Our First Christmas - Part 2

And now for the long awaited ‘Sausage-making’ Post.

When Tim and I were engaged, I was told that making sausage the weekend after Christmas and/or New Year’s weekend is a tradition for him and it will not be compromised. I agreed and even volunteered to go this year. I think this shocked Tim's family - especially after I showed up and actually helped the entire day! It was a feeling of accomplishment not only physically, but also emotionally. It's like I empowered City Girls everywhere! Anyways, on to the weekend.

We left after work on Friday to drive down to the Ranch – in case you don’t know, it is Tim’s Aunt’s (Marsha) & Uncle’s (John) place. The ranch is in-between Johnson City and Fredericksburg. To view a map, click here. It is absolutely beautiful there! Tim went over Labor Day weekend and got to see it when it was emerald green from all of the rain. I’m sure it was breath-taking. We got there pretty late on Friday night. In fact, all of the women were asleep and all the guys were already drinking beer in the barn. We stayed for a bit, but had to get some sleep for the big day on Saturday. So we made our way over to our weekend get-away cottage…I mean trailer.

Yes, we stayed in a trailer by the rock hole. When the TX Highways Department created 290 (I think), they dug a ton of rock from Marsha’s property, leaving a huge hole that filled with rain…the rock hole. John & Marsha have a trailer out there, and that is where Tim & I stayed. Does it make me a city girl that I had never slept in a trailer until I married Tim?

Saturday we woke up bright and early to get over to the barn for our big day of making sausage. Now when I say ‘barn’ you may be thinking horses & hay & dirt – it’s not like that. It’s more like a huge work shed with tools, a huge cooler, a heater, tables, and sausage-making machinery, among other things. I forgot – there is hay, but it’s on the other side of the barn.


Now, this is how you make venison sausage. First, you kill some deer (in Tim’s case, he shot a big buck and a doe equaling about 40 lbs of venison). Then, you go buy some pork to mix 50/50 with the venison equaling 80 lbs of meat. To create the seasoning, you mix in some salt, pepper, garlic, some cure and some other stuff – it was late Friday when they made the seasoned mixture, so I forget. Mix the seasoning in with the meat after you have cubed it (the meat, that is). Now, you’ll need a big grinder for this next part.

I had a picture of the grinder, but am deciding to leave it out for the sake of Sarah or anyone else that has yet to make up their minds about our home-made sausage.

All of the meat goes through the grinder to mix it real good. Then you mix the ground meat with your hands to mix it even better.

At that point, the meat is transferred to the ‘stuffing station’.



The Wagners use pork intestine as the covering. It’s very thin, but strong. It’s probably a good thing I knew already how good the sausage tastes when it’s done because this is probably the grossest part – and it really isn’t that gross. After getting stuffed into the covering, it is cut & tied with string (Tim & I did that) and placed in the big cooler to be smoked later.



Now, Tim & I had 80 lbs of sausage. But the whole point of the weekend is to help make everyone’s sausage. I think by the time we were done, we had made about 1100 lbs of sausage. I guess this is a good time to introduce everyone that was there, so you can know how it got to be that big. Besides us and John & Marsha, there was Scott & Beth, Barron, Tony & Bubba. All are either family or long-time friends of John & Marsha. Tim’s aunt Ruth also joined us for the weekend and of course all of the kids.

I’m not sure if it was the new grinder, the new stuffer or all of the help, but we finished in record time. The meat smoked overnight and all-day Sunday. This left us with a nice Sunday of doing whatever we wanted!

We woke up Sunday and took a nice walk to Tim’s blind. We tried to find some turkey and scope out the deer, but we didn’t see much. After lunch, Tim promised to take me to Fredericksburg for some shopping. If you’ve never been to Fredericksburg, they have a great main street with tourist shops, antique shops, great food, etc. I had no idea what ‘shopping in Fredericksburg’ actually entailed, it just sounded really fun. I felt SUPER bad once I dragged him out there and realized that in order to even accomplish anything, we would have had to do some power shopping and neither one of us felt like doing that. So after covering a block or two, we went back. As night started to fall, Tim drove me into Johnson City to look at the town lights. The area electric company is based there and they do a magnificent job decorating their campus.

The town itself does a great job, too. Check out the courthouse!

Sunday night is when the fun started. John was a very gracious host and curbed his plans of sitting around a campfire and changed it for me. Or he may have thought his new idea was way better – Office Chair Races. We all headed to the barn for the inaugural Race for the Sausage competition. John created the brackets, the chairs were picked, the track set and the match-ups made…unfortunately, the rules were made along the way but no one is complaining…at least I’m not. It was a double-elimination tournament and through several rounds there were several pushes, fouls, disqualifications, re-dos, bruises, falls, skids, an almost cracked skull, and two clear winners: Kelsey (Scott & Beth’s younger daughter) and Tony. Tony took the Championship after beating Kelsey in back-to-back races. There was a lot of verbal complaining about what ‘double elimination’ actually meant, but I don’t think Kelsey has made a formal grievance to the commissioner. Congratulations, Tony! Inaugural RFTS Champion!

Monday morning, we picked up the sausage from the smoke house to pack up and seal for a year of enjoyment.
Sausage in the Smokehouse





We had to leave earlier than everyone else. My family’s Christmas celebration was New Year’s Day and there was no way I was missing Christmas Breakfast. Tim & I also made reservations at The Grape for New Year’s Eve, so we left right after lunch with our 80 lbs of sausage, bruises on Tim’s knee, sore backs and a score of fun memories.

Oh, does uncomfortably standing next to two dead dear strung up in a cooler make me a city girl? Perhaps...