Weekend Update

Oh, as usual we've been busy.  This past weekend seemed to pass quickly and yesterday when someone asked what we had done over the weekend I was honestly stumped.  Well it was a Monday morning and I wasn't quite awake yet, but it took me awhile to come up with things that we did.

I guess part of the problem was the fact that I had taken Sunday off to go fishing, so really Saturday was my only day of laboring on the farm.  It was nice taking a day off though, and I did hook a couple fish but only got one to the bank and lost the other.  It was a wild, so I rubbed it's belly for good luck and thanked her for the photo op before releasing her back into the river.  I'm sure she didn't appreciate the sore lip but was probably thankful to still be alive--or so I'd assume not really knowing what fish think.  It was a nice rainy day hanging with a friend by a smoky fire, fishing and drinking some hard cider, and sharing bullshit stories.

Wild Steelhead on the Notellem River

That wasn't the highlight of my weekend though, nope, it started off with a Friday evening with Theresa and I dropping the kids off at the Hult Center so they could enjoy a Broadway production, The Book of Mormon.  They met up with the grand parents and sat in the orchestra section, so while they enjoyed their good seats Theresa and I took off to appreciate our time alone together soaking in a hot tub!  Oh, there's nothing quite like soaking in a hot tub on a winter night with a slight mist in the air.  It made me realize we don't get nearly enough time alone together.  Afterwards we partook in some of the best chocolate around, Euphoria chocolate, warmed up and poured over some Prince Pucklers ice cream--infamous Euphoria sundae at Prince Pucklers.  If I had my A game on we'd have kept on partying the night away busting a move at one of the clubs, but we opted for a more restful evening watching a movie.

Saturday was more of our typical weekend day, getting farm chores done.  The pigs, chickens, and cows went through all of the hay we had stored in the barn so we ran to town to pick up some cow hay, feed, and ran a few errands.  We also hung some nest boxes in the chicken coop and rounded up the two cows that found a way through the fence and into the neighbor's pasture.  That will give me something to do next weekend, finding that week spot they were able to squeeze through.  Thankfully there's a gate between pastures and I easily coaxed them back into our small pasture with a bucket of grain.  They'll need to hangout there until I can find the weak point in the big pasture.  It's an old fence with mostly 4-strand barbed wire which isn't great for keeping cows in.  Just another one of those projects on the list waiting for that money tree to start producing.

Cow Whispering

Ron and Patty Eating Some Cow Hay

After work on Friday I had picked up the last of the fresh cut pork from the last pig we had butchered.  Unfortunately the processor didn't take care of us as they should have, I had scheduled our hogs to be processed 2 months in advance and they finished two timely but then set the other two aside and didn't get to them until later the next week.  They didn't even finish them the same day so I made several trips.  Grrrr.  At least Elijah and Ryanna finally got some of their pork!  They drove all the way from the coast to our farm on Saturday to pick it up, but they got the farm tour so their trip wasn't a total waste, well worth it.  :)

Probably the biggest thing we got done on Saturday was grinding up all of our own pork cutting scraps to make a couple batches of sausage.  We mixed a batch of basic seasoning and then a batch of Italian and packaged them up with the vacuum sealer for breakfast sausage.  I would have made another video but I was still frustrated and upset from dealing with the butcher and didn't want to be on camera with my crabby face.  Although, I may have taken more care with trimming and grinding because I took and ground everything from the scrap bags rather than sorting and removing some of the fat as I probably should have.  I'm sure it's going to turn out good though, it smelled amazing.

Sausage - Plain Cure & Pepper/Cure & Italian

Vacuum Sealed Portions

Well, that was pretty much what we were up to over this past weekend.  Just keeping busy.  Hens will be laying eggs soon so stay tuned for fresh eggs and chicken pictures!

Tori & The Golden Girls