Of pigs and winter

For the first time, we ordered a half a pig from a local farm, Will-o-witt ranch, up in the hills outside town. Pork is so much tastier than other meat... and boy have I been eager to eat, and make, sausages... lamb and poultry just don't make sausages with that zing. Also my old recipe for vietnamese chao gio... ummm. Alas, we managed to miss butchering day, so much of the useful bits ended up who-knows-where. The butchers are great at letting you have livers and hearts and whatever you like, but you have to be there, they don't bother to save these things otherwise. One part we missed is the feet, and I see lots of recipes for pig's feet, which make me curious. Although chicken feet are supposed to be good for chicken soup and frankly all I have to do is look at a chicken foot and I give up. But it seems a terrible waste to not use the entire pig, that gave it's life for us to eat.

Already we've have had sausage patties, (with fried potatoes and baked squash), and pork chile verde (in burittos with saute'd vegetables and peach salsa). Both came out great... after years of ignoring any recipe that used pork, I've got a new thing to figure out how to use.

We had a whole lot of snow today, the weather is terrible, so I'm staying inside. Jay and Sophie had fun playing outside... I finished the first sock in cascade fixation, which was so fun to knit; it fits very well, which it'd better after knitting one ankle three times, but it's a little rough on the sole. There's just a bit to go on the other sock, so I need to order more yarn; I really liked knitting with this stuff. I can't figure out what is going on with the dark green sweater that got stuck sometime in fall; I need to redo some math and take more notes and maybe do a little reknitting. It also looks like it's going to be huge, I guess that's better than being too small.

The plaid came off the loom on Friday evening. That last towel had more tension problems, the tie-on to the back wasn't very good, so finishing was a real struggle. The results look okay, overall, but I enjoyed earlier projects more than this. Now I'm not sure if I should warp on more towels or start on a rag rug or what. Towels are so much fun to weave, but how many kitchen towels can anyone use?