sausage maker

Sorry, another post with no pictures. But you don't want a picture of this one. I've been making homemade sausage. It's idiot easy and is delicious. I love finding one more thing I can do myself and not buy from a store. These sausage don't have extra chemicals in them because I'm in charge! Here's the basic recipe-- buy pork butt when it is on a fabulous sale (memorial day or labor day) and freeze it half way (or freeze it and let it thaw half way). Now for the hard part, you have to have a meat grinder. If you have one the rest is easy. Grind the meat/fat up, adding spices (lots of variations here, it could just be salt and pepper OR you can get way fancier, there are tons of recipes on the web) then divide it into one pound plops. You can either use it immediately or re-freeze for future use. You could also stuff it into casings, but I've had trouble locating decent casings, so I've just been making it into bulk sausage. I can't wait until someone bags a deer and I can say, I'll make it into deer sausage for you! I remember as a kid begging my father to turn the entire deer into sausage. For some reason he didn't think that was as good an idea as I thought it was.

New House!

We are buying a house! I just found out that the seller accepted the bid we put in on a house in the Minneapolis area. I'm so happy! I really love this house.

bye-bye babies

The chickens have left the homestead. I sure have loved having them. A friend of a friend has a farm and was very happy to have them. He lost his hens to a fox (he killed the fox). The girls will get a very large area to free-range in. I sure will miss them.

updates

Things feel like they are moving along, as far as moving goes. We put a bid in on a house, but so did someone else, and their bid was picked, so I'll be back househunting this week. Our MUCH beloved cat Pippin has been missing for the past few weeks. We're still hopeful she'll return, but it's been three weeks. A co-worker of a friend is coming tomorrow to pick up the chickens. I love my chickens, but moving them to a new state seemed to be asking too much. They are going to a farm with lots of space to free-range. They'll be happy. Once the chickens are gone and it thaws up we can work on straightening up the back yard. My next door neighbor wants all the concrete blocks. As far as getting this house ready for sale we (mostly Chris) have been working very hard. The inside walls are all painted and the kitchen floor tile has been replaced. Those were the two main jobs that really needed to happen. I've been dejunking room by room and handing off the really good stuff to friends. I'm also donating quite a bit to the thrift store and (of course)throwing a lot away. It just feels like things are moving along a quick pace.

Randall is ok

I have to add a few comments here. This is an enormous apartment complex and this was NOT in the part Randall lives in. He's fine, and they had enough empty units to actually house the displaced people. AT THE SAME TIME, I really want him out of there. The fire started about the same time he came home from work. At first he thought it was just a minor little thing, but the flames kept growing and more and more firetrucks kept coming. It was a major fire. No lives lost, but a very scary fire all the same.

Fire at Randall's apartment

Red Cross Helps Plymouth Apartment Fire Victims: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

hodgson's homestead north

I think we've found a place to live in Minnesota. These decisions are best made when young and stupid. It's much harder to decide when you actually have a load of opinions. When we moved into this house (the one we're currently living in) I wanted to get out of an apartment so bad I would've said yes to anything. In spite of it being a fairly random pick, we did ok with this house. I've managed to turn it into a little farm and we raised all seven of our kids in here. They didn't have much room, but they all love each other and are good friends with each other. In fact Sunday, other then church, is spent hanging out with each other, either in person or via skype. So now, without really meaning to, I'm going to end up with a larger house when I don't have as many kids living in it! That isn't really what I was aiming for, but this house has so many more pluses then minuses that it just feels like the right thing to do. I'm sure we'll make it all work out ok, once again.