Here are Pictures from our Meaty Weekend

Fixit manning the meat grinder for sausage

Bug taking her turn at the crank

K adding her oomph - and could I have had a less complimentary picture of myself

Yeah, I didn't mess up the links too much

Drooling?

Absolute yummy Canadian Bacon deliciousness

Super Busy Weekend

Saturday, I drove down to Winneconne - about 70 miles one way - to judge forensics.

I love this time of year.  I have 9 meets scheduled to judge for during February and March. 

I got to judge Prose, Solo Acting Serious, and Demonstration.  During power round, I judged Play Acting.  There were some very polished performances and some people, who unfortunately, didn't care.  Well, when you perform in front of me, effort means a lot, even if I don't like the selection.  If you have the greatest piece and then put no effort forth, you will not get a high score.

After judging, I met my "baby" brother in Oshkosh to take him out to dinner. (I say baby only because he is 14 years younger than me - but probably weighs in about 325 and is 6'1")  He kind of has the Grizzly Adams thing going on right now with the scruffy hair and beard, but we had a really nice visit.

Friday night, to back up a little, K went to the neighbor's and spent the night. Bug went to Grandma and Grandpa's house overnight.  Fixit, Bob, and I went to Burger King and went shopping.  She didn't know what to do with Mom and Dad by herself.

Then, on to Sunday.  Didn't do much besides babysit the smoker.  I was smoking the 3 types of Canadian bacon that had been curing all week.  Bob brought home a wild turkey breast from a friend at work, so we smoked that, too.  We also ground up a 4# pork rump roast that I had cut off the bone and cut into pieces.  From that, we added the spices and ran the meat through the sausage stuffer that Dad is letting us borrow.  We made our our sweet Italian sausage.  Recipe didn't have fennel - it's been added to the cookbook.  We cooked up the extra meat and used that in our spaghetti for lunch.  Very good.  I even did a reasonable job keeping the links even.

This could become addictive - and cheaper than buying brats and other meat.  Only problem, is that the house still smells like smoke, which gives me a headache.  So, even though it is only 25F outside and windy, we had windows open and fans going this morning.  (No, didn't smoke the meat inside, but just bringing it in the house - along with the racks and drip pan from the smoker filled the house with the smell.)  It gave Bug a headache, too.

Courtesy of the kids, I have a ton of pictures. I just need to get them uploaded from the camera and I'll probably do a picture-heavy post later.

By the way -   YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yarn Along - Feb 1, 2011

February already!  HOW did that happen????

Have any of you worked on a knitting/crocheting project that kept putting you to sleep?  I don't mean because it's boring - which could also be the case, but because you keep the house cool and you're buried under ALL this yarn!

This is what I'm working on. 

My sister "destashed" by GIVING me all her yarn and the request that I make an afghan for my brother-in-law.  I'm crocheting with a Q hook (MAN, this sucker is HUGE like, my gauge is 3 stitches to 4 inches!) and three strands of yarn at once in a half double stitch.  It's roughtly 7 ft wide, you know, crochet until it looks long enough.  Right now, 30 rows long.  I wasn't sure how to work in the hunter orange, but I think it works.  I'm doing 10 rows of the light blue, navy blue, and black combo and then I throw in 2 rows of the hunter orange - she gave me 3 skeins, so it's working.

I'm one my 6th skein of black (3 oz), 3 skein of navy blue (7 oz), and the 2nd skein of light blue (16 oz).  I need to about double the number of rows and it'll be done.

It's working up fast with the size, but it's getting heavy, so my thumb hurts from hanging on to that weight.

It's going to be SOOOOO warm, but my brother-in-law is always cold and he's 6'4", so needs a lot of blanket.

As for what I'm reading, I'm reading Home Sausage Making. 

We're going to make Italian Sweet Sausage this weekend and Pork and Apple Sausage.  I think we're going to smoke the Apple Sausage and use the Sweet Sausage is going to be used fresh.

Hope everyone has a good day and I'll be back later to ready everyone else's Yarn Along with Ginny at Small Things .  Fixit and I are headed out the door on a field trip.