Cooking a Pig in a pit

Cooking a pig in a pit for Christmas dinner.  It seemed like the most complicated procedure for this whole operation was just getting the pig. We used a 45 lbs, cleaned, half a pig.


We dug our pit during Thanksgiving, with the hope that deep in the December we would have tons of snow and freezing temps. No such luck. I dug a pit, i had no idea how big the pig would be.  It is probably 2 feet deep.


Setting the fire was next. I let the fire burn for 7 hours, adding wood and keeping up the coal production and heating the rocks up real good.  Some rocks exploded, i think that hanging around a new pit, with new rocks may be slightly hazardous.

The pig. I rubbed it down with Cumin and Sea Salt.

 When The pig is done, we wrapped it all up and made a 45 lbs hobo dinner looking thing.

The fencing is to wrap the tin foil pig package up with so that getting it into the fire and getting it out of the fire is easier.

11:30 pm Christmas Eve. The fire is ready.

I removed some stones and coals from the fire and then placed these on top of the pig package before covering the whole thing with a massive amount of oak leaves and soil,

The pig was in the ground for a little under 12 hours- which may have been too long- the stones etc. had cooled off quite a bit.


Upon inspection we found the pork cooked- and pretty good too. We had to keep it warm on the Grill you see in the background here.


All in all a pretty fun experience, though frankly by the time i got to serving the pig...i was pretty much done with it and did not eat too much of it.

lake mich at winter

Winter has not really started here in Michigan. It is dark, cold..but not that cold- so mostly just dark.  In absence of real winter, I give you some pictures from last winter. A bunch of us hippies took our kids out to Lake Michigan to see the ice pack, do some skiing and sledding.  It was a bright and sunny day and a great day to be out in the elements.

Lake Michigan Cravass rescue training

From the East: Lower Slope, sand band of death, and then many bands of ice build up.

the Bonsai version of a skiing mountain.

exposing children to the elements.

Two person sled and one big dune = fun.

The video above was left as a comment on Telemark Tips. It is video of skiing down the dunes in Benzie County.  Probably one of those half hour climb to 19 second run jobs that we here at FTD are so fond of.
 A new Slogan  85 % climb, 15% run..fun til death.

the top of "Angel's Crack" 5.8, Devils lake 2012

devils lake 2012
We had a glorious romp through Devils Lake.  I don't want to encourage you to go there because one of the reasons I love the place is the lack of people.  We went to a number of the less utilized crags, The Frigate, Pork Chop Buttress and the Weissner Wall were high lights. Below is a sequence of the top of Angels Crack.  This was a really fun top rope and I think that I might have the nuts to lead it.                                                                                    

This climb was very near the Devils Doorway.  Great Exposure. We set a top rope and i Rappelled down the face, and then climbed back up Via " Angels Crack" 5.8 Great moves through out and as you can see here rounding the face led to some great views.  

The folks at the climbing gym just talk about how slick the joint is. I am going to tell you that the climbing at Devils lake is worth it. Hands down one of the best Traditional cragging places in the world.

The Sponsor ship of the Dexter area dirty sock climbing club rope and Tri-cams must be noted. Many thanks.