Dear Journal,
I asked my daughter, Beth, if she would be willing to give me an entry and share with us a little bit of what her days consisted of the last few weeks. Here is what she shared.
Hi. This is Beth. Greetings of love sent to everyone on these wintery days. It has turned cold again after the January thaw which almost gave me Spring fever. And yet, I’d like to get some other things done before it’s time to work in the garden, yard, etc.
This week I cut out and started sewing on my comforter and figured it would probably be a couple of weeks yet before it’s finished. I also work in my dad’s furniture shop doing final assembly so I have mostly evenings to work on it.
Today is Keim Lumber’s woodworkers appreciation day and Dad and Mom went so I am babysitting my baby sister, Linda, and Blake(a 2 year old that we’ve been babysitting for since Nov 2009). Linda is still taking her afternoon nap and Blake is entertaining himself with toys in the living room.
Two weeks ago, January 16, was pig butchering day. What fun! On Friday afternoon the men dressed 3 pigs and brought the intestines up to the basement where Emma, Ella, and I clean them. We use them as the casing for the sausage. We dump them out then take a flat knife and scrape them over a board. Then we turn them inside-out and scrape them twice more. We also keep the hearts and some liver for liverwurst.
The next day, Saturday, is the fun day. We had some friends, Doug(owner of Amish Originals), two of his children and Jason, one of his employees, here to help and enjoy the day with us. We cut up the pigs this day. We get bacon, ham, sirloin, pork chops, and sausage. In the afternoon we grind the meat for sausage and hope the muffler doesn’t pop off the grinder. We have a grinder with an air motor and we have found out it can make a lot of noise with that thing off. When we are finished stuffing the sausage, the men fire up the smokehouse. I think it’s much better tasting when it’s smoked. We also smoke the ribs, sirloin, and pork chops. Then the men cook the fat for lard which makes tasty cracklings. The liverwurst is usually the last thing except for the mess. The next week Mom cans what we don’t eat fresh, and we’ll have pork all summer.
Beth
Thank you, Beth, for sharing. I will add a few more lines to let you know that Beth did a super job in cleaning the mess. I missed out on most of the butchering day except for cooking the meals which is also an important part of the day.
I will continue later……….,
Miriam
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