Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Told DS2 about stitches and he was laughing at me for going to hairdresser before hospital for stitches. One has one's priorities. Appointments are hard to get. Perhaps this is why my family does not run to assist me with injuries. I suppose if I broke my leg they would expect me to use duct tape and a broom handle to set it myself!
No need for vaccinations today, not due till Friday. Can't type anymore, finger starting to hurt. I know, I am a wuss. In the words of the "woke" I embrace my wussiness!

 

[Finnie]

I couldn’t believe you went to the hairdresser first either. I couldn’t believe you continued skinning the pork first! You are no wuss!

 

[SageHill]

Surprised I can type with 2 fingers on right hand and all 5 on left. Had to do a lot of corrections and it took a while to type this so will stop now. These are my first stitches other than surgeries and babies! LOL

Well , when you do something you go all out and just keep on rollin’!
Did that - though only 2 stitches - getting an avo pit off my knife.

 

[Baymule]

I would have done the same thing. Good work on not bleeding on the meat!

 

[canesisters]

Told DS2 about stitches and he was laughing at me for going to hairdresser before hospital for stitches. One has one's priorities. Appointments are hard to get. Perhaps this is why my family does not run to assist me with injuries. I suppose if I broke my leg they would expect me to use duct tape and a broom handle to set it myself!
No need for vaccinations today, not due till Friday. Can't type anymore, finger starting to hurt. I know, I am a wuss. In the words of the "woke" I embrace my wussiness!

Whenever life started to suck my hubbie would say "EMBRACE THE SUCK!" .. very loudly... and often.

 

[Ridgetop]

A woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do! The reason men like to call us the weaker sex is so we won't conquer the world. LOL

DH and I going to play bridge today. Then I will come home and put on tight glove to cut meat into chunks. I have two recipes for canning pork. I took the pork leg bones and am boiling them in water to make the broth to pour over the raw pork meat. One recipe says to lightly brown the chunks, the other says to use a "salt cure". I don't have "curing salt" so I will use the recipe that doesn't require a cure, but without browning the meat. Both recipes list herbs to include. One lists pickling spice which supposedly makes the pork taste like corned beef. I am just going to use kosher salt, by leaf, celery seeds, and a slice of onion. If I don't have celery seeds (might have already taken them to Yantis) I will put a stalk of celery in the jar instead. One recipe calls for caramelized onions, but you can substitute a slice of raw onion which would be easier.

I hate canning meat since it takes 90 minutes of constantly checking the pressure gauge. I am going to ask for an electric pressure canner for Christmas. My children can all go in on it since it is expensive -about $250-300. Either that or they can buy me a 24' stock trailer. Their choice. I am sure to get the electric canner. I would really like 2 of them if I start canning a lot of meat since the electric canner only does 5 quarts at a time but I can wait on the second one to see if I like the electric canner. I need to remind myself not to be greedy since I have 2 other stove canners, and 2-3 water bath canners. I used to can everything I could get my hands on. That was years ago in our old house which had a nice basement/root cellar. I also have my grandmother's OOOOOOLD pressure canner which took 2 men and a small boy to lift and has massive screw bolts to secure the lid. I use it as a garden ornament.

Time to leave for bridge. Hope I can hold my cards politely. Forgot to say that the finger currently splinted in gauze to avoid bending it is my middle finger.

 

[SageHill]

OH OH OH --- put that pressure canner on your Texas House Warming Gift they should all get you. You will love it. I've got the Presto one and it is amazing. Small batch sort of stuff but definitely worth it.

 

[Ridgetop]

Terrible cards with my partner. DH and his partner made 2 grand slams but did not bid them. They held all the cards all day. However, it was nice to get out and play.

Came home and changed dressing on my stitches. There was some swelling and discoloration from blood pooling so releasing the dressing helped that. Finger hurts! More because I am not bending it, so it is stiffening up. Anyway, after changing the dressing I put on my tight disposable poly glove (the ones I use for painting and vet chores) and cut the pork into chunks for the jars. I got 7 quarts of pork. I added a bay leaf, celery stick, and carrot to the jars and then filled them with the broth I made boiling the pork leg bones. I had added onions to the broth so no need to add to the jars. Besides by that time my hand was hurting and I didn't want to chop anything else. The jars went into the pressure canner. Now the hardest part. Sitting next to the stove watching the pressure dial for 90 minutes. Let me repeat - 1- and one-half hours of mind-numbing attention to the dial. I did empty the dishwasher, load it again, cook dinner, and fold a load of laundry during the pressure dial watch but couldn't leave the vicinity of the stove. While sitting on a hard kitchen chair at my watch post by the canner I remembered why I preferred freezing meat.

DH wondered why I was sitting next to the stove and when I explained that I couldn't let the pressure drop below the magic number or I would have to start the process all over again, surprised me by telling me to buy the electric canner.

With the electric canner I can thaw the dozens of frozen meat spaghetti sauce, curried chicken, and pork verde packages and get them into jars without having to spend my life chained to the stove. However, I have to check the number of quart jars I still have in the shed since I took most of them to Texas! LOL I may need to bring several boxes of jars back to CA. I have over 200 quart jars so don't want to buy any more. Already had to have DS1 buy some lids and rings at Walmart since most of them are in Texas too. LOL Anyway, the canner is cooling down now and tomorrow I will process the remainder of the broth. It only needs 20 minutes since I will do it in pints so not as big a loss to my life. Personally, I rarely need broth to cook with and powdered chicken bouillon works fine but waste not, want not. On the other hand, I can also use it for the dog. They are getting the pork fat trimmings today and tomorrow. After I threw the hide away, I wondered if I could have dried it like jerky for the dogs but too late. Probably not since there was a lot of fat on it and I am too lazy to want to try doing that sort of thing anymore.
Got the bid on trucking the animals back to Texas. SIT DOWN EVERYONE! $8,520.00 Buying a larger trailer is beginning to look more affordable.

 

[Ridgetop]

DH came in this am after feeding the sheep with a new progress report on Ozel. When released from the night pen the sheep run to the hay that DH spreads outside their pen. Ozel will chase the sheep as they run away from her. This causes them to run more. She doesn't want them to run since she thinks that there is a problem and she runs after them faster trying to get to wherever they are going first to check for danger. This makes them speed up - a vicious cycle and very confusing for a young dog. Ozel doesn't bite at them, and if they stop she stops too and waits for them to return to the flock. First DH would put her on a lead and tie her to the corral. However, half the time he forgot the lead. She has gotten much better about not running when they run. She only runs after them in the morning when they are released and make a break for the wide open spaces from the night pen. Angel has decided to stop Ozel's behavior. This am DH came in to say that when he released Ozel and she showed a desire to run after the sheep Angel jumped on her and started playing with her. Then she would stop and if Ozel tried to run at the sheep Angel would growl and start playing with her again. This playing behavior to distract Ozel from bad behavior is similar to what a young LGD would do to distract a larger predator (neighborhood dogs). I saw it myself with our first LGD. He was about 5 months old when a much larger dog approached the flock. He ran ut to play with the intruding dog. When he got it to a safe distance from the flock our LGD sat down and watched the intruder. He remained between the sheep and the intruder at all times. When the dog approached again he played again, luring the intruding dog to a further distance. He kept this up for about 20minutes. Finally, the intruding dog lost interest and wandered away. When he grew up he no longer bothered with this play behavior, just went out and challenged any dog or predator.
DH says Angel has decided that she will take over training Ozel. Guess Angel decided that we were too incompetent, and she would show us how it was done. DS1 said that he had seen the same distracting behavior by Rika when Ozel wanted to run after any fast moving sheep at any other time. Our poor LGDs have to do all the training for us.

 

[Baymule]

Pay the hauler, sheep arrive, money is gone.
Buy a trailer, the sheep arrive, AND you have a trailer!

I love watching Sheba play fighting with Buford. If he annoys me too much, she bites his head, growling. She bites his legs, knocks him down, growling the whole time. Sentry is so glad he’s not getting beat up any more!