The Greasing of the Doorknobs

On Friday, friends of ours, Jim and Sharon, had to put down a hog.   She had broken her leg.  So we were asked to come help with the meat.  Jim and Ken had it skinned and cut up and we were supposed to make sausage Friday night.  Remember my jelly fiasco, well the sausage Friday did not turn out much better.

Farmer Joe ended up working late and by the time we got to the hill, Jim was already in bed since he had been up since two o'clock that morning.  So we sat and talked with Sharon for a while, had a cup of coffee and a couple glasses of wine and came home.  After the woodcutting at Farmer Joe's grandad's house Saturday morning we headed back to the hill and went at it.

Jim and Farmer Joe getting the meat cut up and ready.

Once it was all ground the mixing began.

And of course once it was all mixed , we had to taste test to see if the spices were right.

Delicious!!
By this time of the evening we were getting hungry and a little tired.  So in the refrigerator the sausage went for the spices to absorb better overnight.  Then supper was cooked.  Yep, you guessed it sausage, eggs, biscuits and gravy.  After clean up and coffee and conversation, we bade each other good night and crashed.

Sunday morning dawned a beautiful day and we headed back to the hill to finish the pig.

I measured, Joe weighed and Sharon vacuum sealed.  In the end we came out with 33 pounds of sausage for their freezer.   In Farmer Joe's family whenever a hog was killed, they called the sausage making part the annual greasing of the doorknobs.  And this turned out to be true for on the hill as well.  No matter how hot and soapy the water was, it seems that a little grease just has to stick to your palm so that it is extremely hard to open a door.  All we can say is that we are glad no one had to rush outside for any reason.

Jim, aka Hambone, had band practice with The Hamtones Sunday so he missed this part of the fun.  But that was okay, we got to listen to some great music while we worked.

Once the sausage was done we finished cutting and packaging the rest of the meat for their freezer.  Our day was not done by a long shot, but I think I will save that for part two of this post.