Smokin'

1/09/07 - 3rd Day - After Breakfast. The day is off and running. We finished killing all of the excess roosters yesterday and we got them all smoked in the smoker. This morning Mark is carving up the chickens and stripping them of all the meat. When he is done I will begin my canning for the day. Mihai is working on the walls of the root cellar landing, and later we will begin the roofing process over the landing. After that portion of the project, we will only have the stairs and the upper door to finish before we begin water sealing and moving dirt back over the cellar.

Last night we had some great stew made from the beef stock from the roasts that we canned, and some of the canned cubes from jars that did not seal properly. It was great.

I hear in the distance that Elder David Sifford is using the backhoe to dig a couple of outhouse holes for the new arrivals. I think the Antes and the Sustaires plan on having usable outhouses on their respective properties in the next few days.

We expect to get the call to go pick up most of the pork from the butcher in the next day or so. The smoked items (bacon and ham) will likely take another week or two.

I just heard that they are calling for possibilities of rain come this weekend. After that, the prognosticators call for cold for a long, long time. I hope they are wrong. We like warm.

We are making plans for Spring Ranchest 2007. I hope you are too.

Michael Bunker