Making Bologna

Towards the middle of October, KK and Sam got a good sized buck. They shot him right through the lungs, so Bambi didn't even know what hit 'im. 

Since Dad was still in KY, Mom and the boys had to load the deer into the truck themselves (I had the better deal of helping babysit Sweetness for Ry and Kels). :) That buck was so fat and heavy (we think about 200 lbs), that they couldn't get him up into the bed. KK ended up tying a winch onto him and winching him up. :)

We all wanted to make the venison into Martin's bologna again. Daddy got about 40 lbs of beef to mix with the venison. After chopping it all up, they salted it good and set it to cure for a week. 

Once the meat had cured long enough, it was bologna making time! Dad and the boys ground the meat up with all the seasonings that morning.

Here I am, making the muslin casings for the bologna logs.

Dad and Abi stuffed while I sewed...

...And Mom washed the dirty containers.

Sammy thought it was fun to tie the logs closed with the muslin strips.

Cutting out more casings.

KK, the part time photographer. :)

The casing bags are supposed to be tied shut with strips of muslin. Making the strips is certainly the easiest job out of them all. :)

Our nice shelf for canned goods that Josh made us. It's even short enough for me to reach the top shelf! :)

I made some smaller casings per request so that we could have small logs to give away as gifts. They were so cute!

The brown sugar made the meat very sticky!

Somehow, we misplaced our wood chips for smoking so Dad just used liquid smoke instead. :)

KK, eating a quick breakfast of cereal.

Look at those curls! Poor boy needed a hair cut so bad!

Dad wanted the strings tied tight. You can tell from Sam's face that he's putting his all into making it tight. :)

Kels came over later that evening. Katers loved Opie's tail! :)

Dad and Abi rubbed liquid smoke all over the logs of bologna, then put it in the smoker and our oven to smoke. I think that it took around 7 hours to smoke them all. It sure smelled good around our house!

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The next morning, Dad brought in several logs to pre-slice for lunches. Josh got the job of slicing until he had to leave for work, then Dad took over.

Abi was making bread, which made it smell even yummier in our house! :)

Dad, wrapping

We'd gotten a squash awhile ago. I cut it up and roasted it. Mm-Mm, I love roasted squash!

Mom and Sam doing school.

Josh was in seventh heaven with all that bologna! I think he would live solely on that stuff if he could. :) 

The cute little gift rolls.

This onion sat on the counter for awhile till I saw that it was getting squishy, so I got rid of it. Surprisingly (or not) it had started to grow! That silly onion just flourished in the slop bucket. :) 

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We had a beautiful sunrise the next morning. A heavy frost that night had sprinkled everything with a sparkling dazzle of diamonds. 

This is the roof outside Abi and my bedroom. 

The sun reflecting off those millions of diamonds was just dazzling! I had to restrain myself from taking too many pictures. :)

The frosty grass.

 Mm, it was just gorgeous!

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This is the next morning's sunrise, all hues of pinks, purples, blues and golds.

A cotton candy sunrise! :)