Snow-Chores

There are parts of the roof that need to be emptied of snow (the valleys mostly), otherwise the heat that escapes through the roof will melt some snow and the weight of snow and ice on top of it will push melt-water into the house.

Gaetan sweeping snow off the roof (6.1.2014)

Gaetan sweeping snow off the roof (6.1.2014)

Keeping it simple: Man & machines

We do like to make use of man's modern inventions, like electric meat grinders. But it seems that the durability of so many tools has suffered over the past decades and - in order to keep sales booming - the quality of many items of everyday use has gradually been decreasing.

We found that out - yet again - a few days ago, when we processed moose meat with our two-year old (hardly used) "industrial strength" meat grinder (stainless steel, electric, 1 HP). After about 60 pounds of meat it broke down - the gears had been ground down faster than the meat we were going to process into sausages.

Now, Gaetan is looking into buying a manual meat grinder (cast iron, made 1904). It would fit nicely into our collection: a sausage stuffer (made around 1910) and a Singer sewing machine (made 1914), both of which work reliably, are easy to fix if necessary, and will most likely survive us by generations!

Anya with our Singer hand-crank sewing-machine (November 28, 2013)

Using our manual sausage stuffer (December 16, 2013)