Papa's Big Heart

Good Day All,

"I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may find myself.  For I have also learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances."  Martha Washington

We're managing the whole Self Isolation thing quite well.  It really isn't a far departure from our normal day to day out here.  The only real difference now is, instead of deciding which of us two should go to town this week, we don't have to consider that for the foreseeable future.  It was usually a discussion that went something like this:  "You go."  "No, I went last week.  You go."  "We really should go, we need (insert item here)."  "If it's that important to you, then you go get it."  Yup.  We really are that exciting!

A few days ago, Papa told me that he wanted to make a wooden heart to hang on the fence as a Thank You to all those working on the front lines and to send a message of love for all to see.  I thought, what was a wonderful idea!  So, off he went to his workshop .  Imagine my complete and utter surprise when I he showed me his heart!  It is huge!  I was thinking maybe something like 2 feet by 2 feet.  Kind of like the fence critters he makes and hangs up on our property.  This heart was nothing like any of those!  He used 2 sheets of 1/2" plywood.  He cut out 2 half hearts, that he proceeded to paint red. 

Half of the heart to be mounted. This is 1 sheet of 4 x 8 feet of 1/2" plywood.
He made 2 of these to make a full heart.

And when he said "fence", I had assumed that he meant Our Rail Fence - again, I had a critter thing on the brain.  Nope.  He meant the posts he had put on the neighbor's property that borders Hiway 2.  The place where we had the sign up for the quilt shop many years ago. 

After getting permission from the neighbor to access the property, he now needed to scope out a plan on how to get it out there.  After all, it is still very much winter here in Central Alberta and the snow in the pasture is potentially still very deep. 

So with a sleigh loaded up with 2 x 6's to support his Huge Heart, a ladder, tools and the two, 4' x 8' half heart shapes, we headed out.  His plan was to pull the sleigh up the 45 degree berm, then go along the back of the property, through a gate and out to the posts at the end of the property, next to the hiway .  This sounds really simple, when you say it fast. 

Two half hearts, sitting on a ladder, on top of other assembly items
 required to make the big journey.

It took the two of us old people everything we had, to pull this sleigh up the 45 degree snow covered angle to get to the top of the property.  Okay, that was interesting, but we did it.  Now to traverse the back of the property - through 2 feet of snow that randomly punches through the hard crust, sending a bit of a jolt through the old body.  He took the high road.  I took a lower pathway, along the tree line, where the snow was considerably less punchy. 

Then came the gate.  It was completely snowed through and frozen into place.  With no hope of digging it out or opening it, we picked up the loaded sleigh, while standing on the hard packed snow - hoping it wouldn't break crust - and loaded it over the gate.  He then climbs over and motions to me to do the same.  This Rolly Poly being does Not climb over gates.  I am build for ground travel.  That's how I roll. Low and Slow.  On the ground.  Not Over Fences.  He pulls the sleigh out of the way and tells me that I can do it.  I guess, I've come this far.  Over I go.  That's a first for me.  And now through the pasture, breaking through the snow crust until we get to our final destination.  Putting up the heart was the easy part.  Lots of honks as we hung it up, to send his love out for all to see.  Geez, I love this guy.   

Papa pulling the loaded sleigh to its final destination

Installing Papa's Big Heart

Yours Truly photo for prosperity.  
I still can't believe how big this thing is!
Gotta Love him!

And so, Papa's Big Heart has been installed, for all the world to see.  Sending Much Love!

Later that day - we don't do anything exciting for three weeks, then we have several exciting adventures all on the same day!  Anyways, we had ordered a pig for our freezer, sometime last fall.  As it happens, it was processed and ready for pick up on this same day.  

We also decided that since we were going out anyway, we may as well make an outing of it and head over to the Pik-n-Pak, a Fresh Veggie Store, at Gull Lake.  And since we were going that far, we may as well continue the extra distance and drop off some fresh veggies to our kids and save them a trip out.  We also packed along a few extras from our freezer and pantry to round out the deliveries.  

Sign at the Pik-N-Pak at Gull Lake 

Since this is only about 20 minutes from our home, this is about as local grown as we could ever get, when our own greenhouse isn't in operation in the winter.

I had made the grand buddies each an Easter gift that we decided to deliver as well, since we won't be getting together any time soon.  And we missed giving our daughter her birthday present, also due to the pandemic.  So loaded we were and off to make some front step deliveries.  How Exciting!  It was such a clear, sunny day.  The outing did us both a world of good.  

A Hand Knit Cable Pillow for each of our Grand Buddies as an Easter Gift.
We also included chocolate Eggs in each gift bag, of course!

After the front step deliveries of the care packages, we came home to two huge roasters of pork fat.  This we were needing to render down to lard.  It was mid afternoon and probably could have waited until the next day, but Papa wanted to get it done.  And so, we did.  

One counter top roaster of pig fat, ready to be rendered

And another Large roaster full destined for the oven

We set the temperatures to 250 degrees F to get the fat heated up and melting.  The trick to this process is to Not Cook it.  You want to Melt it.  No browning of the fat or your finished product will have a taste to it.  The goal is to melt, strain and let harden.

Melted, liquid fat poured through a double layer of cheese cloth,
inside a double meshed, metal strainer

Any impurities and chunks are captured in the cheese cloth. 
When the cheese cloth gets full, I dump the catchings into a large freezer bag.
This is saved for the chickens and wild birds.
They go absolutely Crazy for this!  Pure and Simple.

We ended up with two large roasters of rendered lard. 
The first pan is the first one poured and it already setting up.
The further back, black roaster, is the second pan full.

At the end of the evening - probably 6 hours +/- from when we started the process - we ended up with two roasters full of pure lard.  No hydrogenation.  No preservatives.  Nothing but Pure Lard.  From here, we let them cool and set up on the counter over night.  The next morning, they were popped into the freezer for an hour, so they would shrink and pop right out of their pans.  This would be cut up into usable portions and packed away in parchment lined boxes, for easy use when needed.  

Chilled Lard dumped out, ready to be cut into 250 gm portions (1 cup)

And packed into a used meat box, to be stored into the freezer.

And what does one do with Pure Lard?  Lots!  You can use it for cooking, baking, sauteing, really any place you would use butter or another solid fat.  It makes for incredibly flaky pie crusts.  A great fat for popping popcorn and cooking fried potatoes in.  You can also use it in soap making and the list goes on.  And what was Papa's first request after cutting up and boxing all this lard?  Can you bake a pie, please?  What a guy!

And now, into the Studio!  With all of this uninterrupted time we have had recently, I have been getting an amazing amount of quilting done!  After I finished the blue quilt last week, I have since quilted another top that had been sitting in my "to be quilted one day" pile.  

This one is a Double Diamond Rail Fence made from a line of fabric by Moda, called Lilies of the Field, designed by Jan Patek.  I brought this line into the shop several years ago, specifically to make a Lily themed quilt for Papa.  He grows 100's if not 1000's of lilies on our property at No Regrets Ranch.  How could I not make a lily themed quilt?  I have called it Papa's Lilies and it is big enough to be our summer quilt for our queen sized bed.  The top and backing are 100% cotton and the batting is 100% wool.  He was very pleased with the end result.  I am too.   

Papa's Lilies is Queen Sized and destined to be our Summer quilt

And from the left over rail fence blocks, I found some brick red in my scrap bin.  Along with the left over cut offs from the big quilt, I managed to get another 40' x 50" lap quilt for my charity box.  This gets me up to 5 now, I think? 

Another Pieceful Charity Quilt to add to my collection

And with that, this brings me to the end of this week's blog entry.

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."  Abraham Lincoln

Until next time. 

Keep Staying Safe,

Gremlynn