Not Enough Hours

Thursday, 25 September I’m feeling really tired at the moment and a little strung out. There’s so much to do and I can’t seem to find the time. My short-term memory is absolutely shot and has been for some time. Despite writing ‘To Do’ lists I frequently leave things off because I forget what needs to be done. I’m not sure what to do gain some control back over my life other than find more hours in my day. The scary thing is I don’t even have kids. How the hell do parents cope? One of our big projects for spring is resowing pasture. We started with paddocks thigh high in kikuyu and Parsley Dropwort, we now have paddocks that have a lot less kikuyu. Grazing has kept it from taking over but now the weeds have begun to flourish. Add to that our pig ploughs and our paddocks are also covered in wonderful shallow, bare earth trenches. The pigs have done exactly what we couldn’t get machinery to do. Now we just have to start spreading grass seed everywhere. We’ve bought a sack of clover and rye and a large bag of herb seeds to mix in. Without the ability to prepare the earth mechanically we have decided to spread the seed above ground by hand and then sprinkle untreated sawdust and used coffee grounds on top to deter pests and stop the seed blowing away. Not that we know if it will work, it’s my crazy idea but it’s about the only one we’ve got. I guess we’ll know in a couple of months time. Meat Lovers Paradise Our 3 freezers plus one of Frank’s are currently overflowing with our beef and pork. We’ve dispersed much of it already but we need to move some more. While Aaron is enjoying the big meaty dinners I’m going into a bit of meat overload at the moment. I’m used to having 3 or 4 vegetarian dishes a week but that’s all changed. With such a crap winter in New Zealand vegetable prices have sky rocketed and are now something of a luxury. Meat on the other hand is in abundance for us. I seriously need to add some new meat recipes to my repertoire. We’ve also taken the leap into sausage and salami making. Matt and Jo and respective partners came up for the weekend and we put them to work grinding meat and stuffing casings. We’re doing the same to Paul and Nicky next weekend. In total we ended up with 8 salamis and numerous sausages. It was hard work. The sausages were semi successful in terms of flavour and texture. The recipes need some adjustment. The pork, leek and cider sausages have a beautiful flavour but are too meaty for my liking. The salamis on the other hand, well, they’re hanging in the carport slowly drying and shrinking. We hope to be able to try them in the first or second week of November. Considering all we have is 1 book of recipes and a new George Foreman sausage making machine I think we did pretty well. Bron was an absolute trooper and slogged her guts out with me the first weekend. One would assume a sausage grinding machine would be good at grinding meat but it took 24 hours to discover that George Foreman had sold us a machine with a blunt blade. After sharpening the blade on my steel, things improved but by the following weekend the blade declared itself well and truly blunt and had me close to losing the plot over its uselessness. In the end I resorted to grinding the meat in the kitchen whiz. Hallelujah! While it’s hard to control the consistency of the grind, a 3 hour job suddenly became a 15 minute job. Still, one thing the GF machine does do well is stuff sausages and salamis, so it wasn’t money completely wasted. As for the blade, well, I know it’ll stuff the warranty but I think I might try sharpening it with the angle grinder. For Aaron and myself it’s the salamis we’re pinning our hopes on. They’re easy to make and we have a lot of friends and family keen to try them. With any luck it will be a great way to earn a little pocket money. The hardest thing of course is waiting the 6-12 week drying period to see if they’re any good. Which is rather frustrating when we’re trying each recipe for the first time. It could be years before we perfect the recipes!