Hillbilly Ingenuity: Replacement Parts

Well, it's that time of year again. Many of our friends have "bagged their limit" of deer, and those deer need processing. Since we're the only game in town when it comes to a large smokehouse, we became very popular just before Christmas. Friends and their families came by, some with bag after bag of chopped up venison, ready for grinding, stuffing, and smoking. We have made many MANY pounds of ring bologna and kielbasa (click meat-treat of your choice for a recipe).

The downside of doing all this work is that we are very hard on equipment. The average household grinder, for example, is not designed to handle a hundred pounds of meat each year. So, we should not have been surprised to find that the bearings in the grinder had worn down so small that they were falling out. When the other grinder that we had on hand for parts was disassembled and its bearing retrieved, we found this:

That is NOT going to work. Nope.

So, Mr. Farmer did what anyone would do: He went to the Auto Parts Store. He was sure that they would be able to sell him the right size bearings to get him up and running again. He was mistaken. So, undaunted, he went to the bike shop, just to find the shopkeeper locking the front door. She was sympathetic to his plight, however, and re-opened the store. She found the right bearings and rung him up. The total was just over a dollar. Mr. Farmer had no cash on him, and she had already settled out the charge machine. The Christmas spirit was in her, however, and she agreed to trust him to come back and pay her another day.

He did go back and pay her a few days later (much to her surprise) and the day was saved. Another hundred pounds of meat became another pile of treats. Now if only there were spare parts available for vacuum-sealers... (or coffee grinders... or many of the other items we have purchased and flagrantly ignored the warning, "For Household Use Only," printed on the box!)