Ever made 60 pounds of sausage?

Yeah, I hadn't either, not until yesterday. I'd been in the house when such projects were being undertaken, but one of the things about being gone for 18 years was missing sausage day. But just take five Colemans, 60 pounds of pork shoulder butt ($1.45 a pound, I believe), a bunch of spices, some ancient equipment and sausage, and voila, six hours later, you have authentic Italian sausage.

And sore shoulders. Not the pig's.

It started with cutting up pork, 10 pounds at a time, trimming the fat and cutting the meat into pieces small enough to fit into the grinder. (Neil demonstrates, above.)

The pork gets ground into chunks. Not exactly ground beef, mind you, but small enough to fit into the sausage casing, of course. I did a lot of the grinding and was more or less cutting pork the rest of the time, so I don't have pictures of that grinding process.

The ground pork is mixed with the spices, which you can see Mom doing in the sink. The spices were measured out and chopped up in the blender, then mixed by hand. With one batch, we got to the bottom of the bowl and saw a lot of spices at the bottom, which prompted us to pull as much pork as we could back out of the packing mechanism and respice it.

If you get that batch, lucky you, very hot.

Very important: Each of the batches must have a small part grilled up and tested for proper spiciness. As a teenager, that was my favorite part of the process, and about the only part I participated in.

The grinder attachment is then removed and a funnel attached. The sausage casing is ... let's say threaded onto the end of the funnel, using a technique that you might be familiar with if you took health class in a public school, and pushed out into the casing.

It's then parceled out into one-pound increments, wrapped in plastic wrap, then foil, and sent to the freezer, where it sits for anywhere from weeks to months to years before being consumed.

Let's be honest, that's a lot of pork, and nobody needs that much fat, right? Each of the kids got four pounds to take home, and since none of us has anyone else to share them with, it should last for a while.

Plus, it'll only get spicier the longer it stays in the freezer.

Oh yeah, and then Neil cooked dinner. But he'll do his own PR. He doesn't need my help.

Where were the kids through all this? Blissfully ignorant and entertained: Nanny sent Legos, 40 various people with their attachments, from rakes to ray guns. Hours upon hours upon hours of fun.