Howling Hog BBQ (at Howling Wolf Farm)

Some folks in the blogosphere have been wondering where I've been of late. No doubt I dropped off the face of the blogging earth. It's been a tough winter, and I've had to make some hard decisions about my favorite passtime. As the song lyrics say above, money has been pretty tight lately. While Farmer Girl and I have weathered the tough economy and still seem to have solid holds on our jobs, our financial situation is not great. Some debts that we've been pretending don't exist have come home to roost and it has forced us to cut back where we spend our money. It's been time to pay the piper for quite some time.

So, I announced to our fanbase that we're cutting back the number of contests that we'll do this summer from three to one. We should find out in the next few weeks whether or not we can get into Harpoon, which would be the contest of choice for us. Last season I was doing a side job that allowed me to fund most of our competition season. Having finished that work this fall, there just isn't the money to make more than one contest happen, unless there is an unusual outpouring of generostiy from our fans. Given the current economic climate, I don't expect that from anyone.

Of course, we've still been blessed to have fans who DO want to contribute to our cause this year and we're welcoming any donations we can get. If we can't get into Harpoon, we'll probably try to make Lake Placid since that's also one of our favorite events.

As much of a dissapointment this decision is for me (and it really had me down for a while), there are still good things going on. I'm still cookin' barbecue, so life ain't that bad.