I'm pretty upset with Phil.  Phil is the groundhog that lives at our place.  We named him after Punxsatawney Phil that predicts the coming of spring every year.  He eats our garden vegetables.  He particularly seems to enjoy the leaves on the broccoli plants, and yesterday he enjoyed eating the cucumber plants.

Phil

Brenda thinks Phil is kinda cute.  He's short, and fat, and he waddles when he walks around the yard.  But he leaves destruction in his wake.  Now I think I understand why my grandfather shot the groundhog when I was a little kid visiting those many years ago.  Only at the time he called it a woodchuck.  Same thing.  Phil lives in the cow shed down by my workshop.  He has dug himself a hole in the dirt floor.  Groundhogs are really good at digging.  Even in Ozarks rocky ground.  Phil may get evicted soon.

This is really gross.  This is the pig's head.  For head cheese.

You may ask, what on earth is head cheese, and why would anyone want to eat it?  Well, why does anyone eat hot dogs, or bologna?  Because they taste good, and because they are convenient foods to eat, of course.  That's why.  There's a lot of good meat on the pig's head, and a frugal farmer is not going to throw away good food.  So, you are going to put the pig's head in the oven to cook for a few hours until it is very soft and falling off the bones.  Then you let the meat cool, then chop the meat up fine, mix it with spices, put it in a bread pan and refrigerate until it sets up firm like gelatin, and then slice it.  Then, package it in slices like bologna for sandwiches, or for frying for breakfast.  You probably wouldn't want to serve the pig's head like this to guests.

My new Kineo B wood-fired cook stove

This is my new cook stove.  It came in the mail two weeks ago.  It weighs about 400 pounds.  All cast iron.  It was made sometime around 1900 by the Noyes and Nutter Manufacturing Company in Bangor, Maine.  It's called a "half back" because the back goes up half-way, instead of having a tall back.  It has a nice thermostat on the oven door, which is handy, and a nice shelf on the right side for setting hot dishes off the stove if you want them to stop cooking.  It has two shelves above the stove for warming food, such as for rising bread when you are getting ready to bake, or for keeping food hot, like when you are making lots of pancakes and need to pile them up someplace but want to keep them warm.
We are going to be remodeling the kitchen this summer to accommodate this stove, as there is no room for it right now.  It is sitting in its shipping container in the garage.  The plan is for it to be in the center of the house, so that when it is fired up, it will provide warmth and good smells that will fill the whole house.