It is time of our annual little "having a pig" tradition for the boys in ringing in some good luck on New Year's day by giving them a little marzipan pig to eat.  Luckily there is one shop in town that carries theses that I always snag in December.  It is a german tradition that we like to do for the boys that have plenty of german ancestry in their blood.


Since it is also the Year of the Pig in the Chinese horoscope I also made a little set of seasonal pigs that I listed in the shop.  On each side of these natural poplar wood pigs I wood burnt a seasonal symbol to bring in prosperity and luck all year long.



If you are not too squeamish I thought I would also share some pictures of our ham that we started curing last month.  Unfortunately both our hams that we cured last year went bad so we are hoping for a bit more luck this year!  We heard from some other folks in our area that it was a warmer winter and that can affect the process.





As you can tell it is a process with a generous amount of salt and sugar in the cure that is applied to the ham before it is wrapped up and hung outside in the ham shed to cure until the spring when we then pull it, scrub and clean off the cure and any mold that may have formed before rehanging for aging.  It is a really neat process and I happen to love country ham!




So cheers to all of you on this New Year's Day and let's hope 2019 brings us all a little luck!