Festival of Nations, sausage style.

Uwe invited me over to make a winter's supply of sausage. 40# of ground pork, 4 types of seasonings, 10#'s of each. We have: Polish, Italian, German, and Andouille. Bulk pork was divided into 4 parts, seasoning were weighed, and we mixed them together.

Taste tests were in order after mixing. Just to verify the mix was thorough. When I was a kid, and my family made potato sausage (Potatis Korv), my grandmother would test the mix raw. We decided to fry our samples.

All taste tests were met with great enthusiasm, and the stuffing commenced. Now, I have made my fair share of sausage over the last few years, and this was without a doubt the most efficient method. Two guys(who know what they are doing)can easily make more sausage than an entire family.
The stuffing went smooth. Here is the Andouille batch. Looks good, no?

So, the sausage was finished, Uwe vaccum packed the meat, and we were ready to relax. The creamy wild rice soup for lunch was delicious. The fried andoullie sausage and fresh baked baguette made for an impressive lunch, and the boys were all ready for a football game.

Bloomer was playing West Salem to advance to the state tournament. Alas, it was not their day to shine. Turnovers sealed their fate. Dayne had a good time, but Uwe looks a bit tired in this picture. All in all a great day. Gus had a blast all day and fell asleep about 15 minutes into the drive home.

Spruce River Lodge

On Saturday, most members of our deer camp assembled to begin construction on our new "shack". The old shack (no quotes needed) was built in the late 30's by my grandfather and his hunting buddies. Time has not been good to the dwelling. I'll leave it at that, since the feeling of nostalgia is stronger than that of disgust.

Jamyn showed up with his construction trailer, which had enough tools and supplies for 6 men to build 10 houses. We worked in teams engineering the base plates and laying out the exterior walls, cutting studs for the walls, building the walls, and fastening bild-rite and Ty-vek to the walls. All of the teams worked in concert to raise and support the walls once they were raised.

It was a good day for work, the weather cooperated, and the teamwork was fantastic. We were able to put up all 4 exterior walls, set the trusses, and put purlins on half of the trusses. If the rain would have held off on Sunday, we could have started fastening the steel roof.
We won't be able to use the "shack" this deer season, but will definitely use it next season and hopefully another 70 years....Long live the Dingle Creek Boys and the Spruce River Lodge!!!