Productive day today.  I tilled the garden, including burying shrimp shells and stripped bones left over from stock.  Watching the ground steam was a trip and a half.  Dumped ashes on top.  Greg mucked out the shed and reloaded it.  Even with two applications of sunscreen and a hat, my face still wound up red.

We rearranged the rabbit hutches and I nailed backing onto them (feed bags and a vinyl-backed tablecloth) to keep the rabbit urine from eating into, oh, the side of the house.  Scooped up all the rabbit poo from under the hutch and pitched it into the compost.  Discovered 3-4 baby wasps' nests in the new hutch; promptly cleaned those out.  Moved the butchering station to the back of the house near the hose outlet.

Discovered that the old turkey pen had become OMG Lord of the Flies. o.O  Seriously.  That shit was gnarly as all hell.  Decided that we need to get out the flamethrower and bake the fuckers out.  That will have to wait for another day, though.  In airing out the turkey coops (which, sadly, had not been cleaned since their last inhabitants), I discovered . . . a bucket of feathers, guts, and blood.  From Thanksgiving, when the last three turkeys met their match.  *sigh*  I remember telling Uncle Mark to just chuck the bucket into the coop and we'd deal with it later.  Y'know, after it froze.  Well, it froze.  And then unfroze.  I have no idea how much of the fly issue is due to rancid turkey entrails and how much is due to rancid turkey excrement. *hangs head*  I did give the contents of the blood bucket a good burial and rinsing, though.

Since we started up the fire pit with the first bonfire of the season, we decided to invite several people over for dinner.  About half bailed, meaning that we wound up with the boys:  Pete, Kevin, and Casey.  The latter two had been trimming horse hooves all day and Casey had been checking on whether or not two of his mares had caught.  One of his gloves broke during the process.

For what it's worth, you do not test a mare's fertility by going in vaginally.  Nope, it's back-door rectal lovin' all the way, baby!  Casey brings up this topic of conversation as we're sitting around the bonfire at dinner, then proceeds to smell his hand.  There was also a significant amount of gas passed, and I was the recipient of some serious reverb. *facepalm*

But hey!  This wasn't just dinner--it was dinner and a SHOW.  Utilizing the bed of Kevin and Casey's pickup, we chucked the rabbits in the back and watched 'em fuck.  Errr . . . "breed," that is.  Casey had mentioned earlier that in his 4-H childhood he had bred rabbits; without knowing the ins and outs (so to speak) of reproduction, he noted that rabbits breeding smelled like French toast.

Yeah, I know.

There were plenty of jokes made about French toast, getting pregnant from sex in the back seat, and much cheering on of the rabbits.  The male (Thutmose) is perhaps a bit dense, as he kept aiming for Hatasu's head, or side, or back, or anywhere that wouldn't do any good.  He did successfully nail his daughter, the younger rabbit, two or three times.

Finally, at the end of the rabbit lovin', Thutmose curled up next to Hatasu and flopped down. (There were jokes made there, too, but Pete did point out that the rabbit had come something like seven times in the last twelve minutes, so we gave him a break.)  I climbed into the back of the truck to fetch out the rabbits and wound up with a damp wrist for my troubles.  Casey sniffed it in order to discern whether or not it truly smelled of French toast. (The answer, for those of you breathlessly awaiting, was No.)

We rounded out the night back in front of the bonfire again.  Greg tossed a few remnants of snow on top to tamp it out, and we all went our separate ways.  I sent leftovers home with Kevin and Casey, gave Pete's greyhound a farewell ear-tousle, and cleaned up from dinner.

A good beginning to spring, methinks. :)

I've read that when rendering fat, you can add baking soda to the water/fat mix to get rid of the smell if it's gone rancid.  Having had a jar of baking grease that had done just that, I decided to try it.

Unfortunately, nothing has been said about not adding the baking soda while everything is boiling.

Oh well.  Guess it was time to clean the cooktop anyway.  *facepalm*

Yesterday and today have been filled with cooking in preparation for Greg's upcoming birthday (this Friday; he'll be 37).  There's been some laundry and ad-hoc cleaning in there, too, but accomplishments (mostly yesterday's) have included:

- cut up and roasted veggies for polenta
- roasted & mashed butternut squash for a) souffle and b) Peabody
- roasted peppers for soup
- made a vegetarian white lasagna with Greg's homemade alfredo sauce (which is unbelievably good, especially when one takes into account the fact that he can't taste it)
- a couple of loads of laundry (time to put some more in and fold the stuff on the line)
- defrosted whey and have started simmering it down for gjetost
- packed the sauerkraut to let it continue to ferment

The soup (and stock) has gotten a little derailed by me cleaning the everloving bejeezus out of the cooktop--or, at least, trying to.  Note to self:  when making baking soda soft scrub, dishwashing soap completely pales in comparison to Dr. Bronner's.

Oh, crap.  That reminds me--I zapped some lemon slices in water in the microwave to soften all the gunk up, preparatory to cleaning it.  Then, of course, I wound up getting distracted (by the neurotic greyhound staying with us for a few days) and totally forgot about it.  *sigh*  Back to zapping, methinks.