Tuesday, October 18th - yet another eventful week

First, we need to wish Patti and Greg a belated Happy Anniversary. It was on Sunday but I neglected to send them best wishes. We were busy the entire weekend.





It started on Friday with the killing of the pigs. They were cleaned, and hung up to wait for the final cutting. We were fortunate that the weather was quite cool on Friday evening so they were hung off the tractor, hoisted into the air and left till morning.

After supper we were treated to cake and tea at the VanGaals as Mike and Caitlin baked a cake to
celebrate Brenda's turning 60, since they weren't here for the original celebration. Mike had quite a visit. His goal was to try to fit in as many island experiences as he could while he was here. He did well, and at times he may have been pushed a little out of his comfort zone, but he coped.  I loved the look on his face when we went to gather eggs and I handed him one that was still warm from being laid. He thought that was so amazing.


Saturday morning started bright and early. The VanGaals arrived to help out.  The guys were in the garage cutting up the pork and Brenda and I were in the kitchen wrapping and labeling. We have a small vacuum sealer and it works just beautifully. We must have worked out some of the bugs from last year. It was our first time doing it and this year went very smoothly. By 1:00 we had everything cut, wrapped and put into the freezer. Thanks to all those who helped out, it made the job so much easier.

Sunday was a beautiful day, a little cool but perfect weather for the PEI Marathon. Caitlin was battling a cold all week so I'm so impressed that she finished her half marathon in just under 2 hours, which was her goal.  Did I mention that a half marathon is 21 kms?  I'd be hard pressed to run 21 feet never mind 21 kms. We weren't there to see it but we saw pictures. Well done, Caitlin. I'm so awed with your accomplishment.

Bacon

Instead of going into to town to see the finish of the race, Lloyd and I spent the morning getting the bacon and hams ready.  The bacon, which at this point is just pork belly, gets well rubbed with a mixture of salt and something sweet , usually sugar or sometimes maple syrup. So why not honey? We have lots of our own so we will have honey cured bacon. After coating in the mixture it gets wrapped well and chilled for a week. Then it gets smoked, sliced and wrapped and voila, it's become bacon.
The hams get submerged in a brine solution for the week and they are then smoked as well. Next weekend will be a busy time as well.

When we finished prepping those items, we moved on to sausage production. We limited our product this year to breakfast sausage and Italian sausage, as those are the ones we tend to turn to first.  The pretty much took up the rest of the day. So now, aside from the smoking we are done.




The only other news this week is my employer and I have parted company and that's all I'm going to say about it.  The up side I suppose is that I now have time to do a lot of the things that need doing around here to get ready for winter. So many little jobs have gotten away from me due to lack of time but now I have no excuse!  I've made myself a list and will try to work my way through it over the next little while.  I realized that I've worked 6 days a week for the past 6 years so it's nice to have time, although I'm finding myself working flat out most days. It's going to take some time to adjust to all of this, but Lloyd's enjoying not having to come home and do chores in the morning  or stopping what ever he's doing in the afternoon to make supper before I get home. I'm having to get re-acquainted with my kitchen again!

I'm also home to witness the antics of the goats. The two girls take great delight in escaping. They get out through the fence after the grass on the front lawn. Not that there's any shortage of grass on their side, but you know what they say about the grass on the other side...
Well a highlight of their travels was the trailer that Lloyd had used to pick up the branches we lost during the Thanksgiving storm. It was parked out back and many of the branches still have leaves on them. To a couple of small goats it was like a salad bar. They must have spent over an hour munching the leaves.  

and finally Where in the world is Patti?

This weekend she was in London, again. She was planning to do some shopping this trip. There's a chain of shops there that we both love and she finds it the best place to source out clothes for James. There must be a lot of tall, very skinny young boys in England! No pictures as yet.