Butchering and sausage

 

 

 

 

This past weekend we butchered the largest pig and I did something I have never done in 57 years. I cleaned hog intestines for sausage casings. My neighbor, who has cleaned hog intestines before told me how to do it.  My husband squeezed the small intestines out and handed me a pan full of casings. first I turned them inside out and scraped the membrane off of the intestines. It took a little while to get the hang of it but as I went I got better, and NO it did not smell bad. The bottom picture is sausage we made. The next day we smoked the sausage and it was very tasty. We probably got 20-30 pounds of link sausage and a lot more bulk. We seasoned it with sage, salt and pepper.

Open Pollinated Corn

This past week was spent gathering in more of the seasons bounty. All of the open pollinated corn was stripped from the stalks and hung to dry. The pigs were put in the field where the corn was grown to root in the remaining corn stalks. In Gene Logsdons' book "Small-Scale Grain Raising", the practice of hauling bundles of corn shocks to the barn to be husked at the farmers leisure during the long winter evenings, became a pleasant custom known as "husking bees". The husking was merely a by-product of a social evening. The husker who found a red ear in the bundle was allowed a kiss from a boyfriend or girlfriend. And in those days, corn did not have the dull sameness of today's hybrids so there were quite a few ears that would turn up red.

In the "old days" there were more chances for people of different ages to mingle and understand each other. The work of food getting was turned into fun; neither love nor labor was lost. We could do far worse today.

New Texel Ram lamb

This our 5 year old texel ram Grover loaded and ready for his new home in Knox County, Ohio. It's sad to see him go but he will have a nice flock of texel ewes to greet him when he arrives at his new home.

Eric and Kate Helt have a small organic sustainable farm where Grover will be hard at work continuing the texel breed known for their double muscle and conversion of grass to meat characteristics.

Here are the two ram lambs we brought home. One for ourselves and one for a friend. We chose the texel to cross with our Shetland mule ewes, because they produce lambs that finish on grass and grow fast. Oh, not to mention the meat is so tasty.

Stocking Up

During the months of August and September harvesting of vegetables and fruits begin. Today I will be finishing the peaches just in time to start harvesting the apples. My husband has already used the apple cider press 2 times for a total of about 12 gallons. Some of this goes in the freezer for later and some we drink. This year we will try apple cider vinegar with a batch of cider. We have Amish friends who are willing to share their cider mother with us to get the vinegar going. Kind of like brewing beer or Kombucha. We dug 4 rows of Yukon Gold potatoes last week and had nice large spuds for storage. If you haven't grown Yukon Golds you are missing a wonderful creamy, buttery flavor. The Vermont Cranberry beans were pulled and are drying on racks. When they are dry we will split the bean pods and store the dried beans for soups. We still have sweet corn growing and the ears should be ready at the end of the week for freezing. I am starting to pick some winter squash off the vines to harden for storage. Next time I will be posting pictures of late veggies that are started and growing in the garden and harvested vegetables ready for storage. Happy harvesting!

Garden Bounty

This time of summer finds me in the kitchen canning or freezing organic produce from the garden. Every other day something is going on the shelves or in the freezer. This has been one of the best years for sweet corn. As you can see by the picture the ears are filled out to the tip and no cut worms. This is the second year we have applied a boron pack to our garden and fields. The added boron(a trace mineral) helps the corn fill out completely. We buy this amendment from Green Field Farms in Wayne County. They sell organic fertilizers and organic soil minerals for all your needs. Sweet corn is one of my favorite summer foods and I have to admit I have eaten my share.

Japanese Indigo Dyeing

This past weekend I managed to get some time between canning and freezing to pick a gallon size jar of Japanese Indigo leaves, which were ready for dyeing. I prepared the dye bath as Rita Buchanan does in her book "Weavers Garden" and proceeded to dye 5 skeins of bamboo fingering yarn. I first scoured the yarn in washing soda and detergent in boiling water for and hour to make sure it was clean. I rinsed the yarn and kept it wet until time to dye.

This is the prepared dye bath after reduction. The liquid should be a yellow-tan color. I added the skeins and let them soak for 10 minutes. I didn't want a real dark color but there was not enough color in the dye to produce a dark color. The skeins came out with a tye-dye effect. I think the skeins didn't open up enough in the dye bath to get inside the middle of the yarn. This is OK by me but next time I will remember to leave in longer and make sure the skeins open up. When I pulled the yarn out of the dye bath it began to turn blue. I took the skeins outside and shook them in the air and hung them on the line for awhile.

After air drying I brought the skeins in and washed them and hung them to dry. They have a faded denim look which I really like. I dyed all 5 skeins which are 2 ozs, each, a total of 10 ozs. I think I got a lot of dye stuff from 1 gallon of leaves. I'm going to weave a shawl with this yarn. This is my first cellulose project(cotton, flax, bamboo) and I'm happy with the results.

The man cub is growing up

On July 26 my youngest son Graham(on the left) turned 17. He had his best friend Caleb spend the night and need I say the X-Box did not cool off. They did manage to get some swimming in, it wasn't raining and some outside fun. One thing he did request was homemade ice cream made with goats milk cream and free range eggs. Gourmet all the way, and Reuben sandwiches. We have a wee bit of German in our heritage. Graham is an excellent young man and just 1 more year of home schooling will finish him or me! Since he is the last child at home his dad and I think we will pay him if he will stay and help us old folks out. I don't think we have enough money. Oh well, another mile stone in the life the Lohreys.

Sorry no picture of the actual ice cream it was consumed like most of the food in our house.