sausage time ~

 It's that time of the year again ... the weather is right for making sausage.  We can't run our homemade smoke house if it's too warm out ~ it's too hard to regulate the heat.

The photos that I'm posting today are from a prior year - I didn't have my camera out in the work shop yesterday; but it still shows what was going on.  Only yesterday's sausage making process was on a much larger scale this time around.

 Here some summer sausage casings and a bowl of spices mixed up and ready to go.

Next, the meat is prepared for grinding ~ cubed up and the spices added:

 Yesterday we had almost 200 pounds of venison, 40 pounds of beef, 150 pounds of pork, and about 50 pounds of bear meat that went through the Old Faithful, our antique Hobart grinder.  We bought that grinder about 25 years ago for $100 ... and have certainly gotten our money's worth out of it over the years.

the hand cranked sausage stuffer:

Dear Hubby likes to soak the summer sausage casings in water mixed with liquid smoke ... "adds a little more flavor" he says.

venison summer sausage - 200 lbs of it per smoke house

I think we ended up with 60 sticks this year.

Bratwurst ~

and Italian sausages ... that I don't have a pic of

trays of breakfast sausage ... scored, pre-frozen and packaged

trays of breakfast links 

to go with those farm fresh eggs ... yum yum

and toast in the morning made from homemade bread

with my homemade jam ...

It's a lot of work - trying to maintain a life style of being self sufficient ... working with our hands ... making the most of what is provided to us from Above ... and I wouldn't trade it for nothing.  I like eating what I know is in the product :)

Next thing to be done ...

bacon!

Until next time ...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel