Overcast, snow showers, 18 degrees

Well, here we are starting the second week of February already. Though time flies when looking at the calendar, I am ready to see some signs of Spring. From the sounds of the forecast, which is calling for several inches of snow this week, I will have to be patient.

While I just devoted a whole post about our new Berkshire pigs, there is other stuff going on so I thought I'd put it in another post altogether.

Karen is in the kitchen as I write this, furiously baking. She has made breads, muffins, and now is baking a pie using our own lard for the crust. Can't wait to see how that turns out! She is making a peach pie, from the peaches she canned this summer. MM.

Birk is enjoying a rare day of cartoons until we turn on the Big Game. When the Packers aren't in it, I don't often care too much who wins, but this year I am rooting for the underdog Saints. Yes, it's their first time, and that is always fun to watch, plus ya gotta pull for a team that didn't even have a place to play a few years ago, and managed to overcome so much local devastation. But the biggest reason I am a big Saints fan today is that they went ahead and knocked the stuffing out of Old Brent, whom we will never forget here in Packerland. It is the only way to beat him, and beat him they did. I tip my green and gold hat to them.

I mentioned the peaches and the lard - we are still actually eating from our garden and fruit trees. We still have a good dozen or more garlic bulbs left, as well as some onions and quite a lot of potatoes. The onions are holding up well, particularly my favorite, Red Zeppelin. We have gone through the garlic pretty quickly with all the cooking that goes on here, and we are down to the skinny bulbs, but they are there nevertheless. The potatoes are holding up very nicely, and we may have enough to plant with again the Spring, which is an added and welcome bonus. Most everything else that we are still using was canned or frozen. Today Karen opened up one of the last jars of our own sweet cherries, to be put into muffins for Birk's class.

The sausage making results came out very well. The apple brats were very tasty and just the right amount of sweet. Pork pairs so well with so many different types of flavors. The sweet italian variety came out pretty good, too. I used the recipe from Charcuterie, though I would cut back a bit on the salt next time. We are going to be eating these sausages as SuperBowl watching food. With our own red onions atop, of course!

I got a Weber Smoky Mountain smoker a few weeks back, and am just itching to try it out, but it's been a bit too cold out yet, which would interfere with the meats' ability to cook properly at this point. I picked up a book called Low and Slow from the library, which is essentially a tutorial on how to become a master of the WSM. It's a very good book and one I think I'll add to my personal library. Lots of very good recipes in there.

Well, the sun is going down and it's time to put the chickens and pigs to bed, and get the sausage going before the big game. GO SAINTS!