Hobbies

This week's culinary endeavors will allow me to add more home made charcuterie to my repertoire. There's some pork belly in the fridge being cured in a brine, and it'll be ready to smoke in a few days. A fresh ham is defrosting and will be ready for it's brine in a few days. It's funny to think that 16 years ago, I was a vegetarian for some time. Not anymore!

I'm all about experimenting with meat. Of course we try to get local, humanely raised and slaughtered, free range, grass fed products. Last fall, we purchased a half pig and 1/8 cow, We're almost out of both. I was lucky enough to get the cuts from the pig that allowed me to experiment with delicacies such as head cheese and now the bacon and ham. Due to bartering with a meat man, our deep freezer is stocked to the hilt. Check out the bacon brine about 4 days in.

While I'm experimenting with meat and home made body products, my son is obsessed with photography. He enjoys "playing pictures". In fact, he's taking some now with my Nikon D 40x. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. His paternal grandfather is a photographer, and I'm an amateur photographer myself due to taking photographs daily to add to my tattoo portfolio. Check out some of his handy work from an egg hunt with one of our play groups the other day.

He's awesome, isn't he?!

My husband thinks I'm crazy because he says I do too much. Perhaps this is true, however I enjoy making everything home made as much as possible. This includes cooking, crafting body products, and hobby gardening in the small amount of land at our place. Well add my work - drawing and tattooing to that as well as raising my son, and is that too much? Not for me. Idle hand to the work of the devil so they say. A client suggested that I'm such a control freak that I need to have my hands in everything we use. At least I don't solder my own needles anymore. I don't make my own clothes. He thinks I validated the craziness when I mentioned the other day that I was goign to extract lanolin from sheep's wool. Our egg and meat farmer, Carla from 7th Heaven Farm said that she has an ample amount of wool so I'm interested in breaking it down for use in some Eco Darling products. A girl needs hobbies, right?!