2 cup of salt















1/2 cup of pepper













1/3 cup of sage














1 Tablespoon each of red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper








Mix thoroughly with your hands. Dis. Gust. Ing. Sing songs from the Philidelphia Chickens CD while you mix. Or say tongue twisters like: She sells seashells down by the seashore. It will distract you from the reality of the grossness.




Package the sausage in whatever size packages makes you happy. I like to make them small so if I want to use sausage in scambled eggs then I get one package. For sausage patties, grab 2 or 3 packages. Plus it gives me the illusion that I have a lot and it will last a long time. I am easy to fool.



Get some sucker to do the boring job of writing p. saus. 07 on the packages with a sharpie marker. Kids are good for this.






Of course then you have to put up with their silly shenanigans.









Sixty-one packages of sausage. See? Now that is going to last a long, long time.

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Tuesday Ten: Drudgery

My week was not nearly as exciting as Cathy's , but I am going to go ahead and list my ten things I did this week anyway.

Ten Things I Did This Week:

1. Laundry.

Doesn't matter if it is clean or dirty, there is always laundry going on around here. Even if I do 2 loads a day there is still more to do. At least I don't have to fold it. That's the kids' job. By the way, I made sure that no one's undies were showing when I took the picture. Heaven forbid that I scar my 13 year old daughter for life by putting a picture of her underwear on the internet. But I must say--what is up with half inside out clothes? Or the sock ball? Or the 3 layers of shirts that I have to pull apart to wash?





2. Deciding the thickness of porkchops. I had to make some quick decisions on the phone yesterday about how we want our pigs cut up. How thick do I want the pork chops? Medium, I guess. Do I want pork roast or pork steaks, or both? Both, I guess. How do I want the sausage seasoned? Don't touch the sausage, I will make it myself. Bacon? Ham? Yes. Yes. But we will be taking it somewhere else to get the no nitrite cure. Organs? A resounding NO. Butchering pigs is so exhausting.


3. Taking pictures. I have had my new camera for a week now and I have taken gobs of pictures. I even took it to the gymnastics meet on Saturday. I took it out with me to do chores and took pictures of frosty leaves. Some pictures came out nice, some not so much. I'm not saying which is which just in case I am wrong.












4. Correcting schoolwork. If they would just set it on the correcter pile and leave it be then things would be great. But noooo, we have to follow mom around and say "here's my English" "here's my math" "can I just read this to you?" "can I correct this myself?". It's as if I have never said, "There's the correcter pile, put it there and I will get to it in a minute." And no, you may not correct it yourself, because then you will know what the answers are. I wasn't born yesterday.


5. Driving to gymnastics. Four days a week, drive there and drop off, go back and pick up.
Sometimes on Saturdays drive to a different town for a competition. I don't mind, in fact I enjoy it, but sometimes I feel guilty about doing all of that for one kid.
Saturday she placed 3rd on beam and bars, 4th on floor and vault, and 3rd all around. Fantastic.




6. Dreaming of visiting the coast. Well, visiting my mom at the coast with my sisters. Although I really don't care who it is I am visiting at this point (sorry, Mom) just so I get to go without anyone under the age of 20. Or men. And so long as I don't have to make dinner, make my bed, change my socks, or change anyone elses socks.

7. Buying camera stuff on eBay. One nice thing about my new camera is that all of the old Minolta Maxxum auto focus lenses will fit on it. This means that if I want a different (better) lens than the 18-70mm kit lens that came with it, I can get a used one in perfect condition for 1/10th the price of a new Sony lens. Maybe I got a little more than I needed, but I still spent way less for 6 lenses and 2 bags than I would have for one brand new lens. I need two bags, by the way, one large one for all the equipment, and one smaller and lighter to carry around. If I should choose at a later date I can resell the lenses and make my money back anyway. Current inventory: 28mm f2.8, 50mm f1.7, 18-70mm, 35-70mm with macro, 28-105mm, 80-200mm, and a 100-300mm. All useful in their own way.

8. Cleaning out the refridgerator. No, not really. But I should. It is on the list of things to do.

9. Playing with pictures in Photoshop. What fun. If a picture is to dark, just lighten it up. An unsightly pimple? Remove it. Cool. A picture can go from this:
A little to much shadow and what is that on his face? Jam? Be gone!



What an ugly white background. Zip Zip Zip!



Ta-Dah!!



Maybe a bit too much, but you can see what fun it is to play with pictures.


10. Deciding what to cook for dinner. I often think that I should have this dinner making thing down after so many years of marriage and family. I don't. Maybe it is because I dislike cooking, maybe it is the tight budget, maybe it is because I dislike cooking. I have no shortage of cookbooks, I just have a huge shortage of desire to use them. Tonight for dinner is macaroni and cheese. Good thing that will thrill the masses. Last night was chicken noodle soup and fresh bread, tomorrow is anyone's guess. As long as it doesn't require a cookbook and only uses 3 ingredients (that I have), I will make it.

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See what Cathy has been up to.

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Pig Day

Last week I finally decided that the pigs had to go. After the Summer 2005 pig butchering adventure we decided to leave it to the experts, so I called up the butcher and set up a time for them to come: Saturday at noon. How nice, I thought, right about the time I am leaving for a gymnastics meet. Works for me.

They showed up early. I did not expect that. I thought we (middle daughter, who hates the thought of killing the pigs, and I) would be long gone by the time the butcher guy showed up. But he was almost and hour early, so I got to witness at least half of the job.

Yes, half. I had to leave about 20 minutes after they got there and they were over half way done when I left. Do you know how long it took my husband and I to butcher ONE pig? FIVE HOURS. These two men did FOUR pigs in less than ONE hour.

First he shot them all and bled them out.

Then they dragged them over to the back of the truck.

Next they removed all four feet and tucked them under the body to use as stablizers.

Then they washed them off good and started skinning.

They hung them up and finished skinning, then moved them into the truck.

That looks gross. Right now I am chantng "Bacon and ham, bacon and ham." "Pork chops, pork roast, SAUSAGE!!!" Now I feel better. Sorry if the pictures made anyone gag, but you know, sometimes a person has to stay true to their blog title and post something about their little farm.

What a pretty picture.

I mentioned before that I have been sorting through and organizing my photos on the computer. I came across this wonderful picture when going through the baby file. I had forgotten all about it or I am sure I would have deleted it long ago. I probably blocked it out of my memory.

What I want to know is what goes through your mind when you see this photo?

Well, besides the obvious--new baby, loving parents, and so on.

I will tell you what goes through mine.

Why, oh why, did my sister (whom I love dearly but who also gets to take the blame for this piece of gross negligence) choose to send this, of all pictures, to our dad so he could see a picture of his 13th grandchild? I think I would have said "hmm, I don't seem to have any photos of the new baby. Let me see if I can get one the next time I see him." Anything would be better than this.

Of course my dad decided that the little guy didn't take after his side of the family at all.

Rest assured, my baby did not look like that. The problem is that there was a flash bulb going off in his face at close range when he had only been in this world for a few minutes. I am sure anyone else would look even worse at that point.

Here is a better picture:



Funny thing, after seeing this picture, grandpa decided that he was a spittin' image. Imagine that.

By the way, Cathy is a wonderful photographer. I am sure she will be even better when her loving husband gets a clue and buys her a digital SLR camera. That should get rid of those pesky flash problems.




Yes, I'd say his looks have definitely improved.

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My New Camera: A Story in Pictures

...uh, pictures mostly taken by my Hitachi DVD Cam that also happens to have snapshot capabilities (such as they are).

To start off though, I need to explain that although I mentioned that I had ordered my camera online and was impatiently waiting for it to arrive, I ended up doing something else. I decided that instead of purchasing 2 extra lenses (that don't get all that great of reviews) and bunch of cheap extras that I didn't really have any choice about, I would buy the camera with the kit lens (18-70mm) at the local camera shop and then scope out some good deals on used lenses of the type that I want the most.














And he thinks I won't let him use the camera.

Well, I'm not if he's just going to fool around.

Hurry up!

It just sat there all morning. I was afraid to take that first picture. I don't know why.

First picture, just stuck it on auto and clicked away. Taken in my very light bathroom.

I took these on auto setting and I think the camera was picking up the bright light from the window right behind the kids so the picture itself turned out very yellow. This is with overhead light only, no flash!

Same picture, after I fooled with it in Photoshop.

With these three I changed the setting to ISO400 and set the white balance for indoor light. Still no flash and not lightened in Photoshop at all. I don't like the shadows on the second one and the white walls are icky. In the third picture she was being stubborn and wouldn't smile pretty so I snapped as soon as she opened her mouth. Serves her right.

Now it is time to go outside.