New Address

If you were following my blog via www.soxophoneplayer.com you would be automatically directed to my new location at www.meafordwool.com

But if you've been using the soxophoneplayer.blogspot url you wouldn't be getting that redirect. Oops. Sorry!

Hope to see you over there...

Please set your bookmark to https://www.meafordwool.com and you'll see my blog is now a tab in my farm shop. (www.soxophoneplayer.com will still take you there for the next while as well but will cancel that re-direct in a few months or so.)

moving (again)

I'll be relocating my blog host (again) soon.

I originally started in blogspot, then left for Wordpress when I found blogspot problematic. After a happy time on Wordpress there came big changes to Flickr, where my photos were saved. Flickr changed there display page so that very large photos came up on my account page - and since they ALL came up when I opened the page it took a VERY LONG TIME to work with a picture because of the slowness of my country-high-speed.

Now I'm getting disgruntled with blogspot again - it seems google might be letting it die a slow death on its own. And they are migrating their photo storage with instructions that I am unable to follow with any success.

So, I'm going back to Wordpress, but this time I'll be hosting it and my photos on my own server where my farm shop is located.

The timing is right for this move as I'm just finishing up a rebuild of the farm store to upgrade the software to newest high compliance standards.

When I'm done I'll re-direct this url directly there, so if you have me bookmarked you won't have to change everything. (Just don't be surprised that the page looks different!)

I hope to see you there...

tick tick

It's really hard to believe lambing is supposed to begin in less than two weeks.

Argh!

Noro Taiyo S10B

In a fit of flagellation I wound up (untangled) a ball of Noro Taiyo, in colour S10B, from stash.

50% Cotton 17% Wool 17& Nylon 16% Silk

Size Medium, knit with the 72 cylinder and 36 ribber on the Verdun 47.

I don't mind wrestling with the devil, as long as I win...

Dropped Rib Stitch Tip

Here's a small tip that may explain the 'mystery dropped rib stitch' that you discover when you remove the ribber.

When transferring stitches to or from the ribber needles, you have to stop after you do x number of transfers and advance your yarn carrier before you can continue.

I find it can make a big difference exactly where you stop the yarn carrier with each move.

The red arrow above shows, where I stopped the yarn carrier re the position of the latch on the last rib needle that prepared to knit. If I happen to bump the handle of my crank while fussing about with the subsequent stitch transfers is it very easy for the yarn to slip out of that rib needle by the red arrow, and the latch drop to boot. Then when the yarn carrier is advanced, that stitch will drop.

Much safer - is to always stop the yarn carrier so that the last rib stitch engaged has the latch fully closed and the yarn well under the following cylinder needle.

Between my general klutziness and outdated tri-focals, bumping the crank handle is fairly common for me. By paying routine attention to where I stop the yarn carrier with the ribber on I save myself a lot of grief.

Easter Saturday

The moon sets (in the trees) as the sun rises on this crisp morning. Bella, Bess, and Bonnie waiting patiently for breakfast.

FUNYM?

It seems the small butchers have been run out of the smoking/curing business by new regulations. Of course those regs seem to be written by the big packers with the intent to run the little guys out of business.

In any event, when I got my two pigs butchered I couldn't get back any cured hams.

Maybe a blessing in disguise.

This uncured pork roast from the hind leg weights just under 5 lbs. Its in a freezer bag with a mixture of water, brown sugar and curing salt. I put this in the fridge for 48 hours, and turned the bag every time I walked past the fridge.

Then I made a dry rub with pepper, garlic, cumin, fennel, chili powder, coriander, allspice and some more curing salt - and rubbed this into all sides of the roast and put it back in the fridge for another two days.

For a final treatment, I mixed a glaze with Jack Daniels, honey, and black pepper and smeared this on just before putting on the smoker with charcoal and hickory chips.

I smoked it real slow - just over 200 deg F - until it reached 155 deg internal temperature - then let it rest for about 10 minutes to finish cooking up to 160 deg on its own. It took about 6 hours, but it was -5 deg C outside - I expect it might have cooked faster if it had been warmer out.

This was my first ever curing/smoking meat and it was SOOOOO good, I can't believe it.


SVFM!