Hello, Hello, Hello!!! We are right here! I haven’t been writing because we are back down to sharing one computer and it’s a bit difficult sometimes to get into the mood. Gnome said,

“…just write something…my mother just needs to know that we are alive and kicking.”

Okay, yes we are alive and well. The usual news is that the brush-mower is giving us nothing but trouble, pain and suffering. The belts keep on breaking and we can never find the perfect replacement for a 50 inch belt…we have all the sizes from 47 to 54 inches and a 50 inch cannot be found in the whole of Punta Gorda. Oh what else…the starter pulley keeps on breaking and there’s more but I won’t bore you with details. We are starting to feel that there is a gremlin living inside the mower that is intent on destroying it…that’s our theory anyway. The other day, Gnome exclaimed:

“…oooooh!!! I can’t believe that my happiness is dependant upon the mower working!! Woe is me!!”

Anyway, he will get over it…well, he will have to!! Let’s move swiftly onto the subject of bangers or sausages. As a relief from the silly mower business, we decided to make sausages. We haven’t done this for a long time…in fact, when I got out the sausage casing out, it was dated 2015! This lot of sausages were made from pork, beef, a bit of goat I found at the bottom of the freezer and shredded coconut. Seasoning included, salt, black pepper, ground bird chilli pepper, dried garlic, ground clove and ground cinnamon. We made 15 lbs of sausage in all and had a lot of fun doing it together. We must remember that this is what it is all about!! Here are some sausage making pictures:

More Sausage Pictures:

With a bit of experimentation, we found that the easier way of making the links was to form a spiral first. You then make single sausages by nipping both ends at once and twisting the whole sausage with one hand.

Ooooh…look at this…our own yummy sausages….

I am making a concerted effort not to fill the freezer full of food…the freezer doesn’t work well when it is stuffed right to the top!! We canned this lot; half were put straight into the jar and the other half were fried in oil first. Both were canned “dry” without broth to retain maximal flavour:

Oh, and the tasting was magnificent!!

Eating sausages sure beats mowing the lawn!! We better go out to work to burn off the calories!!