Down to two links of dried sauasage and making tomorrow. 130 pounds of clean, cubed deer meat is almost thawed out and I will cut up 90 pounds of pork this day. Got five sets of casings, salt, red pepper, coarse black pepper and Monocure yesterday. Already have plenty of garlic. Jake & Montag are gonna help Darwinnie and I. In two weeks, my little cache wil be replenished. Cannot wait for that first patty out of the grinder.

Sounds like fun!

We had hamburgers last night with a little left over pan sausage they were great but it is always better fresh out of the grinder.

Took about 3 hours to cut up the pork and drain blood from bags holding the venison. Will get to going shortly.

Started at 8 and all done at 3. Got out 300 links. Only 200 are mine. I’ll have to make do.

You da man. Old age has put a dampener on my sausage making.

I love completing this circle and the finished product is well respected & admired but, it is more work than most on here who gritch about the cost of having their sausage made realize. There are 38 verifiable man nours so far and that does not include Darwinnie's time that it took to cut up his two or three does and the Boston Butts he used. The majority of the man hours were the four of us yesterday, when we mixed, seasoned, grinded, stuffed and hung it all up. One more person sure would've come in handy but, last year we did it with three.

On this day, I'll spend a little time vacuum sealing the breakast sausage into eight ounce portions and that won't take long. The dehumidier and the A/C'd smokehouse are doing all the "work" now. In 11-13 days, I'll get a call and will head out Purgatory to load ice chests with the links. Will return home and immediately seal two per package and freeze it. The good part is I will get to relish it all year long.

It’s a labor of love like tamale making. I love food

Do you mind giving some details and/or pictures of the smokehouse, please? I’ve been wanting to build one out back (from the looks of it, much smaller than what you have) but haven’t landed on a design or materials.

Pictured is the back end of a Morgan buillding. Insulated and electrified, it has a window A/C unit, dehumdifier and the smallest Lil Smokey you can find.