A new plan

I think I need to come up with a new plan to get my ducks in a row or at least in the same pond. OK here's the scoop. I have been doing a blog for a few years now. I enjoy it, not good at it, but like it none the less. It gets tricky trying to share your life and methods with others (the world) and not give out every detail of your life and your goings and comings to be used to some criminals advantage. I have had lots of long absences in my post over the past year and with good reason. It was a very busy year with seems like lots of traveling. Early in the year, April a road trip to Nevada for the birth of our lil man Liam and not really wanting to "advertise" that we were away from home, I feel like I short change my readers sometimes when I hesitate to post pics and sights from these type adventures but its to try to have some peace of mind about things back home. I know you all can understand that. Then later in the year several extended trips to west KY when my sweet aunt Ann was sick. Then starting in September with working at the hunting lodge for Snipe Creek Outfitters cooking for the hunters. Then the time away when my aunt passed away. Gone again in October for 3 weeks to house sit, gone most of November for another hunting season, back in December for yet another and home for a while. When I posted last date on here I had comments waiting moderation, comments go to my email box and I then post them to the blog. I had readers that had ask questions and dammit I cant find em now. I did locate one and posted my answer in the comments for my sweet reader. I feel bad when I don't get back to someone who has ask something because it is usually someone who is making a recipe and has a question. Makes ya kinda feel like ya sittin in a room an someone ask you a question an ya ignore em. Well I didn't, I promise. So if someone has posed a question on here in the past few months, please post it again and tell me which post of mine it pertains too and from now on one day per week I will do a post with nothing but answers to readers questions. Maybe I will call it "questions and answers day". Real creative don't ya think.  I think I can do that even if I am not at home. I am so grateful for all the sweet folks who read and comment both here and on facebook, Thank you so much for taking time to read about my life of organized chaos.

Now if I can just get over this stinkin flu, it will be time to be off and running again. I had been trying hard to think where the heck I caught such a nasty bug. And ya know when the old folks use to say, "don't get out in the cold, you will get sick". Well they are right and here is my take on why. I felt bad, just tired, sluggish, like I had a bug or something going on in my body for a week or more. Even when the kids were home. But I never got really sick, I kept going. Then on Tuesday when I got outside and got cold, really cold, I think it lowered my body temp and let the bug attack full force. That is when I knew I was in trouble. Within hours of getting cold I had the fever and chills, aches and all the things flu like. Folks I have not been this sick in many years. I actually do feel somewhat human today. So I guess maybe my immune system is stronger than I thought. I feel hopeful today that I just might survive this thing. So many folks have had the flu and the strain that is going around is keeping people sick for a month to 6 weeks. I have no complaints if I can function after less than a week of it. Our Rob had the flu about 2 or 3 weeks before they came home and he probably had it long before that till it really knocked him down. Down to the point where they did a spinal tap because he had symptoms of meningitis. Thank God that was negative but scary as hell for his momma 2000 miles away from him. Just glad he had a wife that made him get seen at the doctor and taken care of. 

As for how I have treated this bug here at home. And don't laugh. I have antibiotics. I got them at the farm store. Yeas its the same ones ya give animals. And its the same stuff you get at the drug store only not in the neat tidy lil capsules. I have tetracycline and 1/4 teaspoon is about 500 mg of medicine. I mix with a lil juice and down it. I have kicked the sinus infection with it, do don't knock it. I do have prednisone that I take as needed when I have an arthritis flare up so I have taken that for about 4 days now. We also keep Sambucol which is made from elderberries and it works great for the runny nose, burning eyes deal. All natural. Just wish I could beat the dang birds to the wild elderberries here on the farm in fall and save a chunk of change. And lots of chicken noodle soup. I also take extra zinc supplements too because it helps block viruses from multiplying. I had a lot of deep congestion in my lungs yesterday that was not breaking up so last night I made a cup of plantain tea sweetened with honey. My friend Rosie told me long leaf plantain is good for deep congestion and after the tea later in the night I did finally feel the junk breaking up and am not nearly as congested as I was yesterday. I have had a more productive cough today and that sure helps the breathing.  Lots of fluids and rest keeps the body hydrated and is critical in a speedy recovery. This may not work for everyone but it has worked for me thus far.

Do you remember my post from a good many months back on water Kefir? Way back on February 5th, 2013. That is some tough Kefir right there. Mine has been neglected and went unfed for long long periods of time. Until today. After taking antibiotics for this sinus infection I think my belly is gonna be in need of some kefir. My jar of kefir grains were sitting on the counter where they had been for well over a month unattended. My first thought was, I bet its dead! I picked the jar up and it still has lil bubbles rising out of the water. It's alive!!! I strained it and gave it some sugar and molasses and put the grains back in to get then rejuvenated and making kefir water again. I really need to keep these things going for my own well being and in case anyone else here has to take meds and make a mess of their gut flora like I have this past week. So yep, so far, its been a good day.

Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The first fruits.....

We went to pick raspberries and check on the garden this evening and got to harvest enough goodies for supper tomorrow night. Our potatoes are doing really well considering we planted later than normal and we haven't had enough rain. I found a cabbage head that was big enough that I cut it. They are not done growing yet. We picked about a gallon of strawberries and a a quart of raspberries too.

 Not bad size for taters, I think I can be happy with these. It will be another 2 months before we dig so they should be good size by then.

 One of our momma cats died an untimely death and we didn't know she had babies. Today when I went out to feed I heard a kitten crying and saw this one. I did manage to catch it as they were kinda wild having not been here at the house. I brought it in and tried to feed it and sat it on the table with a dish of milk(yeah I know, not good for kittens) and he had no interest. But he sure liked the smell of Rodgers dinner. He did share a piece of steak with the lil fellow. Cut in tiny bits the kitten can eat so I guess I will be feeding it till he get big enough to fend for himself. Later this evening when I went out to feed Luna's girls I heard another one. I cant catch it so we let this one go back with its sibling and left them a lil bowl of chopped up canned chicken for supper and maybe I can try tomorrow and see if I can pet the other one. I am thinking I got far too many lil critters all of a sudden. But I can let anything be hungry tho I know I will regret having too many cats.

I had my laptop on the table and the kitten walked across the keyboard till the puter started beeping and he decided that was not the place to be. At least the lil fellows have a full belly tonight. Trust me we do not allow animals on the dining table often. I have only had 1 cat stay in my house in 32 years and she never got on any thing. But this was just a lil baby. Oh my!! OK I have my weaknesses.

We have been having some really hot dry weather here. The yard looks pretty rough without rain and its too hot for the momma hens to being their lil chicks out of the building. So they scratch in the house and the lil ones are alas full so they eat good. I want to witness the puppies first encounter with the settin hens. That will be worth seeing. I am having to keep water bowls in various places for all the critters here and normally there is water for them in the drainage ditches and places so they don't have to go far for water. My herb bed is kinda scrubby looking too with the heat and lack of rain. I know ya probably thinking, "well water it". But we don't water here. If the plants are established they will do down deeper and find water and that in the end makes for heartier plants. This my dad taught me. I have seen it proven many times, so we wait for rain. I do water stuff that is in pots tho, such as the grapevine starts and a couple trailing tomatoes that I have planted.
That's about all the happenings here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

A slow hot summer beginning

Our summer has started out hotter than normal for this time of year. It has been miserable all weekend. The fellows have a long weekend with the holiday and a short work week. We have been doing some chores to keep caught up so we hopefully don't get too over whelmed later. Early last week we picked peas and got those trimmed and I canned 13 quarts of the next day. We do like sugar snap peas in winter as a sub for green beans as a green veggie. I will need to pick those again tomorrow and can more. The tater bugs are giving the taters a fit now so Rodger sprayed those today in hopes of slowing down the damage. Gosh we need lots of taters to use thru the winter. I do need to organize my cellar again so I can rotate the things that were canned last year are used up first. And from the looks of the garden so far we should have a good many beans and stuff to can again this year. I feel so blessed to know that most all our food is home grown and mostly organic. I also have been doing more research online on holistic medicine and herbal remedies. If I can tolerate the heat tomorrow I intend to gather some wild herbs to dry for later use in medicinal teas and maybe tinker with some tinctures and poultices. Maybe even some salve. I am now really convinced of the benefit of some foods and their healing properties. I have a skin fungus that has been a nuisance for nearly 2 years. Then I was reading where coconut oil is anti-viral and anti-fungal, so I thought heck what can it hurt. It seemed that ever time I took a shower the fungus would itch so bad and become so uncomfortable. I decided to coat the fungus area with some of the coconut oil and immediately it seemed to stop the itch. After 3 days of using the coconut oil on those places all of them have stopped itching totally. I was shocked but convinced. Especially since the kind of oil I used was the same oil that I use to cook with, not even whole and organic. On Saturday we had planned on taking a trip out of town to get chicken feed for the Cornish cross because they needed a higher protein feed that I can get locally. On that trip to the big city I made a stop at the health food store. I picked up some whole vinegar with the mother, a jar of organic pure unprocessed coconut oil, a bottle of oil of wild oregano and even got a bottle of colloidal silver. Most illnesses in the body are due to acidity, most holistic practitioners recommend 2 tablespoons of whole apple cider vinegar with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda mixed till it stops fizzing and add water till you can tolerate the taste and drink to alkalize the body. The coconut oil is good internally and externally, taken orally a teaspoon daily will rid the body of yeast over growth from taking modern meds, especially antibiotics. The oil of wild oregano is a very potent antibacterial and antiviral agent topically or taken 1 drop twice a day internally. Colloidal silver is the most potent antibacterial and antiviral agent known to man and kills any germ on contact. Taken internally it can prevent and cure most all illnesses. All these things are a good idea to keep on hand if like me your immune system is compromised by something like arthritis. The meds I take for arthritis suppresses my immune system so if I take the colloidal silver or oil of oregano I may be able to maintain better health so things don't sneak up on me like the last ear infection and sinus infection that got me a couple weeks ago. Rodger has a problem with sinus allergies and has taken over the counter allergy meds for over 2 years now. He now uses elderberry extract. He has been purchasing that but we are gonna harvest the many elderberries we have growing wild here on the farm. There are several wild herbs that we have tons of that I do intend to gather for later use.
Jason wanted to go back to Richmond today to get him a pair of work boots as he and his buddy didn't have time yesterday when they went out. He ask me to go with him and I did. I had forgotten to pick up coconut oil to cook with while Rodger and I were out yesterday. Rodger no longer eats pork products so I have in the past been using regular cooking oil when I had to fry stuff, which is not too often, for him. I decided that stuff is really toxic to the human body and told him we ARE NOT using that stuff any more. So I stocked up on the coconut oil and a jug of good olive oil for cooking. We also use butter and I use lard for things Jason and I will eat. All good healthy stuff. Any who, thas my rant for today.
With our hot weather I have to keep a close eye on my lil chickens. They can get too hot really quick and die from the heat. They are liking their higher protein feed too. So in about 4 more weeks we will have good meat in the freezer. I have 4 hens setting again. I did put eggs under all of them and now we wait and see how many babies we get this time. The last bunch the hens raised are half grown and pretty lil fellows. Luna still has 2 puppies and I did get a glimpse of them the other day. They are so cute and look like her. She should being them out soon so we can see them. I have no clue how many kittens my cats have. I do know 1 cat has 3 and not sure about the other momma. Jason's momma cat has some babies and he hasn't even counted them to see how many she has. I have a real soft spot for lil baby critters these days. Sometimes that is not a good thing too. A person could end up with far too many cats and they are a pain to give away unless they are really friendly and these are not at all tame.
Maybe in the near future I will get out the camera and give ya a glimpse of life here on the farm. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.


Stella

It sure looks like summer here

And its only the end of March. All the fruit trees here have bloomed out and now starting to lose their bloom. We have had frost advisories the past couple nights but we didn't get any here at the house. I have peas, carrots, onions, and lettuce coming up in the garden. Our forsythia and Spirea bushes have bloomed out and look so pretty. AND the dandelions in the yard popped up after  Rodger mowed Sunday night. The weather has been nice the past couple days tho, not too hot, just right like baby bears porridge.

This spirea bush is one my aunt gave me last spring and this is the first year it has bloomed here. It is also called Bridal vail.

 

The forsythia is planted in a row at the end of the driveway and I hope in a few years it will block the view from the road to the house.

 

 

 My zinnias that my friend Deb sent me seed for are coming up in the pots. Oh my, I sure think I put far too many seeds in there. Not sure where the heck I will plant those.

 

I have one whole flat of cabbage started and they are up already too. It takes the tomatoes a lil longer to sprout and get going.

 

 

Now tell me this ain't redneck? I think everyone needs a big azz bath tub in the middle of their herb garden. Well this is the one we took out of our master bath room. Soon as I get time it will get buried in the herb bed about where it is sitting and I intend to make a water feature with it. I think it is deep enough to maybe have a few gold fish in as well. It wont be so unsightly after it gets buried in the ground and trimmed out with rocks. But for now, I am just content to be redneck. As you can see in the picture above, some of my chamomile has jumped the fence and is growing on the edge of the driveway now.

We got our hams trimmed and sliced an put in the freezer last evening. I had a good deal of fat and skin that was trimmed off. Rodger and I rendered it down this evening to make lard. I think the lard is good enough to use for soap making. I will wash it again tomorrow to get all the bits of meat out tho. When we get our beef I have ask the butchers to save all the fat for me to render for tallow for soap also. Should have a good bit of soap making material that is mostly free. And nothing beats free, right?

Not much else happening here. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Finally time to relax

I think I may have got caught up on my sleep and rested a bit. Pheww its been a long week tho. Our weather turned cold, well cooler, in the 40's during the day and 20's at night. I think my thermometer lies tho as it was saying 55 today. It was warm enough that I got some things done outside. I keep rain barrels set under the downspouts of the brooder house in summer to catch rain water for the chickens. I had 2 full barrels that I had to dip the water out of, drain and store. I had to use a small bucket because my elbow is still a good bit sore. but mission accomplished. Then I thought it might be a good time to clean up the summer kitchen and mop the floor out there. I cleaned the counters and stove real good and took up the rubber mats and mopped the floor. It does look and smell better in there. As you know I let the guys hang deer in there to cool during the season with the AC on. Well the last deer drained a bit and must have leaked thru the tarp they put on the floor. The blood and water had seeped under the rubber mats in there and left a rank odor. So when I took the mats up some of them were stuck to the floor and pulled up some of the paint off the concrete. But now its all clean and disinfected. It will stay that way till I come up with something else to can and make a mess.
This weekend I hope I can enlist Rodgers help with getting the freezers organized a lil better. I cant get to the chicken, it is under 2 frozen turkeys and 2 butt end hams and some various packs of pork. The deer meat is under more layers of packs of pork. And the big freezer is a whole different animal. By the way I did go in the cellar to have a look see at the jars of lard from the weekend. When we made the lard and it was strained but still very very hot we ladled it into clean but used half gallon pickle jars. Put the lids on and when the lard cooled the jars sealed up nicely. It will keep stored in this manner for more than a year or until I use it up.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The last butchering is done

As I posted a few days ago this weekend was the end of the hogs. We got them both butchered on Saturday. The hams, shoulders, and middlings were all trimmed and had the cure on them before days end. We actually worked them up individually not killing them both and then doing all the trim work. So by dark-thirty we had the lard cut, tenderloin sliced, ribs cut, sausage meat ready to grind then loaded up an came back here to the summer kitchen. That is where we ground the sausage and got it packaged for the freezer. After we got all the stuff put in the freezer that needed to be except grinding the sausage we did get a lil break and had time to eat a sammich. It was not a long break and then we got after the sausage. Jason, Josh, Daniel and I finally got in the house for the night around midnight. That was a long day and we were worn out.
Just a few shots of the butchering process so look away if you have a weak stomach.

 

Saturday was a nice day to butcher, not hot but not freezing cold either. This is the first hog after we got him cleaned. They were a lot bigger than I thought they would be. The crane on the work truck was sure handy this weekend. 

 

I got the camera as the guys get started gutting the animal. But sometimes only one person can work at a time.

 

Of course when we were cutting the hogs head up to make souse meat the fellers thought it was a good time to play. Kinda gory looking at best. Actually Daniel took some photos to send to his young daughter Gracie that would have loved to have been here to do this stuff her self.

 

This looks like one of the characters from the movie Ice Age. Some parts of the hog head don't get put in the souse.

Ah ain't Jeremiah cute with his lil hog hair mustache?   I think we were all tired enough to be silly.

We made lard today. I had my jars ready and after straining out the cracklings I had Jason just ladle the hot lard into clean half gallon jars and we put the lids on em. As they cool they will seal and this keeps the lard fresh for much longer.
All this activity took place at Jason's house and I could not resist giving his dog Dehlia the pigs tail when we got it cut off. She was in her pen and after we gave her the pig tail she started whining. And when Jason went to check on her she had the tail in her mouth. He opened her pen and let her out and she made a beeline to the woods to bury the pigs tail. She didn't have a good place inside her pen to bury her goodies so she was begging to get out. She is a sweet girl.
As of now the meat is all taken care of except the souse making process. That might take place tomorrow if I can move once I get out of bed. All this hard work has been really hard on my body. Maybe a good nights rest will help some. Not much else happening around here right now, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Moving slow again today

Golly moving slow is not my nature but if ya back is out thas what ya do. The back is some better today although not much. Must be a nerve in a pinch because it has affected my legs a good bit. They just don't work like they should so I don't try to maneuver uneven surfaces too much. But suppose it will grow back. I did get a call from the nursing home this morning and mom came back from the emergency room on antibiotics and pain meds till she sees the surgeon next week. So she is feeling some better.
I finally got the rest of my cornmeal bagged up and vacuum sealed and put in storage. Then mixed the salt cure for Rodger to take with him hog hunting next week. Now if I can get laundry done and folded the house cleaning will just have to wait till the back works again.
We went and checked on the pork that we are curing from the hog we butchered about 4 weeks ago and it seems to so far be doing OK. It got a good bit colder after we butchered than I would have liked, but we just don't control the weather. The bacon was dry enough that I felt comfortable going ahead and hanging it up. So we did. The hams need a lil more time to lay on the bench to cure a while as they are not as dry as they could be.

Cured meat needs to be dry before hanging as to not have the cure mixture fall off it. See the bacon is dry but the hams are not.

The hams are still curing so they are left till they are dry then they get hung up as well. These will be kept separate on this bench from the wild hog meat that Rodger brings home from his hunt. I just never like putting cured meat in direct contact with meat that is just starting to cure. The hams here are drying nicely and don't need moisture on them from fresh ones that are just starting to cure and produce a lot of moisture. It normally takes 3 to 6 weeks depending on the weather. It is best to do the curing when the temps are cold but stay above freezing both day and night. It seems to take less time to draw the moisture out. But they are progressing so I wont complain. OK off to do laundry and get Rodger packed up. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Finishing up odd tasks

Yesterday and today were spent just tying up the loose ends after the butchering. I got the lard re-melted and put into hot clean canning jars and it is all sealed up and ready for storage. Easy to do, just get lard melted and really hot and pout into hot jars and put on the 2 piece lids. As the lard cools it will seal and can then be stored in the pantry. It will keep fresh without refrigeration for a year or more. Not sure how long as I havent had a chance to keep it longer.

  The lard is golden colored when it is fresh and still hot but changes to white when cool.

Now off to the cellar with the fresh lard. After I got this all done I started on making my hominy. Jason had about 2 or so gallons of dry shelled corn left from feeding Petunia and it was perfect for what I wanted. It was the same corn we shell for corn meal and is also used for stock feed. The open pollinated Boone County White. So I washed it really good and picked out all the bad grains and red and blue ones. Then let the corn set over night in the kettle with water to cover.

The corn was allowed to soak in the water, no lye, till the next morning. I knew this corn was very dry and hard and I soaked it to hopefully lessen the cooking time. It did help some but still took a few hours.

n

 The next morning I added about 1/4 cup of Red Devil lye to the cold water in the stainless steel kettle with the corn. You must always use stainless or an enamel cooker for the first step as the lye will eat thru any other metals. Also use wood or stainless steel utensils to stir with as well. Ideally this step should be done outside as to not have all the fumes from the lye in the house but I am in the summer kitchen with good ventilation. But if you do cook the lye/corn inside and have a range hood, as soon as the corn is taken off the burner it is a good time to take a damp cloth and wipe off any greasy residue that has built up. Just a plus to cooking hominy inside. The fumes are strong enough to dissolve the film on your range hood.  Anyway back to the corn, you must have several inches of water above the corn level in order to be able to stir and keep the corn from sticking to the bottom of your cooker. It does need to cook at a gentle boil for a couple hours. You can test to see if it is done by taking a few grains to the sink and running them under water for a minute and then squeeze them,. If the corn can be mashed with your 2 fingers it is done enough to rinse the first time. Check it the first time after about an hour of cooking, then every 15 minutes or so as you dont want it too too soft. After its tender its time to get rid of the lye and clean your drains. I usually put the kettle in the sink and tilt the cooker a lil bit. Turn on the tap and let water run into the kettle till it over flows. The tilting will help you direct the over flow into the sink and not out on another surface. As you notice the water is a golden color when you add lye and are cooking the corn. Keep running water and stirring the corn around till the water is almost clear. At this point it is not likely the lye solution is strong enough to burn the skin but if you want to be absolutely sure you can turn off the tap and stir in about 1 pint of any kind of vinegar. This will neutralize any lye that is left in your corn but with the rinsing there wont be any vinegar taste either. Stir the corn well and if you have run cold water in the kettle it should be cool enough to be able to get your hands in there. Now the fun part. Stick your hands in the corn and gently squeeze hands full of the corn working all around the kettle. The goal is to remove the husk and dislodge the lil dark tips on each grain. But most of the husk part of the corn will have dissolved in the lye solution. The lil dark tips are perfectly fine to leave in there if you want. And trust me I never get all of them out of my hominy as you can see below. The lil tips are actually the heart of the corn and have nutrients too, so no problem, right?

 As you work thru the corn, pick up hands full and rub your hand together with the corn in there like you were trying to warm up the corn. Rinse the corn and put into another cooker. Keep working the corn and rinsing till all the corn is out of the first cooking water. Now cover your cleaned hominy with fresh water and put back on the fire and bring to a boil. From time to time check a grain or 3 by tasting it till it is quite tender, some what soft but not really soft as to go to mush. Remember it has to be processed in the pressure canner for at least an hour after this cooking. You will notice the water may not be totally clear with this cooking. If not drain and rinse and add more fresh water and heat it up again. The hominy should have been through at least 3 changes of water. This is adequate to get out all the lye and vinegar that is in there. Once the corn is pretty tender and the water has cleared its time to put the hominy in jars. I can mine in pints as that is how much I can eat at one time. You can do quarts if your family like hominy. Ladle or drain your corn out of the cooking water and into clean jars leaving about 2 good inches of head space. This allows for any expansion your corn will do in the jar and helps keep it all under water after its processed. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each pint and cover with fresh water. Put the lids on and hand tighten and put them in your prepared pressure canner.  Process at 10 lb pressure 60 minutes for pints and 70 minutes for quarts. Let pressure drop and remove from the canner. For each gallon of dried corn you use you should end up with about 20 pints of hominy. 

I started with about 2 gallon of dried corn and ended up with 41 pints canned and had enough to fix me a good bit for supper tonight. It is good stuff I don't care what anybody says. Now you might say, well it ain't all perty and white like the store bought stuff. Well you are right but see we didn't bleach all the good stuff outta the corn either with other chemicals. Now you can enjoy ya hominy.

I need a dam hobby!!! I do love canning though. The weather was nice and I got some things done that needed doing and it is relaxing for me. While I was letting the hominy cook in the summer kitchen I had to take a picture of my poor lil late cabbages that got snowed on. I had tole my friend Deb on the phone that it looked like they had took a leaf and tried to cover their lil heads. Don't ya agree with me?

But ya know the leaves don't look like they are froze either, even thought it snowed on them. The heads are not hard enough to harvest so I am gonna just leave em alone and see what they do. They would be fine to cut and chop for cooked cabbage but I don't think they would make slaw, or maybe they would. If we had had a normal December they would have make some nice heads before the weather got too bad but with snow starting for us on December 1 they didn't quite make it. But better luck next time.
While I was pressure canning my hominy I thought of my 6 gallon pail in the house that had wine in it. So I toted it to the summer kitchen to strain out the berries and put it back to settle for the second racking.

Talk about smellin good. A total of about 5 gallon of blackberry wine that is back in the tank to settle out. It will get racked a few more times before it is sweetened and bottled and left to age. Now if only I could find my recipe and instructions so far I would post them for ya. As soon as I locate all that I will put up a recipe for the wine.
Gosh it has been a long day for me. Not to mention my babysitter. My girl Luna is always with me where ever I wonder to here on the place. She makes me feel safer as she is always on guard. I think she was posing here.

Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Making sausage and rendering lard

Now you have successfully butchered a hog and hopefully have pans of odd shaped and strange looking meat to do something with. First off you need to get some of it packaged like you want for cooking. As for me, I sliced the tenderloin and froze it in layers with plastic wrap between the layers. Once frozen I put it in bags and vacuum seal it, label and back in the freezer. The ribs halves are cut in half and each rib is then cut apart. I like fried ribs or grilled ribs, so these are packaged and vacuum sealed and frozen. Now you can freeze the pork chops and chunks of back bone as you like. I froze the pork chops and trimmed all the meat off the back bone chunks for sausage. And you still have odd looking pieces of meat. So you take each piece and cut any skin and fat into about 1/2 inch cubes to render for lard. The lean and about 30% of any attached fat goes into a container for sausage along with any pieces of meat that are really fatty.  Once this task is done its time to grind sausage. I normally use a hand crank old fashioned grinder but Josh was kind enough to loan me his electric grinder which did a great job.

Once all the meat is ground up you season it. I use sage, salt, red and black pepper and a touch of brown sugar. We had about 30 lbs of meat ground, and for this I use almost a quart pickle jar of home ground sage, about 4 tablespoons of cayenne pepper, maybe a quarter cup of salt, less than a quarter cup of black pepper and about 1/3 cup brown sugar. This is ball park. Then I mix in the seasoning by hand. Keep in mind this is more a method than a recipe, so adjust seasonings to your personal taste.

This does take some time. It is also good if you can have someone help you with this as you get the seasoning mixed in they can fry a small sausage patty and you taste test it. Then add seasonings according to your own personal taste. You should be able to taste a lil sage and black pepper, you should have a slight after bite from the cayenne pepper and just know that it has brown sugar in it. The brown sugar does for sausage what salt does for any dish, it simply enhances the flavor. Now after you are done adding ingredients to the sausage and are sure it taste like you want it. Then you can put it in bags like we did or make patties and freeze them, use the way you like. If you use sausage on pizza and like Italian sausage add a hint of garlic powder to the seasoning. Now you can chill out or collapse as I did until day 2 of the lard making.


We got out the cast iron lard kettle that my dad used that his family used and prolly family before that along with the paddle used to stir the lard. I got the kettle all washed out inside and added about a pint of lard that I had here to the kettle over a fire to get it started rendering.

 This is the kettle and then I added the lard after Rodger got a fire going under it. This process is best done outside to keep the grease out of the house.

You need to start with a low fire, as to not get the kettle too hot and burn the lard or it will taste burned.  And it does need to be stirred constantly when you start to keep it from sticking also. We all took turns stirring the lard kettle.

We did this at Jason's house and his cat needed to be entertained too. So we took turns with this as we got a break from stirring.

 This is what the cracklings will look like at about the half way point of being done.

 As the cracklings get done and the lard finishes, the cracklings will float to the top of the lard. When it is done we use large hooks to pick the kettle up off the fire and set it on a flat surface that we have put a clean piece of tin down so the kettle don't become uneven and tip over.

I had a large stock pot to strain the lard into and used a cheesecloth lined strainer. The hot lard and cracklings were dipped out of the cast iron kettle and poured in the strainer to strain out the cracklings and fine pieces of meat. Set the container of lard aside, Do Not cover it, to cool. I do use a towel over the top of the kettle to keep dust and dirt out tho. Let the cast iron kettle cool, wipe down inside with a dry clean rag and store in a dry place till next time. If the kettle is like this one and well seasoned it wont need to be washed at all. Only just to get out dust and dirt prior to next use.  Put the cracklings in a separate container to be used in crackling cornbread or if you are like me to be eaten as a snack. And trust me, today I have eaten my share.
Now most likely tomorrow after the lard has cooled, I will bring it home, and remelt it and pour it into hot half gallon canning jars, and put on the lids. As the lard cools the lids will seal and it will keep for a long long time in the pantry or cellar. The cracklings I will bag up and freeze for later use.
I hope this has given someone the courage to try their hand at butchering their own hogs for meat. If I think of something that I have left out later I will go back and add it to this post but will let you know there has been additions in future post.
We had a good day but there were many times I sure missed dad. This is the first time we have butchered a hog here on the farm since dad has been gone. But I have to say, he taught me well, I did remember how to do it from beginning to end. And now hopefully Jason and Josh both know as well. Maybe I have passed on some knowledge as to how hog butchering is done the Appalachian way.
In the next post I will tell you how to make souse like I have done it and share the recipe or method. And the pickled pigs feet as well. But till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella