Of birds and sausages

 It’s been cold. Yesterday morning was -5°. The girls are not really inclined to leave the coop, even for scratch grains. They’ve been eating a lot too. Normally four scoops of feed will do them for the day, but I’ve had to go up to six or eight. It takes energy to stay warm.

The wild birds are eating a lot too. Also, they look twice their normal size with their feathers all fluffed to increase their R-value. It’s mostly the same crowd. Not-gold goldfinches (not pictured), juncos, and house finches. The ground-feeders depend on the goldfinches, who obligingly fling all the sunflowers to the ground. Well, not all. They probably eat one for every 10 they drop. They are fussy.

I have never seen a junco on the feeder. They stay on the ground, scratching and pecking. I think they're cute.

Cute little junco. I bet its tiny feet are cold.

The house finches seem redder than usual this year. I thought maybe they were purple finches, but a quick check of the bird book disproved that hypothesis. Purple finches have much more red on their bodies.

Red head of a house finch (the drab ones are girls)

I have noticed for the first time this winter that the house finches have red rumps. Once I saw it, it was hard to believe I had missed it before. It’s pretty obvious, even when they are just sitting if they separate their wings at all. I’m putting in this photo because it is dramatic.

House finch's red rump

I have often seen American tree sparrows during the winter. They have a distinctive dark spot on their breast.

Classic dark breast spot of the American tree sparrow

This sparrow puzzled me. It does not have a dark spot on its breast but does have a white patch under its chin. My best guess is a white-crowned sparrow. We are a bit north of its normal winter range, but with climate change, all bets are off. All ranges are creeping northward.

Putative white crowned sparrow

My favorite winter birds (although they are here year-round) are the cardinals. Their bright red looks so beautiful on the white snow. We often see the male during the day.

Cardinal on white snow

The female typically shows up just in the morning and the evening. She’s shy.

Cardinal pair in the early morning

Friday was Charcuterie Day. I bought four pork butts (which are really shoulders, go figure) when they were on sale many months ago. Terry feel that it isn’t worth getting the equipment dirty unless you are going to make a year’s worth of sausage. I started by defrosting the butts for several days in the refrigerator. Thursday afternoon, I boned and sliced the meat, cursing the irregular shape of the shoulder blade all the way. I then returned the meat to the refrigerator to chill overnight.

Meat chilling

Having the meat really cold is key to grinding. If it isn’t really cold, it gums up the grinder. Terry put a table on the patio early in the morning, when it was a balmy -2°F, at put the bowls of meat on it to get stiff.

And then we ground it up.

Grinding the meat. My job was to rotate and change the bowls

While Terry cleaned the grinder, I did the mise en place  for the sausages. My recipes are for 3.5-pound aliquots of ground meat. It’s easier to evenly mix small batches of meat, so I am never tempted to scale up. I figured we’d have at least 7 batches. We eat more Italian sausage than bratwurst, and more bratwurst than chorizo. It’s like a story problem! I prepped spices for 4 batches of Italian, 2 of bratwurst, and 1 of chorizo.

Mise en place: top, chorizo; middle, 4 bowls for Italian; bottom, 2 bowls for brats

I weighed the ground meat and mixed accordingly. The wine you see in the picture is for the sausage! Swear to God! When Hilda was around, we usually did have wine while we worked, but this year we started much too early in the day. This was more of a work day than a party. Times change.

Weighing and mixing

Terry got the stuffer set up and threaded the casing on the tube.

Threading casing on the stuffer tube

I cranked the stuffer while Terry guided the casing and twisted the sausage into links. He make the links long this year because it seemed to him that the casings were narrower. I wasn’t so sure, but there’s nothing wrong with leftover sausage.

When all the sausage was stuffed, I wrapped it and spread it flat for quick freezing. Ultimately, I put the links in a couple of giant plastic bags for long-term storage.

Giant links of sausage in pack of 2 or 3 for freezing

I fried up two links of Italian to have with baked tomato pasta sauce and spaghetti for supper. It’s good to have sausage on hand again.

Supper!