3rd December - Hang'em High

[picture coming soon]

The air dried hams have finished their 15 days packed in salt. After shooting on Saturday C and I dug them out, rinsed them and gave them a good coating of vinegar before triple wrapping them in muslin. A stainless steel skewer inserted through the thickest part of each ham to the bone came out clean and scentless - a great relief as both of us were preparing for the disappointment of one or both of them having gone bad. Using a boned leg makes problems less likely, but being extremely busy at the time we gambled, used two whole legs and seem to have got away with it. The next stage is to hang them high in the draughty shed by Square Wood, where according to instructions they should dry and reach maturity in four to eight months.

There is something horribly conventional about having a quiet Sunday, getting up late and pottering in the garden. Usually days of the week and sadly often days of the month have little bearing on our lives but with me working as well as Em, this weekend really felt like a weekend. I didn't fight the convention too hard and it was bliss to lie in till the slothful hour of 8 AM, the latest I've been in bed for many months. When I did eventually get up I was surprised to see two Roe deer walking up the hedgerow opposite the cottage. I have never seen deer in that field before and had the freezers not been so full with meat I would have been running for my rifle. On closer inspection through the binoculars they turned out to be a pair of bucks one old, his white rump stained to a dirty ivory, the other a young animal just in velvet. The second would have made good eating I'm sure but Em was quite categoric when she said shooting it would be a bad idea!

Dinner

Steak and ale pie with mashed potato and steamed cabbage. With the division of labour which has evolved around making pies, the prospect of producing one is no longer as daunting as it once was. Em makes the pastry whilst I put together the filling and within half an hour of starting the finished pie is cooking in the Rayburn. This evening's effort was delicious and I had managed to incorporate the correct amount of flour and ale to result in a rich thick gravy which coated the generous chunks of beef.