Those Redneck Haners

Wyatt and his redneck root beer belly

Daddy stabilizing the trampoline

Kya napping on a sawhorse

The duct taped pepper grinder

Carrying wood...as always.

We haven't blogged in a while. The home invasion sort of dampened my desire to do anything productive or fun as my psyche was temporarily gripped by fear and "what ifs." But, the fear is subsiding and I realized today I have 179 pictures and videos on my camera from over ten different events. This is getting ridiculous. So, to what do I devote our first post after the long hiatus? Well, our super fun, frugal, and redneck life, of course!

As most people know, instead of buying new things when we have a whim to "improve" the Haner home, we try to reuse, recycle, build from scratch and improvise. This is partly because it's fun and challenging and partly to save money. It results in many hilarious contraptions, piles of free scrap wood and gizmos around the house (and yard and garage) and many unusual "toys" for the kids. (Man, I am using a lot of quotation marks this post.)

Anyhoo, Scott is currently building an extension on the chicken coop to accommodate the new hens (and we suspect one rooster darn it--the Rooster Chronicles repeated!) which means sawhorses and sawdust everywhere--fun for the kids and fun for Scott (most of the time.) Wyatt likes to hammer, Kya likes to observe and manage the construction site. Caden likes to chew on blocks of wood.

Scott has also taken a liking (more like an addicition) to smoking brisket in his new improved smoker (new to us through the magic of Craig's List, improved by Scott through much Googled research). This is a little like having a new baby in the house, since the nights he is "smoking" seem to mean he gets up every two hours to "feed" the fire, check the temperature, etc. etc.

Part of this process also involves preparing the brisket with Scott's super top secret brisket rub recipe (not really super secret--if you want it, he will be MORE than happy to share it, and talk to you about it, for hours...and it was invented based on the limited spice inventory in our pantry.)

The brisket rub requires, as a key ingredient, ground whole peppercorns--lots of them. Scott got tired of twisting and twisting that stupid grinder, so he duct taped (is that a verb? to duct tape?) his drill to it in an effort to lessen the wrist strain, and speed up the process...and let's face it, using a drill for anything makes it better for Scott...so...

Is it really worth all this you may ask? If you try Scott's brisket, you will never again question all these antics. It is fan-freakin-tastic!

Much love to everyone everywhere who takes time to read our blog. We are doing well and hope you are too!