Here's one of me with my Uncle Joe. He's my Mom's younger brother and one of my namesakes. My grandfather was named James Joseph, so Mom just switched the names to get mine. As you can see, we have alot in common. I can easily see myself looking just like him in 30 years.
And here's a shot of Auntie's Dee Dee's clan (at least a portion of it, with in-laws). It was great fun hanging with all of them, catching up on old times, and getting drunk along the way. I hope we get many more chances to do this in the future.
Happy Birthday, Auntie Dee Dee. Hope you have many many more to come :-)
The photo isn't a really great one, but you can see the surface rust and lack of japanning (paint). Most of the rust was on the underside (out of view in photo). It will work as-is, provided it has a good burr on the blade, but thought it would be fun to try to bring it back as far as I can. This link shows one in mint condition (go to the middle of the page). I'm not planning to go crazy with the restoration, but it should look good when done.
The bucket had dissolved washing soda in it and the leads from the battery charger were hooked up like the instructions said. It only took ~30 seconds to see bubbles rising from the electrodes. Very cool indeed. The first photo below is what it looked like after 30 minutes. BTW, the scraper is hanging from a wire in the center of the bucket (attached to the negative (black) lead).
And overnight...
And here's the intermediate results after some brief cleanup with a wire brush on a dremel tool. All of the deep pitted rust is gone and the cast iron has a bit of a sheen again. It could use a bit more work before I attempt to apply paint, but it should be finished in no time. I'm looking forward to the Stormville Flea Market again on Memorial Day weekend. I'm no longer afraid of buying ugly, abused, rust covered tools.
Beth & i have the day off, so we're out and about. here's to everyone else who doesn't have to work today. and to those who do!!
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This is what the first recipe looked like when it was placed in the smoker. They call this variety 'Ring Baloney'. Bet you can't guess why...
While the first batch was in the smoker, we worked on the other two batches. The photo below is just a sample of how much was made. In all, we ground and stuffed about 400 lbs of sausages. Seeing the assembly line in action was quite amazing. Let me tell ya, all of it tastes awesome. These guys have the whole process down to a science.
After a full day's worth of sausage-making, we sat around the garage and basically got drunk. That too is part of the tradition, or so I was told. Once everyone woke up the next day, we took a quick trip up the mountain to the place where Matt's Uncle owned a large farm. It's now where they all hunt, as it's ~300 acres of rolling hills and beautiful scenery. I set the camera on black & white as it seemed to fit the surroundings. Here's a few of the best shots I got.
We headed back to Montgomery about noon, totally exhausted and smelling like a couple of guys from a meat-packing plant. I was never more happy to take a shower and get a nap.
