I wish all days felt like this one. We had beautiful weather and I was productive. I've had a ham curing in the refrigerator for at least 2 weeks and it was time to rinse the salt off and hang it to dry for 6 months. I covered it with lard which I had rendered from Roxie's leaf lard a few weeks ago, then I sprinkled it with cracked pepper which is supposed to keep bugs away. It's wrapped in cotton cloths and is hanging in the basement. I hope it's edible when the time comes. It was a ham from either Calvin or Hobbes that I had frozen a long time ago so it may not have even been good to start with after being frozen for so long. I figured I didn't have much to lose (except maybe our lives if we die from e coli or something).
I said I was productive but I didn't say I was successful at everything I did. I tried making a cheese I'd never made before. For some reason my cow's milk hasn't been setting up like it used to. What I made will be safe to eat but it won't be the cheese I was hoping for. Who knows, maybe it will be a great new discovery (that I'll never be able to reproduce).
Temps have been in the 50s and should be in the 60s tomorrow. Our maple trees are raining on us so we decided it was time to tap them. It's always exciting to put the spile in the drilled hole and see the sap begin to run. Hopefully we'll be able to cook up a few gallons of maple syrup soon.
And just for fun, if you have 3 + minutes to kill, here's a video of Yogi and Willy playing. In case anyone is worried about me leaving my parrot alone with a cat, it's ok, I supervise them. Willy spends most nights in the chicken barn and has never hurt a bird, not even the small chickens. She and Yogi have spent lots of time together and seem to be fond of each other.
7 gallons already, after only 4-5 hours!
ReplyDeleteKaren. You are my hero! By the way, today is Laura Ingalls Wilder's 146th birthday!
ReplyDeleteOnly 28 gallons to go to get a gallon of syrup! Maybe.
ReplyDeleteI love Yogi's toes! what was so fascinating about the shelf? Yogi kept going back to it.
ReplyDeleteYes, BarnBaybe, we have a long way to go till we have syrup. I count on 40 to 1. We haven't figured out how we'll do this evaporation yet this year. Last time we did it we borrowed one. I'm looking for giant pans right now.
ReplyDeleteVirginia, Yogi wanted to step up on it but it had no rungs for his feet to grab onto. He doesn't know he can fly either. He's 18 years old and has never really flown except to fly down from someplace high. Even then it's more of a crash.
Roxie's "leaf" lard. What is that?
ReplyDeleteTressa, leaf lard is the fat that comes from around the kidneys inside the loin. It's the best lard on the pig. It has very little smell when rendered and is great for baking or making soap. Any fat on a pig can be rendered and used the same but the leaf lard is the most desired. I just learned this myself about 4 or 5 years ago.
ReplyDelete