clever Gracie

Talking around the table after the afore mentioned corned beef, Grace was coming to the realization that her daddy wasn't the lumbering giant she always thought I was. She asked if I was sorry that I was short, and I replied "I need some sort of adversity in my life; if I were as tall as I am good-looking, I wouldn't fit in the house." She thought about it briefly and replied: "if you were really as tall as you are good-looking I've sure seen you when you should be really short!!"
That is a ZINGER! Not bad for a 10 year old. Thanks, Gracie; so sometimes I'm dirty when I get home. I sure hope that's what she is talking about...

cute chicks!!

Speaking of meat, here are yesterday's new arrivals. (03/23/11, it helps me remember when to butcher)
Its not all I think about, but, you know. And its something that Wifey and I like to do together, which there are not that many things that we share creative interest in. Thinking about food is one of them- butchering food is not.
The one little chick closest to the bottom looked sick, so I gave him a poke. He woke abruptly and said: "CHEEP!!, CHEEP-CHEEP!!!" Apparently, he was only sleeping, but the girls just thought it was hilarious; just a little bit ago, I heard them in their beds saying"CHEEP!!, CHEEP-CHEEP!!!" Then giggles all around....

corned beef

Here is a picture of a little something that we ate this week. I love me some corned beef, and after digging through the freezer first part of this month long enough to find some choice roasts and brisket, Wifey and I whipped up brine enough to immerse 15-20 pounds of beef for several weeks in it, and my Mother-in-law was gracious enough to cook it along with the obligatory cabbage and potatoes. Probably one of my favorite dishes, even though my ancestry is overwhelmingly more Scottish than Irish, probably because of my natural common sense rebels at the thought of Haggis, though I would like to try it once in my life.

The brine is pretty simple, though, its just the planning ahead part and the fridge space that is difficult. I did inject the brine into it, which was my own idea; don't know if that was right or wrong. The only thing that we had to buy specifically was the Prague Pink Curing Salt, which I guess accounts for the red look to the obviously well done meat.

I confess I cheated on this one though, my dad raised the meat... It's WAY easier!!!

my recipe for ham...

I had a successful attempt at cooking food today, and I want to share it with the world, and chronicle it for my own future use, as I am terrible at remembering stuff like this. The above ham was prepared by Yours Truly. Let me give a little rundown of some of the details:

1. stake out area not too close to house
2. buy 10 hog panels and 100 bond-beam concrete blocks
3. buy 2 piglets
4. feed and water piglets
5. repeat #4 every day for five-six months.
6. butcher big hogs
7. put room temperature ham in smoker around 7:00 am before church
8. provide enough smoke for about 3 to 4 hours
9. continue to cook at 225 degrees, but after 5 hours, cover with foil, *note: ham was at 140 degrees
10. continue to cook at 225 degrees for 3 more hours, *note: ham was at 160 degrees
11. continue to cook at 225 degrees for 1 more hour, * note: ham was at 170 degrees
12. feed to children in order to get this look here:

So, as you can see, with only 12 simple steps (and about 6 months), you too could have a delicious ham for supper! While there could be much debate wheather or not I cooked it too long, smoked it too much or not enough, the end result is that my family tore into it.

I'll be perfectly honest, part of the reason I'm writing this is to gloat a little about something that most people couldn't care less about: (so I'm hoping it won't come across as too offensive), the whole backyard to table food source thing, you know. Its just a lot of fun for me; I'm just sorry I'm off my feed enough to not want to eat much tonight. From what the kids and Wifey says, I think it was a success.

stout fella-ism

I once read a book called "Beau Geste" that is a young adult novel written about three brothers that join the Foreign Legion. It was a great story; full of adventure and suspense, and it was written in 1924, I think, so it is full of things that our society no longer emphasizes: namely, manly character traits like loyalty, fidelity, and in general "doing the honorable thing." In other words, things that Godly men should exhibit. I would say that it helped shape my childhood, but I was an adult, married with children by the first time I read it; my mother-in-law recommended it to me.
In this book, the youngest brother at an early age, exhibits one of these manly character traits that was thought to be beyond his age, and his brothers praise him for being a "Stout Fella." For some reason, that really stuck with me, so that is a phrase we use in our own house.
This is something that I desire for my own boys; it has nothing to do with size or shape of my sons, only to be courageous in facing difficultly, to be decisive, to be honorable, to be selflessly trust worthy to their peers. I use that phrase to describe them, to praise them when I see them behaving in a way that I want to reinforce. The other day I was so impressed with something Isaiah did (sadly don't even remember what it was) that I was praising him for it. After the hugging and backslapping was over, I felt a tug on my pants, I looked down to see Stu looking up at me earnestly. He said "am I a 'tout fella, too, daddy?" Yes, Stu, you are certainly on your way to "stout-fella-hood". I can't wait to unleash the arrows from my quiver on the world.

I thought a couple of pictures of them would be appropriate for time stamp...

I like this one for Stu, he's a blur most of the time, anyway. The only way you can get him to hold still for a picture is to get everyone to laugh at him, even if what he is doing isn't funny, he will maintain it until the laughter stops.
Here is Isaiah, number 3 kid, and number one Cracker-Boy, the sincere, Stout-fella child.

re-organizing my life...

Upon completion of afore mentioned shed, the next logical step (and winter indoor project) seems to be to drag all of my stuff from my basement that would be normally kept in a garage or a shed, and put it all into my shed, now that I have one. This seems to me a very overwhelming task; I have a lot of stuff in my basement, my garden shed, and just sort of stored at my shop at work. It is pretty intimidating to believe that I can actually get all of my tools in one place at one time in an organized manner.





The first step was to build a small room inside the shed and insulate it well enough that I could keep it just slightly above freezing for my paints, etc, that I don't want frozen. Here is a photo of that:

After that was complete, the next step was obviously to bring all the paint, and liquids, etc, up and shelve them into my little paint room; none of this was that big of a deal, just labor dragging buckets of liquids up from the basement, the perfect chore for my little cheerful minions -er, children.

What has been really overwhelming, though, is the re-organizing of all my tools! When I brought everything up and into the shed, and had everything spread out in order to "take stock" of what we had, Wifey and I recollected that when we were first married we had no outdoor storage, and no basement to put tools in, so we squirreled my stuff into a little space in our "Honeymoon Cottage" to put my tools into, and it took up maybe 4 square feet of floor space- total! It pretty much consisted of a tiny air compressor, a sawsall, and one finish nailer. Here is a photo of the beginnings of my new and improved highly organized tool life:

Now the thing that blows me away is the expense of disorganization. If I could refund at full price every tool that I have in duplicate (or more) I could have built a shed to keep them in. That may be something of a hyperbole, but you get the idea. I won't bore anybody with anything close to a detailed list of total inventory, but I will give you a quick rundown on some of the more ridiculous items:

• 7 caulking guns
• 6 chalk boxes
• 6 bottles of chalk (one is 1/2 gallon)
• 15 pairs of tin snips
• maybe 10 partial rolls of tape; duct, masking, electrical
• 4 multi-meters
• 5 framing squares
• 2 Sheetrock squares
• 8 putty knives
• 5 partial little propane torch bottles
• 8 utility knives
• 7 pipe wrenches, 4 of which are 16"
• dozens of tape measures
• hundreds of PVC fittings
• dozens of blue plastic electrical boxes
• hundreds of shotgun shells I didn't know that I had
• dozens of pliers
• dozens and dozens of screwdrivers, 20+ of which are still in the package
• 3 pneumatic finish nailers
• 3 angle grinders
• 6 or so partial cans of WD-40 or P-B Blaster
• 6 or so partial cans of starting fluid
• 4 partial cans of wasp spray
• 4 partial gallons of antifreeze
• new saw blades I didn't know that I had
• 7 cordless drills

Now, as embarrassing as all this is, I have to defend myself somewhat and say that some of this stuff isn't really my fault- I have a nasty habit of loaning things out to people and forgetting about it, and then when I need something, I cant find it, so what else am I to do? Buy another one of course; then when it shows back up, I have multiples! I have also learned that if I come up missing something, it often yields results if I go accuse my brother of never returning it, even if I have no recollection of loaning it to him. And I have on several occasions thought that I lost or got robbed of higher ticket items like the cordless drills, only to find them in strange places later, after purchasing another, of course. I also have a hard time passing up a good deal on a sale item.

Anyway, NEVER AGAIN! Now that I will (hopefully) soon have a place for everything, and everything in its place, I am going to be totally organized and will know instantly whether or not I still own a tool. I will be so much more productive and so much more wealthy, not buying all these repeat tools! I am embarking on a new era! I always tell the story about if I ask my Father in Law if he has a tool I wanted to borrow, his reply would be: "Sure, in my shop, second drawer down on the left, about halfway towards the back". If he asked me if I had something that he wanted to borrow, my response would be: "yes, I'm pretty sure I have 4 or 5 of them, and I don't have any idea where any of them are." Well anyway, I hope to do better than I have done, because after only 11 years of marriage, that means we will need about 3 more sheds by the time I am 70...

By the way, anybody need some screwdrivers?