Sausage making and pinless peepers

The sun came up just as the supermoon was going down on Tuesday morning. It was pretty coming up the night before as well, but I resisted the urge to photograph it over an empty field. I thought it would look better behind the river birch.

The supermoon going down Tuesday morning

Tuesday was sausage making day. The subzero weather continued, and Terry had the idea of putting up a table outside to chill the meat before grinding. Unfortunately, Terry thought I was going to put the meat out even though I had told him I was going to town for a haircut. I’d cut 39.5 pounds of pork off of 5 shoulders and into strips the previous afternoon so it was thoroughly chilled in the refrigerator. Close enough. We put it outside as soon as I got home to chill while I washed my hair and Terry finished puttering in his shop.

Terry hooked up his trusty grinder that was made by a friend of his in Mandan, ND. The guy was known as “Tinker”, and this contraption has a formerly hand-cranked meat grinder hooked to an electric engine with a drive shaft.

Terry grinding sausage

Hilda and I worked on the mis en place for four batches of Italian sausage. The worst part of that process is pulverizing red pepper flakes and fennel in the coffee grinder. Even though I waited several seconds before opening the grinder, I still maced myself every time. We were all sneezing and wiping our eyes and noses at the end of four batches. The pepper/fennel mixture, salt, and pepper went in pinch bowls. While I was macing myself, Hilda measured parmesan cheese into larger bowls. Then we chopped garlic and parsley. The red wine was easy enough to measure as we needed it for each batch.

Hilda chopping garlic

Italian sausage seasonings mis en place

When the meat was all ground and in the extra refrigerator, we started measuring out 3.5 lb aliquots. Hilda and I mixed while Terry got his stuffer going. The stuffer is made of cast iron. I’m sure it’s an antique. He filled the hopper with two batches at a time (“That’s perfect!” he declared) and slowly turned the crank with his left arm while feeding the casing, liberally lubricated with oil, over the sausage mixture.

Terry turns the stuffer with his left arm while guiding the sausage with the right

The finished coil of sausage--Terry twisted into links after all the stuffing was done

After the first four batches of Italian sausage, we made three batches of bratwurst, which was easier because there were no fresh ingredients. The only prep other than measuring was grinding nutmeg. Yes, there are some surprising spices in bratwurst—nutmeg, ginger, dry mustard, and coriander—but it comes out tasting exactly like bratwurst and not at all like cookies (which I normally associate with nutmeg and ginger).

We weighed the remaining ground pork and found we had enough for three more batches plus an extra 14 ounces that I just put in a bag for the freezer. It’s nice to have a little ground pork on hand. Because Hilda and Dad don’t eat many brats, we made three more batches of Italian sausage. More chopping and macing.

At the end of the day, we had 35 pounds of sausage. The last time we made sausage, Terry did not hear me when I told him I’d gotten the pork and bought an additional 30 pounds of it. I can assure you that 35 pounds of sausage is a much more reasonable day’s work than 70. I didn’t think we would ever see then end of that sausage! Plus by the end of the day, as fatigue set in, the links became longer and longer….

We set the packaged links outside to quick chill for an hour until the sun went down. I then moved them to the freezer. And that’s that for this year.

Sausage packed for the freezer quick chilling in subzero temperatures on the patio

In other news, the pinless peepers and the associated SNAP plier tool (according to Murray McMurray, the supplier, “The pinless peeper MUST BE installed with the SNAP plier tool.”) arrived Thursday. The idea is to block the chicken’s view to the front, which is supposed to keep it from pecking at other chickens. They can still see to the side and below, so it does not interfere with feeding. We hoped.

I was up early Friday morning researching how to use them. It seemed that only the offending hens needed to have them. Whew. I wasn’t looking forward to doing all 12 chickens. There was consensus that the peepers would fall off after a few months. Some said the hens would, in that time, be broken of pecking. Others said they would quickly revert to their evil ways and the only way to cure it was the stew pot. I am guessing it depends on the breed.  The smart alecks glue googly eyes to the front of the blinders. Search “pinless peepers” on Google Images if you want to see pictures.

I figured out how to use the SNAP plier tool to separate the two prongs of the pinless peeper. Now I just had to find the nares (nostril holes in the beak) on the chicken.

Hilda held the chickens while I did the installation. I mentioned last week that I had seen Juanita in the act of harassing other chickens, so she was first.

Juanita sports her pinless peepers

We did the other two Black Stars as well, since behaviors seem to be strongly associated with breed and they didn’t seem to have any bald spots. We also did the one Americauna who still looked good. It is a strong indicator of guilt—in the chicken world, it is peck or be pecked. The peepers did not interfere with eating scratch grains. 

Juanita stepped right up to the scratch grains

The Americauna was pecking around the water dripper. I was confident she would figure it out, but it would be nice to see it for sure.

Two other hens adjusting to the peepers

Juanita had thrown off her peeper by this morning. I wasn’t surprised, since she was the first one. I got better with practice, and the reinstallation went smoothly. Hopefully she’ll still have it on tomorrow.