Hard Work Homestead

Happy groundhog day. Yeah right!

2012-02-02T06:00:00.006-05:00

Today is Groundhog Day, and for those not familiar with this ridiculous holiday, it is a day where a domestic Groundhog named Phil is pulled from a fake stump in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania at the crack of dawn. The handlers make some decision as to whether the rodent has seen his shadow or not and this determines if we will have 6 more weeks of winter. Crazy right?

Strangely enough I have a few ties to this silly day. First my Mother is a Punxsutawney native. Yes my Mother and all her family going back a few generations hail from this small town with the weird tradition. Although she doesn't remember as much hoopla when she was growing up compared to these days (its gone global), she still hails from a town known strictly for its famous garden destroyer . And there is actually more than one Phil. On at least one occasion a Phil froze to death while waiting to be pulled from his artificial stump. So another Phil had to be brought in to make the weather prediction. Oh brother.

Secondly, if any of you have seen the also silly movie "Groundhog Day" staring Bill Murray, then you may be surprised to know that my Husband-The Ice Man- and a friend carved all of the Ice sculptures that are shown in the movie. And in one scene in a far off distance, you can see The Ice Man pushing a dolly through the park. Of course it is so obscure that it took his own Mother to spot it. You know Mom's see everything. We had missed it many a time. *And for a bit of trivia, the movie was not shot in Punxsutawney, but in Woodstock Ill.

The Ice Man is on top of the ladder carving a piece of ice in this scene. Of course they cut it from the film.

So it should not have struck me as strange at all that an actual Groundhog, with no flashy name, appeared on my front porch two days ago.

Why this is unusual is that these hibernating animals usually do not come out until March, but the unseasonal weather brought him out too early. They are always dazed and confused when they come out of the den and why he chose my door step I know not. To make matters worse, I didn't realize I had a visitor until I let the dogs out and my City Slicker Dog, Sophie (who spent the first 6 years of her life living in a city before I adopted her, so she has no idea what to do with an animal when she catches it. Needless to say she usually gets the bad end of the stick) had found the poor thing. A scuffle ensued, but this time the Groundhog ended up being hurt. I was able to get the dog away and tried to shoo the poor thing off. He hobbled off to hide under the generator. I checked for him later and he appeared to have moved on, so I thought it was over.

But can you believe the furry bugger came right back to my porch the very next day! And the same sequence happened. Let the dogs out, didn't see the guy, dog found the guy. Is this animal suicidal? Again I pulled off the hound and now the even more injured critter limped off. And at this point I feel terrible for the Groundhog. But come on, didn't he remember what happened the day before? Didn't he see the movie?

So now I am wondering, in Groundhog Day folklore, what does it mean when your dog maims a Phil descendant on Groundhog Day. It cant be good. Six more weeks of bad luck? Six weeks of getting your garden eaten? Six weeks of this mangy guy coming back to haunt me?

Aaaaahhhhh!

The purge

2012-01-31T06:00:00.001-05:00

My name is Jane

And I have a problem

I have too much stuff

With all my home projects going on lately, I had an urge. An urge to purge. I figured since I needed to clean things up around here after the windows were installed, I might as well toss some things. It doesn't happen often. I love my stuff. My stuff makes me feel secure. But occasionally I get in a fired up mood and the stuff starts flying. I removed 8 bags of stuff from just one room. That is enough to hang your head in shame. Especially since I am sure I could fill more bags with what remains in that room, not to mention the other seven rooms of the house. As I dragged each heavily laden bag to the truck, I realized that I eliminated at least 400 pounds from that one area. Purging is even good for the structure of the house! I quickly made my way to the Goodwill before the urge passed. My hands shaking as I handed over all my stuff. My good stuff. And the next day I mourned a little for my missing stuff.

This made me come to terms with my ...issue. While I do recycle an enormous amount of our older items into some new project, this is just crazy. I cant possibly live long enough to use it all. And while I may use some of it, I have to take care of it in the mean time. I have to clean around it and organize it. Keep a mental note of what is where. And you can never find the one thing your looking for anyway. The stuff has taken over. It consumes the house. I think back to the days when my 160 year old house was built. You had maybe 3 outfits, a few good cooking pans, a random assortment of items for daily life and that was it. How liberating that must have been. And while I have an attachment disorder with my stuff, I really want to get scaled down to where my things don't own me any longer. I want to be free.

So I am going to bite the bullet, blindfold myself, and get down to some more tossing. There might be some tears, there might be some fits, but it has to be done. And maybe somewhere, someone else can get some enjoyment from my old stuff.

OR I will lie prostrate one the floor, limbs flailing, clutching my stuff, screaming that "I need it, I need it".

Well... lets hope not.

Solar booster

2012-01-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

Some people may think that since winter days have the least amount of daylight out of the year, you might find your solar system unable to keep up with your electric demands. But there is a phenomena that occurs this time of year that is quite surprising. First, heat degrades electricity so the cooler days actually help generate more power.

Second, when you have a nice bright layer of white snow on a clear day, you can actually produce more power than even on the sunniest summer day. The sun light reflects off the snow and back to the panels on top of the direct sun on the panels. Boom bang!

Basically you are charging twice as fast as any other time of year. I found the batteries 100% charged by late morning. And that never happens. So I had to scramble to find things to plug in to use some of this power. I don't want to overcharge the batteries (The charge controller will prevent that, but since we have sealed UPS deep cycle batteries that can not be checked we still get nervous) and I want to make use of all this free power. Once the batteries are 100% charged, any other power gets dumped.

But a funny thing happened. Since I have been replacing all the electric appliances with manual, I was scrambling to find something to plug in. I ran the sweeper through out the whole house, I had the TV on for no reason, I charged all the cell phones, ipod, camera, and computer, turned the radio on, made toast, swept again (hey, if you had a German Shepherd you would know that 5 minutes after sweeping you need to do it again). It was a very strange occurrence for me who usually rations electric like a miser.

But like everything in life, it is fleeting. The next day the sun was covered by rain clouds and my snow disappeared. It was back to life as normal, or 'hoard the power' mode. So if we ever have a 'normal' winter where we can keep some snow on the ground, just know that a little bit of sun can go a long way in powering up the homestead.

Wisdom of the elderly.

2012-01-26T06:00:00.002-05:00

When you get to be a really, really old dog, you have to do things a little different. You might prefer a super fluffy bed to the hard floor. You might want your meals warm and soft instead of that hard dry crap. You might need to sleep 23 1/2 hours a day, after all you are retired now. And when you sleep most of the day, are deaf, and have cataracts, you may want to hide your bone in a really good place so that other dog cant get it.

Yep, you may want to put it somewhere you know it is safe.

After all, who would possibly go in there to get it?

What kinda winter is this?

2012-01-24T06:00:00.002-05:00

Winter comes..

And winter goes. All in the course of a few days. Then the cycle repeats. Some days you can forget it really IS winter.

It just wouldn't be winter if we weren't behind in the wood cutting. And we are behind, so it must be winter. Again my fantasy of endless cords of cut and stacked wood has fizzled out to the reality that we are still just cutting as we go. I guess there is always next year, and a girl can dream.

Just when you settle into the warm days, a little white appears. Even a small amount of snow adds more work to the homestead.

Snow sweeping has to be done. Whether it be the panels, the greenhouse, or the chicken coop roof.

Then the day the Ice Man has to carve a life sized, 3000 pound tractor for the grand opening of a store, the temperature gets up to 55 degrees and rains. And the sculpture disappears faster than my dreams of endless cords of stacked wood.

I guess this winter wants to keep us guessing. On the plus side, it keeps away cabin fever.

Nasty habit

2012-01-23T06:00:00.001-05:00

Did you ever wonder what the horses are doing when they hide around the back of the barn?

Looks like it is to sneak a smoke.

Busted- now do they make horse sized nicotine patches?

What we eat in the winter.

2012-01-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

People always wonder how we can manage to provide our own food even in the winter months, especially since we eat no meat. I have to admit, there are times when I crave something like an avocado. But then I realize that we have plenty to eat that is free of GMO's, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides, and it is just a passing 'want' rather than a 'need'. Being food self sufficient requires you to refine your palate a bit. But it is by no means a life of deprivation. We still have hundreds of jars of home preserved fruits and vegetables (and homemade wine-lots of wine) not to mention a freezer that still seems to be just as full even though I take something out of it everyday. There are buckets of assorted dry beans and grains. For our fresh food cravings we still have our various fermented vegetables. They start to get a little less crisp after a few months, so I keep the crocks on the cold back enclosed porch to slow the process. They still taste great and supply us with much needed healthy probiotics, vitamins, and minerals.

Pull back a row cover in the unheated greenhouse and you still can find lots of homestead currency. The true greenbacks.

We can still manage a salad or some cooking greens everyday. By late February, the greenhouse will start growing with a vengeance and supply us with more food than we can use. That is the benefit of planting only 'cut and come again' vegetables.

The root cellar is doing a fine job of preserving the crops. We have eaten our way through the leeks and celeriac, but the carrots are still holding their own. Some have sprouted, but that makes no noticeable difference in taste.

And I still have at least 75 pounds of potatoes left. Some will be eaten, and some will be used as seed potatoes in the 2012 garden. Onions and garlic are less abundant, but will still last us a few more months.

The only food that I do buy is a 1/2 gallon of whole, unhomogenized milk from the local dairy down the road every week or two. I get to support this young dairy owner, and I have an ingredient that helps pull together a few recipes or I turn it into a farmers cheese or yogurt. That brings our grocery bill for the winter months to $5. If I buy a dozen eggs from the 84 year old neighbor (my birds don't lay in the winter) , I can add another $1 to the total.

Now it did not happen over night that we got to a point where we can produce this much of our own food (and wine, don't forget the wine). There are always many, many failures along the way. And for six months out of the year I work my tail off from sun up to long after the sun goes down to grow and process enough food to get us through the year. Don't believe the naysayers, it can be done. Even if you start with just a tomato plant in a pot on the porch, you are taking back your right to choose. You are regaining control over your life and health, and taking away the power from the corporate chemical companies who control our industrial food system. Every bite of food you can say that you knew when it was a seed, is a victory for you. We can win this war, one meal at a time.

Winter washing.

2012-01-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

I had 5,362 curtain panels to wash, and there was no way I could wash and dry that many with just the inside drying racks. It would take years since I have four racks and each panel would take up a whole rack. So it was time to take the wash out to line dry. Winter line drying is not like summer drying. The wash will actually freeze solid, sometimes within minutes of putting it on the line. So the trick is to pick a sunny and windy day. Get the wash on the line first thing in the morning and let it hang until just before the sun goes down. It will actually freeze dry if the wind is in your favor. When you bring them down they may feel like boards. Gives them a quick couple of snaps and bring them in to warm up. Most of the time once they warm up they are almost completely dry. A few many have damp spots on thick fabric, and 1/2 hour on an inside rack will do the trick.

A few little tips for winter line drying is get a good pair of fingerless mittens.

You can have enough dexterity to maneuver the pin, yet you can flip the mitten back on your finger to warm them back up between articles of wash.

And what ever you do, don't drop the pins. They can disappear into the white abyss and will not reappear until spring.

On lookers may think you have lost your marbles, but you will be the one reaping the reward of fresh smelling laundry even in the winter.

Looking out through green colored glass.

2012-01-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

Finally, the windows we ordered in November came in. Unfortunately the door is still MIA, but at least something was getting installed. All of this week has been devoted to, out with the old and in with the new.

What I didn't realize at the time I ordered the windows, was that 47 curtain panels would need taken down and washed. By hand. Drats. Who says you need curtains anyway.

Luckily since the old windows were replacement windows, the old windows popped right out. And since we have a brick only house, the openings were square and the new windows popped right in. Whew.

The reason for getting new windows was that all the seals on the old ones had cracked and released the insulating gas. You could sit 5 feet away from a window and feel a cold draft blow through your hair since the seal around the windows was dry rotted. We hoped that new, more efficient windows would help us retain more heat in the house, and cut down on the amount of wood we need to burn. To give an an example, our old windows were rated R 1.7 when they were new. The lower the number the less efficient. The new windows are rated R 9.0. A huge difference. I loved this sticker. Made me feel like they were Superman windows. Krypton sounds so futuristic.

All the windows have been installed and now we are working on sealing them from the outside. Already I noticed the upstairs was one degree warmer without any change in the thermostat, without the outside work being done. I was hoping for a little more from the Superman windows, but we will take any degree we can get.

They are also slightly tinted a greenish color to block the suns damaging rays. This will greatly help with keeping the house cooler when the scorching summer sun beams down on the windows.

Grow My Own, I know you wanted to know what type of window they are. Here is the spec sticker. Hope this helps.

We hope to have this part of the job wrapped up by the end of the week. But the curtain washing may continue into 2013. sigh.

The nut buster

2012-01-16T06:00:00.004-05:00

I don't know why people say winter is a time to slow down. On this Homestead we seem to be just as busy as the rest of the year. I may just need to write a letter to labor relations on that, I want my slow time. But I finally got a moment to get around to cracking the black walnuts that we hulled this last fall.

My old method of cracking the nuts just wasn't cutting it, or should I say cracking it. So it was time for a more specialized approach to busting the nuts. This is a nut cracker made just for hard nuts, like black walnuts. And just so I can say that physics was not a wasted course on me , the length of the handle gives you a great fulcrum for nut smashing

Once you figure out where it is best to apply pressure and how much pressure to apply, it goes quite smoothly. Although I still managed to get nut shrapnel flying all over the kitchen. This would be best suited to be an outside job.

The irony of the whole job was that most of the nuts that I painstakingly hulled contained very dry nut meats when cracked. I assume I waited a little to long to open them. But the mystery nuts that had been hulled and hidden by the squirrel that I acquisitioned on the 'finders keepers' homestead law (you can read the story here), were beautiful!! Perfect specimens of nut meatiness.

So the lessons learned here are that it is not good to sit on your nuts too long or they dry up. And it is time to even the score with the thieving squirrels and raid all their stash sites. Those furry guys really know what they are doing!

Sourdough pancakes and a little story

2012-01-15T06:00:00.001-05:00

There are many recipes out there for sourdough pancakes. This one has turned into my favorite. And it has a little twist that can really impress the guests.

To make the cakes you will want to mix together

1 1/2 cups of primary batter

1/2 cup of flour

1 TB of honey

1 TB of butter

3/4 tsp of salt

2 TB of milk

And you can add an egg, BUT if you want to get really crazy, add one cup of snow instead.

One cup of snow can replace an egg in a recipe. Good, clean, NEW snow. None of that yellow or, heaven forbid, brown snow.

Mix together and cook on a well oiled skillet.

I can remember very clearly the first time I had sourdough pancakes. Authentic Alaskan sourdough pancakes.

We had flown into Anchorage Alaska after a a plane ride that took over 14 hours, and included 2 layovers, and the only food served was a soggy hamburger to this vegetarian. Needless to say I arrived hungry. But it was already dark and late by the time we rented a car and drove to the hotel. I figured one day without eating would not kill me, although my stomach was saying different. So we went fast to sleep that night with visions of food dancing in our heads.

The funny thing about traveling 4 time zones in one day, is that you still get up at your regular time, even if it is 2am in Alaska. Restless and hungry, we decided to hit the road. We didn't come to Alaska to sit in a hotel room waiting for the restaurants to open. So off in the car we went to explore this State I had waited years to visit. We hit Rt 3 in total darkness.

Luckily, just before we were on the highway for all points north, we spied a 24 hour Diner. Hooray! Ravishingly hungry I ordered the specialty of the joint, sourdough pancakes. They were the best pancakes I ever ate, or so I thought. Hunger can do that. Once our bellies were full, the sun was just starting to send a few rays over the horizon. So we jumped back in the car to start the adventure of a lifetime. As the sun crept ever higher into the sky, it revealed a sight I can only call a religious experience. Now I have been many places in my time, and have been just about everywhere in the US and quite a few parts of Canada. But I have never seen anything like I did that very morning. As the darkness disappeared, the most beautiful sites were exposed. Moose grazing on the side of the highway. The most spectacular mountains, the cleanest waters, wildlife galore. It was nature, the way Mother Nature intended. It is as close as I will ever get to experiencing the land before man arrived.

We spent two weeks seeing sites one can only imagine. We talked with locals, spent time with Inuits.

We saw more native wildlife than could be imagined. And when you see a Grizzly the size of your car, you know you had a good day. These two are just young cubs that ran in front of our car. Wildlife has the right of way out here. Especially when big Mama just has to be around the corner.

Most parts of Alaska are inaccessible by car. You can only get in by plane, boat, snow machine, or horse. We choose the later.

We had a very rare occurrence of experiencing Denali at sun rise off our balcony. Yes that is the white peaks of the "Great One" in the distance. We are told this only happens a few times a year since cloud cover at this distance is common.

And we kept going until we reached the barren tundra and the highway ended.

Unfortunately, even though we felt charmed as a rainbow fell over a lodge where we were staying, things went very differently. Towards the end of our trip came something that no one will ever forget. September 11, 2001.

While it may seem that we were far away from any worries up here, it could not have been further from the truth. They grounded all transportation and we found ourselves stuck and stranded. Alaska was locked down since what other terrorist acts could happen were unknown and protecting the oil pipeline was paramount. It was fine for us, but many hunters were stranded at fly in camps with no way to get supplies in or get out if they were hurt. One of the planes had gone down just an hour from our home in PA. It was a day that changed the world.

I didn't mean to end this post on such a downer, but just to share some of the memories that come back to me every time I whip up a batch of sourdough pancakes. It is amazing what just the smell of a food can do to start replaying that great movie of our lives.

Um, why are there entrails in my yard?

2012-01-13T06:00:00.004-05:00

Warning - gross picture to follow- warning!

The Homestead is a place of many mysteries. For example when I put something down, why can I not find it and waste 15 minutes walking around looking for it? Why when the horses get out do they always head for the road instead of all these nice safe acres? Why can you wipe a dogs paws for 10 minutes and they still bring mud in. But the mystery of late happened the other morning when I went out to do chores. Right behind my house, in the yard, by the gate into the pasture I find THIS. Stop now if your squeamish.

Yep, I see small intestine, large intestine, a colon, and since I do not work for CSI and don't poke guts regularly, I think a liver. Now the mystery is where did this come from, why is there no blood anywhere, and where is the rest of the animal? Oh, and most important, WHO did this? The victim was not anything of mine, all my animals have their organs on the inside where they belong. This is baffling to me since it is in one large pile, almost like it was surgically removed and dumped with no sign of how it got here. It was not there last night at evening rounds. And it is not small. This is no rabbit. I am thinking larger mammal than that. And why did the murderer not take it with it or eat it?

Creepy

So if anyone has any ideas or persons of interest, I would appreciate it. Oh, and if you happened upon this as you were eating a meal, my deepest apologies. Some days farm life just isn't pretty.

Homestead microwave

2012-01-12T06:00:00.004-05:00

I got rid of the microwave years ago. I really feel that the very thing that causes them to work is the thing that can do some serious damage to our bodies. They are a box that manufactures free radicals -yes the same free radicals that age us, give us cancer and other serious disease. But don't take my word for it, a little research on how a microwave actually heats up the food will cause anyone to think twice.

I try hard to not have many leftovers since we only are using an ice box for refrigeration, but they do happen. Now if one wants to eat said left over, you really do not want to eat it cold-especially in winter. If I have the wood cook stove fired up this is not an issue since the oven on the cook stove is always about 250-300 degrees even when I do not have the heat diverter going to the oven. And the Sun oven is the worlds best warming device going. But when neither of those is available I use my stove top system that may not work as quick as a microwave, but gets the job done in a jiff.

I use a cast iron skillet that I cover with another flat cast iron skillet. I use a small skillet because the less volume of air you need to heat up, the quicker this will go. If you have a lid that fits your skillet, all the better. I turn on the flame and let the dry pan heat up with the lid on for a few minutes.

I then put the food to be heated in the skillet. Perhaps a little oil or water if it is a dry food that needs reheating. And get that lid back on real quick.

In a few minutes you have a perfectly heated meal without turning on an oven or needing a dangerous electric box. And once you get away from a microwave, you start to see that food really does taste better without it. It doesn't come out a soggy mess like it can in a microwave or over hard edges from too much time in a microwave. They have an expression that there is more than one way to skin a cat. I never understood that expression because why would I want to skin a cat, let alone have more than one way to do it? So instead I always say there is more than one way to get a job done. And that is very important on a homestead. And far less dangerous to the cat population.

The boob tube has gotten better

2012-01-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

Lets talk TV. A television set really does not serve any important purposes on the homestead. And if this one goes, there will be no more to replace it. BUT, I do occasionally watch the news, even though each time I swear I will never turn on that sensationalized babble again, and there are about two programs we enjoy watching for recreation in the evening. So we still keep this 20 + year old relic around. Years ago we had satellite TV, and it was amazing the amount of hours you could be hypnotized into wasting just flipping through channels when you could be doing something much more productive. And for losing track of time in front of the box you have to pay very large premiums these days. I have friends greatly in debt who feel that having cable is a necessity (?!). I shake my head at that one. But there are ways you can keep a variety of channels available for your viewing pleasure and possible channel surfing addiction for free. Yes free.

Now if you have a fairly modern TV, a digital converter is built into your TV. But for those of us with fossils, you will need the converter box. Remember when the government gave you a certificate to get one for free? Hope you did.

Just a side note - when you live off grid you look at everything differently. See this non assuming little light that is on the converter box. Most people would never give it a thought. But I have amped out this little light and found it uses 5 watts. While that may not sound like much to some, that adds up to a big difference in a 24 hour period should you accidentally leave it on. It is a noticeable difference in battery storage come morning. And even if the box is switched off, it lights up a yellow light. Why does off need a light? A conspiracy by the electric company for you to use power even when the appliance is off, hummm ;) Anyway, this is why you should have all your appliances hooked up to a power strip that you can switch off, ending all phantom power draws.

Now I have heard many people complain that they just do not get any channels with just the converter box. Here is the secret. You need to get yourself a one time purchase of a digital antenna. They range in price but cost less than a month of cable or a dinner out with your family. You will receive instructions in the box to go to a web site that shows you which direction you should point the antenna in your area to receive which stations.

Before the antenna we got two stations. After the antenna we now receive feeds from all over the tri-state area. They seem to add new channels all the time, but at this point we receive:

ABC, CBS, NBC, CW, and FOX

A 24 hour move channel. It shows mostly modern b and old movies, but does have a few good ones.

A 24 music video channel

A 24 hour country music video channel

Feeds from both West Virginia and Ohio.

3 different PBS channels.

A 24 hour kids cartoon channel

A healthy living channel

Two retro TV channels that show TV series from the 1960's through 1980's.

One channel that shows syndicated modern TV series and a few movies.

Three religious channels

And all with crystal clear reception for FREE.

So if you feel that tossing the TV is to radical for your family, just know that there are many stations out there that can still give your index finger a good workout.

Gone with the wind

2012-01-08T06:00:00.002-05:00

We have been having a variety of weather lately and can finally start to see how our 500 watt wind turbine can perform. In a word-poorly. Now I can not comment on all wind turbines, just this one. We have been in contact with the company many times to try to solve some real issues with this type of technology. We have had to come up with solutions on our own. Very disheartening.

First let me start by saying, if your thinking about adding wind power to your homestead, you really have to be sure you live in an area with SUSTAINED winds. Yes our area is windy, but now I see that periods of sustained winds are not as numerous as I thought. If you want to put your turbine on a 100 foot tower, that would solve that problem since most wind at that level is sustained. But many municipalities to do permit 100 foot towers and a small turbine like this one would not be able to withstand the constant wind streams at 100 feet and be worked to pieces. Plus if your installing it yourself, erecting a 100 foot tower would be an extremely dangerous operation. This turbine is recommended to be mounted on a 30 foot tower, but most winds at the 30 foot level are far to choppy for steady power production. They don't tell you that in the small print when you purchase one and as I research this topic I am finding many dissatisfied customers.

The turbine may be spinning constantly, but it must produce over 24 volts to be able to begin to charge our batteries (which are configured into a 24 volt bank). This is not as often as one may think. Even here it is only producing 22 volts and it is spinning its tail off. When it is finally producing 24 volts it only amps out at 1.9 amps or 46 watts. No big power producer.

Now here was the most disturbing problem we encountered. Electricity is not something that only flows one way. If the turbine is not producing any power at any particular time, it is not only NOT adding power to our system, but it can be leaching power FROM the batteries back out to the turbine. When we first hooked it up we noticed the batteries quickly draining. Our charge controller for the solar panels has a built in blocking diode, but the turbine feeds to its own little charge controller (which really is not a charge controller like one may think, but a load diverter for when it produces more power than the batteries can take and it must divert that power load to something else or it could fry the batteries). So when we brought this up to the manufacturer they acted like they had no idea what we were talking about and felt that the solar array would be the culprit of the power back feed. We explained that was impossible since it has it's own blocking diode . So we bought a blocking diode and installed it on the turbine side. And it solved that problem. Think of it as a stop valve for electricity. So much for the manufacturer knowing their product.

Luckily for us, the wind turbine came with some of the solar panels when we purchased them from an individual selling the system. If we had bought this turbine outright, we would be very disappointed. But since we owned it anyway, having it hooked up doesn't hurt. But it does not supply us with enough power to recommend it either. The little power it does produce is just icing on the cake for us and we gained a lot of knowledge on small scale wind systems that we otherwise would not have known. If we found a larger wind system for a really great deal, it may be tempting to find out if it would be more efficient. But even in our area that is rated as one of the worst for solar power due to the amount of cloudy days per year, we would still invest in a larger solar array first. Solar is such a smooth power system and is far more controllable that wind. But that is homesteading, a constant learning curve.

Little dutch maid, is she keeping up?

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

I have really been giving the hand crank Little Dutch Maid a workout. I wanted to see if it really could hold up to the rigors of cooking and baking. And with winter cooking season in high gear I finally had time to really get it dirty, so to speak. Could it work as well as an electric machine?

Creaming butter and sugar for cookie dough is always a tough job, but the cookie paddles on the Little Dutch Maid made quick work of it.

The dough hooks easily mixed two loaves of bread.

Whipping eggs was a breeze.

And just by putting the crank handle to the 'high speed' shaft, you can whip faster without moving your arm any faster. Its like magic.

Yes I would give the Little Dutch Maid an A+. Not only can it complete any task I give it, but it is so nice not to hear the drone of an electric motor. The Little Dutch Maid uses a Bosch mixing platform which is preferred by home cooks far and wide. But do not fret if your a kitchen aid devote. I was reading one of my Amish publications and look what they are making now.

Yep, the Amish have converted a kitchen Aid to run with a hand crank also. So there you have it, two ways to mix to your hearts content. Off Grid style.

A wee bit of winter

2012-01-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

Winter seems to be coming and going this year. We have unusual high temps in the 50's, then drop back down to 12. But winter was here this week and it causes us to shift our gears a bit. A crisp white layer over the mounds of mud gives you a new outlook.

I have been watching this lone shiitake mushroom for a few weeks. He thought it was spring there for a while. He never grew any larger than a nub before the cold hit.

The rest on the mushroom logs, much like my foe the groundhog, have gone to hibernation.

The greenhouse has been tucked in under row covers for the season. This helps keep our fresh vegetables still coming to the table all winter. The right hand row is vegetables that while cold tolerant, are still the first to wave the white flag when the single digits hits. So rather than use another row cover for food that may not make it, we are chowing down like goats. This will also give me a workable bed to be planted come February 1st.

Of course snow means I resume my constant post of greenhouse snow cleaner. Once again I will repeat -if purchasing a greenhouse in an area that gets snow, get the Gothic style. You will thank me later when your not up every two hours at night during a snow storm cleaning the thing off so it doesn't collapse or rip the plastic. I can never seem to get the last little bit of snow off the top beam even with my 12 foot extension brush and a step ladder. Rrrrghhh.

The glass ends of the greenhouse always make the most interesting artwork

Every bodies favorite place during the winter months is the feed bin. Even the two legged animals seem to up the calories in a cold snap. Funny thing is we eat the same grains. I just keep ours tucked away in the house. Makes us look more civilized.

We can keep extra blocks of ice for the ice box, right outside. And yes we still need ice for the ice box since it is on our enclosed back porch which never freezes. But we only need a block once a week this time of year. I mainly do this to keep the milk really cold. Unfooled around with milk goes bad much quicker if it is not stored at a cold temperature. I found that out the hard way. Lets just say there have been many soured milk dishes here on the homestead.

My snow wolf is having a ball. She just loves this time of year. She finally gets to use all that stinking fur that coats every square inch of the inside of my house. This dog is built for cold.

This one, not so much. She is built for a blanket. And warm meals. And anything else she wants. Hey, when your 112 you should get what you want too.

They are calling for above freezing temperatures by the weekend. Ugh, I guess it will be back to the mud.

Dress for homesteading success

2012-01-04T07:58:00.002-05:00

I am a real fan of wearing a skirt or a dress as the homestead dress code. During the warm months they can be quite cooler, have a better range of movement than pants, and can be used as an impromptu basket for carrying eggs or produce back to the house. And when your day revolves around mud, manure, and otherwise icky tasks, anything that makes you feel a little prettier is appreciated. Once the cold weather hit, some may think that pants or snow pants would be the only options. I have gone that route, and not only was I still cold, but I developed a walk akin to Randy in A Christmas Story. I too always had a fear of falling over and not being able to get up. But that all changed the day I found these skirts made by The Mouse Works . This guy hand sews these polar fleece(American made fleece I might add) skirts at his solar powered shop in Virgina. He has quite a story of growing up on a self sufficient homestead and his progression into his own business where he practices good environmental stewardship due to his love of nature. Plus he makes a darn good product. I love supporting cottage industries, because if we don't there will be no options but imported toxic junk left. So I ordered a skirt, and my winter wardrobe was changed forever.

Not only are these skirts super soft, comfortable, look great, and are WARM, but they have ample room to "add on". I once heard a woman during the civil war era wore 7 layers of clothes. I think they knew something we don't. I can wear long underwear and/or sweater tights under the skirt and not feel bulky at all. Then I add some leg warmers. I never got into this trend in the 80's, but boy I was missing out. These really amp up the warmth. Some wool socks, boots and the look is complete. And you might not believe me, but I am warmer in this outfit than in my one piece insulated snow suit-it was 8 degrees Fahrenheit when this picture was taken. Plus as the day warms up, or I go inside, I can start removing layers to adjust my comfort level. Its like a clothing thermostat. Since fleece dries quickly it keeps me from having those icicles hanging from my legs where I always spill the water buckets on the way to the barn.

Santa has since bought me two more skirts and a hat, and I now have an official Hard Work Homestead uniform. And since each one is made to your custom sizes I could even get some made for the girls.

Nah, I can just hear them now "this skirt makes my girth look big"

Inland un-clam chowder.

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

What is inland un-clam chowder you ask? Well that is what you make when you live in a land locked area, and only eat what you grow and have in your pantry (and don't eat seafood anyway). So for a mock version on the New England style, here it goes.

In a stock pot combine
2 TB of oil or butter
1 onion or leek chopped
1 celery stalk chopped (I used frozen celery tops from this years harvest)
saute for 5 minutes. Then add
2 large or 4 small potatoes diced
4 cups of stock
optional 1 piece of seaweed- I had some wakame left from a trip I made to Maine a few years ago when I went to visit Scott and Helen Nearing's Homestead. There is a small company there that harvests seaweed. You can also use kombu
1 bay leaf.
Cook until all vegetables are soft and remove the seaweed and bay leaf.

Saute about a cup of mushrooms in a pan. I used the foraged Hen of the Woods mushroom that I froze in the fall. Cook the mushrooms until they release the water, yet still remain soft.

Add to the stock pot salt to taste and 1/2 tsp Old Bay seasoning. I did not have any Old Bay, so I tried to duplicate it with the spices I had on hand. I was missing a few spices so it did not turn out all that old Bay like. Win some, lose some. It all eats the same.

Take about two cups of the vegetable soup mixture and puree with 1 cup of milk of your choice (dairy, plain soy, rice, etc). Add back to the pot. Add the sauteed mushrooms to the pot and stir. The soup is ready.

I didn't have the foresight to make sourdough bowls to serve this in so I made a quick batch of sourdough bannock . A perfect cold weather meal, even if you don't live anywhere near the ocean.

The year in review and the year ahead.

2011-12-31T06:00:00.003-05:00

There were times in the last year that I really felt like we were running in sand. No matter how hard we worked, it seemed there was so much yet to be done. In reflecting on 2011 for this post it amazes me just how much we did get done. It seems unreal that we have finally gotten to this point we have worked so hard to achieve. And I have no idea how we did it all.

First lets review. We have made great strides in becoming self sufficient. We have even been able to implement redundancies on our redundancies. One thing to keep in mind when setting up a self sufficient homestead is that you always need more than one way to achieve a goal, just in case something happens to the first system. And trust me, it always does.

Power- I do believe we can all get along without it, but it sure does make life easier. On this point we were finally able to get both the 1220 watt solar and 500 watt wind system permanently installed and running. It was a great sigh of relief when the system was finished. But it is dependant on the weather , so for emergencies we have also added a generator system. And if incapacitation should happen, we still have left the system able to be hooked back up to the grid with the pull of a lever. So we ultimately have four ways to make power here on the homestead. We also have four ways to make heat. We have the outside wood burner that heats the house and our hot water wonderfully. But should something happen to it we have a super high efficient gas boiler we installed before deciding to go with whole house wood heat. It requires electric to run though and if no electric were available we still have our 50 year old cast iron boiler ready to pick up the slack. And should all these fail (don't laugh, it happened once), we have a wood stove insert in the living room that can keep the house from freezing. Heat and power have become very important to our way of life, so we have assured that we will not be without either no matter what happens. We have also invested in replacing a bulk of our electric appliances with manual ones. We now wash clothes with a manual washer, almost all of the kitchen appliances are hand crank, and we replaced the electric refrigerator with an ice box.

Water- we now have a capacity to collect and use 1500 gallons of rain water scattered throughout the farm. We also installed a new bladder on our main well which increased the pressure and allows the pump to run less(using less power), since the volume of water has increased. We also have a separate well that is accessed by a hand pump for emergencies. So that gives us 3 separate water systems.

Food- the garden expansions of 2011 have allowed us to be able to provide enough food for a year and only shop once a year for a few provisions that I can not provide... yet. We have also expanded our composting system to twice the size as the previous year and added vermicomposting as a cold weather alternative to composting our food scraps.

Shelter-A house this old is constantly in need of something. It can be a bear to keep up with. But we decided this year to replace the windows and front door in hopes of making it more energy efficient. This project will be running over into the new year. But I feel strongly that bar a huge natural disaster, this house will be here for another 160 years. It might just kill me first ;)

Cooking- We added a wood cook stove this year. This allows us the ability to cook and can with no fossil fuels and since it is not in the main house, it will keep the house much cooler in the summer. This is an area where I am really redundant (see where my priorities are). It joins the cooking line up of the outside wood brick oven and the sun oven. I also still have my gas oven for occasions that the other three are not usable-or I just feel a little lazy. The gas stove is our last link to any municipal utility and while I would like to sever that umbilical cord, I have to consider that little bit of gas is outweighed by the convenience of having a quick lighting stove.

Farm- all of the leases I have had with other farmers renting out parts of the fields have been terminated this past year. This means that all of the farming on this 75 acre farm will be done by our family. A huge development in 2011. This will allow us to produce our grains among many other products. This meant that tractors and combines were added to the farm fleet. 2011 was quite a year.

So now time for 2012. Oh how I have been thinking on what projects to get into.

Power- we hope to upgrade our battery system to be able to hold enough amp hours for three days storage. While our current batteries are fine, we are finding that we really only have storage for a day and 1/2 with no sun. We may also try to add two more panels if the price is right. I am also considering what to do with my electric freezer since it hogs so much power. Without it, the upgrades may not be necessary. But I like having frozen foods in my arsenal of preserving methods. It may find its way to the chopping block or it may be replaced. Time will tell

Water- I think this in an area we are fine on for the next year. Although I do have a spring and small spring house that I would like to do some maintenance on. This would add a fourth water system to the homestead. I always envisioned a small pond where the spring lets out.

Food - I plan to dry more food and dry can it, so there is less need for a freezer. I hope to get more fruit trees added to the orchard this year. I say that every year, but the money has so many places to go, and thinking of the long term investment trees are, it gets pushed back. I hope to change that some this year. I am also going to increase the size of the mushroom farming to quadruple the size. It is such an easy way to grow this tasty food and increase our pantry size. I am also going to start maple syurping to provide a homegrown sweetener to the homestead. We have a large amount and variety of maples- sugar, silver, etc, and we will start small in harvesting to see if maple will be a better system for sweetener than beekeeping.

Shelter- Oh boy do I have too much stuff. Our house is bursting at the seems with the things that I accumulate. I plan to start downsizing this year. I have a hard time getting rid of things since I always come up with an idea in the future where I may need it. But enough is enough. I want to streamline the life a bit and all this clutter makes me nervous. So off it goes.....I think....I miss it already. We also are going to finish remodeling the inside of the pump house, a project started in 2011.

Farm- This is where the biggest changes are going to occur. This will be the first year since we moved here that there will be no spring Heifers moving into our barn. The horses boarded here will also be leaving part way through 2012. I am not sure how I feel about this. I love having all the animals around, but since we are trying to streamline the farm this year, these cuts were made. For now. There is only so much time and resources. And everything has to be weighed if it helps us achieve a goal. For now that answer is no. The farm will also be considered a no-till farm in 2012 and will be using less destructive practices in our new era of farming. There is still the possibility this can all go horribly wrong. After all there are no conflicts as nasty as the ones that can occur among family. Oh the poor neighbors.

So as you all are reviewing the past year and pondering the future, I wish you all a new year filled with happiness and good health. Here is to a very prosperous 2012.

New year, new face wash

2011-12-29T06:00:00.003-05:00

I am always coming up with another face wash when the seasons change. I find this time of year is the hardest on my skin and it can become very sensitive. Going from a warm dry house, to the cold, windy outside can make my skin raw. This mixture really helps to calm the skin while leaving it squeaky clean.

You will need

2 ounces of liquid castile soap (mild cleanser)

1 ounce of water

1 ounce of vegetable glycerin (moisturizer and helps cleanser slide off the face)

1/2 ounce of pure aloe vera gel (moisturizer and skin soother)

1 TB castor oil (helps remove oil and dirt)

Take one cup of oats flakes and soak them in 1 cup of very hot water. Stir and let sit for 20 minutes. Strain 3/4 cup of the liquid oat milk.

Mix the oat milk liquid( skin soother) with the above ingredients. You can use the left over oats in a nice oatmeal bread.

Bottle the mixture and use with in 2 months. No chemicals or harsh abrasives and made right in your own pantry.

The best of both worlds

2011-12-28T06:00:00.001-05:00

Speaking of laundry, I have noticed these laundry spinners for sale in my Amish magazines for sometime. The concept is great. If you have ever done laundry by hand with a wringer, you know that no matter how many times you put it through the wringer, it still holds the water. This is a problem when you have to take the laundry hanging indoors for the winter. Dripping laundry will ruin the hardwood floors. This item claims to spin the water from the laundry in three minutes and only use 300 watts of power. So on went the homesteader thinking cap.

I still have my electric machines from the pre-off grid days. While the dryer would use FAR to much energy to ever be used again, the electric washer is actually quite conservative on use and works just fine on our new inverter. A full cycle seems a waste of power and I do honesty believe that the James Washer not only gets clothes cleaner, it is much more gently on the laundry.

So I have the James Washer set up in the basement for winter time use. I do the load of laundry in the James Washer.

Then transfer the wet laundry to the electric washer. I don't use the wringer at all, and this saves me some time and elbow grease.

I have a spin only selection on the machine. It runs for a full 12 minutes, but I have found I can get the maximum amount of water removed from the laundry in 3-4 minutes. I have amped it out with a meter and found it uses between 280 and 310 watts of power in the spin cycle. Almost identical to the expensive spinner

So if we have a little extra power to spare in the batteries to run the electric washer for 4 minutes , I use my Homestead spinner....for $0 dollars. I like that math.

What Santa brought

2011-12-27T06:00:00.001-05:00

So what does Christmas look like on an off grid homestead? Dark, very dark. Well not really, but the sun and wind have been scarce and when you budget your homemade energy it needs to go into the most important pot, and Christmas lights just aren't one of them.

So our tree remained unlit, but that didn't keep Santa away.

Some may think that Santa may not know what to bring an off grid homesteader, but that is just not true. I can only imagine the north pole is one of the most off grid towns out there, so he was very schooled in what this homestead needed. And we were very good this year too ;)

First we were brought light. This little one watt solar panel charges the lamp during the day and gives us LED reading light for five hours. If you have ever tried to read by lamp light, you will know why this is a grand item. Also a solar charging flashlight which really helps with night chores. No additional power or batteries needed.

And Santa sent this one by way of my great friend Sweetie Pie Girl, uh I mean Apple Pie Girl. She noticed me coveting others Meyer Lemon trees and sent me one of my very own. Of course I do think she has odds with a bookie so see if and when I kill it. But I am going to try my hardest to keep this girl alive. We already have a few blossoms open. Crossing my fingers.

This is a great back saver. My Amish built laundry cart. My make shift laundry cart I fashioned out of a rolling grocery cart is rusting and giving way to the rigorous workout of heavy hand washed laundry. This all aluminum cart will really hold up to the task and the weather, and with no-flat tires it can handle the terrain of my yard. I am looking forward to hanging out season. I might just use it inside to hold the laundry while I hang it on the drying racks. You know, just to make sure it works.

We had a very peaceful and unplugged Christmas here on the homestead. I hope all of you out there had a safe and happy Holiday too. But they don't call this Hardwork Homestead for nothing, and it is back to the grindstone. Well for me it might be back to the James washer....I just have to try the cart.

I am dreaming of an ice Christmas

2011-12-24T17:49:00.000-05:00

Every Christmas Eve for the 13 years we have lived in this house, my Husband-The Ice Man- has carved an ice sculpture and we set it up at the end of our driveway. It is always a battle with the weather. This year was no exception. It was a little warm and we could have used some snow, but at least the sun did not shine (which can effect the appearance of the sculpture and make it cloudy). So we rounded up a few elves, and rolled out this years work of art.

The stockings are hung, the tree is trimmed, and all that is left to do is wait for Santa.

Of course, your not going to be roasting any chestnuts by this fire.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, and safe and happy holiday season.

Santa better put the knobby tires on the 4 wheel drive sleigh..

2011-12-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

because it is beginning to look like a brown Christmas. Days of rain and warmer temperatures are putting the end to any hopes of snow for the big day.

And if you remember from last year, we always set out an ice sculpture display around Christmas time by the road for all passersby to see. Many families have been coming the whole 13 years we have been doing it just to see what we do this year. It has become a neighborhood tradition and we have become known as "the people who do the ice sculpture" year round. But we wont let the weather keep us down, and the sculpture will still be going out. It just wont go up until Christmas eve to keep it from melting before Christmas day. I will post it as soon as we get it set up. I am not necessarily a fan of snow and all the extra work it brings, but I have to admit, you never hear anyone dreaming of a mud Christmas. Its just not all that festive.

Why I might be MIA soon

2011-12-21T06:00:00.002-05:00

See this. You might think it is a door. But it is more like a sieve. It is only a door in name. You literally can feel a breeze blow through your hair when standing on the other side of this door.

See these, they were double pane windows 20 some years ago.

Mishap with the lawn mower

They used to be filled with argon gas but now all of the seals have cracked and leaked the insulating property of the window, so they are really more like single pane windows. They may look dirty, but that is because condensation is between the two panes of glass. That makes it very drafty.

Our house was built in 1849. Back then brick homes like ours were built with three layers of brick and lathe and plaster inside. No insulation. Let me say that again, NO insulation and no place to add insulation unless we would build the walls out in each and every room. No thank you. Add to that, old and broken windows and doors and you now can see why we go through so much wood to heat the house. It is like trying to heat the outside too. So we have decided we put it off long enough and we must replace the windows and entrance door. As much as I would have liked to put this very expensive project off inevitably, I do think it best since so much of the house is made up of windows. And replacing them all will result in a much warmer home and less work cutting wood. So we have taken the plunge and ordered triple pane windows and a new front entry door. So if you don't see me for a while in the coming weeks, it could be because we decided in the freezing winter months to rip out 23 windows and the door. What was I thinking? Wish us luck. Gulp!

In the country, Santa does a drive by

2011-12-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

I know this is impossible to see, but out here Santa enlists the help of someone with a 4 wheel drive duely pickup to pull his sleigh float and the police and fire department give him an escort all around our far reaching township. Unfortunately, Santa drives by at a good clip and it is hard to get a picture of him. You don't know he is approaching until you hear the sirens of the police cars. And even then your not sure if someones house is on fire or if it might be Santa. You gotta look fast to catch a glimpse of Santa, and I sure hope no kids are waiting out by the road in the dark to see him. Most communities have a nice place where you can go and sit on Santa's lap, maybe have a cup of cocoa. But out here he shoots by at 35 miles an hour. Poor kids. Only here.

Checking on the worm stock

2011-12-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

My 1,999 red wrigglers are busily making haste of the vegetable waste. In case you are wondering,there are now 1,999 from the original 2000 since we had a small mishap early on with an unfortunate wormy who flew too close to the sun. Or too close to the lid and I didn't see him there. RIP little guy. Anyway, some of the food scraps have even sprouted in the bin. Seeds are wonderful, aren't they?

This corner was full of vegetable scraps just three weeks ago. Now it is all worm castings. But I am surprised that they do not eat more than they are. I am still taking food scraps to the compost bin since I do not want to overwhelm the worm bin and have it put off an odor. There are still many pockets of food that they have not gotten to yet. Maybe as they begin to reproduce they will feel a few more hunger pangs and I can process more of our food scraps to garden gold this winter.

Even as I strive to be a hospitable worm host, I still get a few that want to make a break for it.

Either that, or they are just walking off a big meal. We vegetarians have a lot of food scraps. Maybe I am overfeeding them. Do my worms look fat?

Pumpkin seed oil pressing

2011-12-18T06:00:00.005-05:00

I am still experimenting to see which home grown products can produce the best edible oil here on the homestead. I have been saving the seeds from each pumpkin I eviscerate, letting them air dry, and storing until I acquired about 6 cups.

I ran them through the hand crank oil press. The press cake from this batch proved to not only be a usable animal feed, but human too. My Husband snacked continuously on the dry, fibrous remains of the seeds the whole time we pressed the oil. I did not partake, but he assured me it was fairly tasty. I will take his word for it.

The results of the pressing yielded 1/2 cup of extremely flavorful cold pressed pumpkin seed oil. I am still not getting the yield I had hoped for, but it is a very educational homestead project. It makes you respect each food you consume a little more when you see just how much goes into each and every morsel. It is very easy to go to the store and buy a jug of oil never giving it a thought to where and how it was produced. But to grow the item from seed, tend it, harvest it, process it into a usable oil, and use it to dress a homegrown greenhouse salad in the middle of December gives you a whole new outlook on food.

I can assure you that it also makes you far more of a connoisseur to the subtle taste of food when it takes this much work to produce. A side effect of striving for self sufficiency is that it causes you to give thanks for everything you produce, no matter how small. There is no such thing as disappointment on a homestead. Only anticipation until you get to experience it all again.

Hawaiian bread

2011-12-15T06:00:00.001-05:00

I am always surprised how many people will throw out a black banana. If I ever see this I grab them up to bring home and make a great yeast toasting bread. I don't get this often, but when I do make it, it is a real treat.

You will need for two loaves:

2-3 bananas mashed-about a cup

1 cup of left over cooked potato

1/2 cup milk

1 cup of crushed pineapple or, if you made this recipe for mock pineapple it will work just fine

2 tsp coconut extract

2 eggs

I blend this in a blender but you can mash by hand if you want bits in your bread

Mix together
6 cups of flour
1 TB yeast
2/3 cup sugar or 1/3 cup of honey
1 tsp salt

Add the above liquid ingredients and start to mix

I used the hand crank Little Dutch Maid for this and it works wonderful. Knead dough.

add 4 TB of butter as you knead the dough, and incorporate.
You may need to add a little more flour if the dough is to sticky, which it may be.

Make two loaves. Put into greased baking pans and let rise in a warm place.

Preheat the oven. You want to bake in a moderate oven for wood cook stoves or 350-375 degrees in standard ovens.

Bake until golden brown. This is a great breakfast bread slathered with butter. It is a real taste of the tropics even if your staring out the window at a foot of snow.

Even if others think your a nut,

2011-12-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

you can still be happy.

I think my squirrels thought I needed a pick me up and left this on the sidewalk. They are such thoughtful little thieves.

Sourdough Bannock

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

I am still broadening my Sourdough horizons. Here is a nice recipe if you want a quick bread with a meal. The quintessential backwoods food, bannock.

Take 2 cups of primary batter

1/4 cup of butter

1 tsp of salt

1 TB of sugar

1 cup of flour

Mix together into a batter.

Pour mixture into a well oiled skillet.

Cook on one side until underside is slightly brown. This could take several minutes. Then flip the bread carefully.

Bake the second side until toasty brown. This can also be cooked over an open fire so it is a great camping food.

Serve with a steaming hot bowl of something. It is just as good for breakfast as it is for dinner.

Solar substitution dehydrating

2011-12-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

Talk about being all dressed up with no where to go. I have been staring at the new solar dehydrator for a while now dreaming about being able to try it out next season. It is far to cold and overcast outside now to even imagine using it. Then I had an idea. I still had some super hardy Greek oregano and parsley out in the garden and my reserves of these dried herbs were low. So why not see if I could still use the dehydrator.

I loaded up the trays with the fresh picked herbs.

Then I turned the dehydrator around so that the opening and the vents faced a radiator under the window in the dinning room. I let it sit here for two days.

And sure enough the herbs dried! So no need to wait for the spring sun to shine. A little heat from the radiator was enough. And now I have two pints of dried herbs to add to the larder. I really think food is the mother of all inventions. It sure motivates me :)

Clothes pin bag

2011-12-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

Susan asked if I would do a tutorial on making the clothes pin bag. I will oblige her, but I guarantee that everyone reading this is much better at sewing than I, so take this as a loose interpretation.

Start by cutting four rectangles of fabric about the size you would like the bag. Make sure to make the bag at least an inch bigger than the hanger you will be using to hang the bag, to allow for 1/2 inch seams. You need two of a lining color and two of the outside color. Take one sheet of lining fabric and one sheet of outside fabric and cut a round hole the size you would like about 1/3 down from the top of the fabric. This bowl made a nice template. Next you will want to stitch the two pieces of material together around the boarder of the hole. I used a close zigzag stitch since this will be an area of high hand traffic.

Then you want to piece the bag together. The right side of the lining should be on the outside and the right side of the outside fabric should be facing each other in the middle. Clear as mud?

You will then want to stitch all the way around the bag with a 1/2 inch seam except for a small hole at the very top where the hook from hanger will go through.

This is a little trick I learned from Apple Pie Girl. I sewed a diagonal line through the corners of the bottom of the bag. There is a neater way to do this, but again I stress that I am a freewheeling sewer. This will make the bottom of the bag lie more flat and leave a better area for the pins.

Turn the bag inside out through the hand hole. Put the hanger inside the bag and poke the hook through the small hole that you left at the top. Once the hanger is inside, I put a straight stitch along the bag just below the hanger to hold the hanger in place.

And there you have it. Ready to hold the clothes pins out on the line. And no, I do not think I did well in Home Economics- and it shows.

Does someone in your house do this?

2011-12-08T06:00:00.001-05:00

Eats the whole darn jar....except

for a barely usable amount in the bottom.

I have been watching this jar for months, since this is a bone of contention with me. I have not had one bite of this caramel. The perpetrator never came back to finish the last little bit and it actually started to mold. I have come to the conclusion that this small amount is left in there so a certain someones conscious is clean for they have NOT -eaten the whole thing.

Either that or they do it to drive me up the wall.

Brine of life

2011-12-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

I have become a little addicted to fermenting and batch after batch is being made on the homestead. One of the best parts of fermenting, and often discarded, is the brine liquid.

This tonic can be used in so many ways. It is full of the nutrition and taste of the fermented vegetables and the good bacteria from the fermentation process. It can be used anywhere you would like a salty, zippy, savory taste. I add it to soups and stews, or dip raw vegetables in it. But one of the best uses is in salad dressing.

This brine was from a batch of Janechi and the lovely pink color is from the red pac choi. It was infused with a garlicky, ginger taste. Just mix a little with oil for a simple dressing or add any of your favorites like mustard, honey, vinegar, lemon juice, etc.

There is no waste on a self sufficient homestead. And this is a particular tasty way to use every drop.

It must be the milkmans.

2011-12-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

I roast one of our homegrown pumpkins every week for the dogs. They love it and it is very good for them. If you have a dog with a tummy issue, pumpkin will fix them right up. It is a miracle of the doggie digestive track. If they are having trouble...going...in fixes that. If they are a little to ....loose...puts an end to that too. I also have a dog on a diet who insists that she is starving to death. So a big old scoop of pumpkin always makes her feel a little less close to death.

But this last pumpkin I attempted to cook, would not cut open for anything. I had to resort to throwing it on the sidewalk to get it open. (disclaimer- this method of smashing a pumpkin open is for professionals only. It can result in loss of property from ricocheting pumpkin, squash shrapnel, and gravel and dirt contamination when it rolls off in the driveway. Do not attempt at home) This was my first sign it was keeping a secret. Then after a nice long roast in the oven, I flipped it over to cut it up and found....

THIS! Looks like this pumpkins mother was messing with the spaghetti squash. It was a pumpkin looking and tasting spaghetti squash. Oh the scandal.

Once word of this gets out to the patch, there is no telling what can happen. Squash infidelity is a serious thing.

Baby Broccoli

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

The December greenhouse is exploding with fresh food. It might be frightful and frozen out here.

But warm and delightful in here. It is times like this when you can really see where the investment in the greenhouse has paid off. We eat something out of here for every meal and as you can see, it just replenishes itself. I can not tell you how satisfying it is to know that we have fresh, organic food year round and do not need to ever worry about buying questionable food from questionable sources. We might not have an 401K or a stock portfolio, but we have food. And to think most people use their greenhouse only for starting plants in the spring.

One of the vegetables growing in here is a species of broccoli that forms very small florets, rather than large heads. This comes in handy in this type of growing environment since traditionally broccoli would not form heads this time of year, nor could it sustain the nightly freezes. But this variety, Happy Rich, will produce until the temperatures stay below freezing for days on end. So it is a nice variety to include in the winter greenhouse.

The little florets are great for snacking, stir fry, salads, or here I topped a pizza with collards and Happy Rich florets. Yum.

Where did the time go

2011-12-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

It is so hard to believe it is December. It seems it was just yesterday I pulled these beans from the garden to dry.

Now all that remains of them are tucked away in an envelope. Patiently waiting for spring.

And summers fruits,

are only still with us in its cryogenically preserved state.

Yes December is a time of reflection for me. The changing of not only a new calender year is approaching, but of my own chronological age as well. So instead of filling my weekend with cake and candles, I will be taking pen to paper. Reviewing the past year, and thinking forward to the next. So many new projects and ideas I have racing around my mind. As I will be entering the last year of my Thirties this weekend, I will be working on my "new year" resolutions. What a bittersweet year to come. Perhaps I will break in with a few verses of Auld Lang Syne.

Making Hominy

2011-12-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

I am still working on my supply of homegrown 2009 garden season dry corn. So to change things up, I decided to turn some into hominy. Why make hominy? Well the process of taking corn and mixing it with an alkalinizing substance is called nixtamalization. This process alters the amino acids in corn making them available as a complete protein and making the niacin in corn more available to digest. It is also how you prepare corn for making masa corn meal if you want to make tamales .

Start by soaking 2 cups of dry corn for 24 hours in water.

Next you will need the alkalinizing substance. You can use 1/2 of wood ash, or 2 TB of lime (food grade calcium hydroxide- not the fruit.)Be very careful with the lime and wet skin because it can burn. Years ago I whitewashed a barn (whitewash contains lime) and I burned a hole in the one square inch of exposed skin where my sleeve popped out of my glove. The scar remained there for 20 years, so be careful! If your using wood ash make sure it is from real wood, no pressed or particle board.

Mix the ash or lime in with the soaked corn and about 8 cups of water. Next place the mixture on the stove to cook until the skins slip from the corn. It can take up to 3 hours. To test, take a kernel and rub between your fingers to see if the skin comes off. If it does, your done cooking. Pour the mixture out into a colander.

You will need to clean the corn at this point. Rub the kernels between your hands under water and then drain and rinse again.

Keep doing this until all the skins are removed and the water runs clean.

You now have hominy or also called posole. You can eat it whole in soups or grind it into dough for homemade tamales or tortillas. Dry the hominy and rough grind for corn grits. It is a simple process that increases the available nutrition of the corn and tastes great. And on this homestead, we are all about the taste.

Left- dry corn, right-hominy

Sissy!

2011-11-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

I opened up the coop at 7:30 am as I usually do. I filled the feeder and replaced the water which are located in the front of the coop. I also throw a little extra scratch on the board in the run for a little simulated forage fun. Two hours had passed and I still could not see any birds in the run, and upon closer inspection I see they never even touched the scratch. But I could hear them yelling up a storm in the coop.

Then I saw the problem. That morning I had put the white board at the bottom of the picture across the doorway so that they would not track half of the bedding out into the area where they eat, and then out into the soup that is their run.

What big sissy's! They were so scared of the board they would not even venture out to the feeder to try to fill their hungry tummies. So instead they were loudly protesting this new invader. Yes, creatures that I have seen charge a coyote and have very little regard for preserving their own lives - would NOT cross a new white board. Geesh.

Needless to say I had to remove the board and continue the nightly sweeping of the bedding back into the coop. Yes, even my birds know how to get their own way. I have raised chicken chickens. Scaredy fowl. Girly Guineas. Petrified perchers. Trepidatious tree dwellers.....OK I will stop now.

Shop to save

2011-11-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

There is just so much discussion about shopping this time of year. Sales, discounts, super savers, blah blah blah. Now don't get me wrong, some commerce is actually good. After all, I cant weave my own fabric on the homestead....yet....so there are still some things that need to come from an outside source. Unfortunately a trip to a national fabric outlet thoroughly discouraged me. I was hard pressed to find any fabric that was made in the USA. And to top it off, they are getting top dollar for inferior fiber. So a shopping trip was in order. Where do homesteaders go to shop?

Yep, the only place left where you can still get well made, sturdy, made in the USA products. But you have to be in the know, as to where to go. And the best and most frugal place I have found for this type of shopping is the Amish Thrift stores. They are run by the Amish and have some of the most useful finds. And they are often tucked away on a back road in a residential building.

I was able to get 3 yards of a good heavy cotton fabric for $3 for the roll. I also picked up great books for $.50 and a binder of "Farm Wife Magazine" that contained two years of magazines for $1. They have large amounts of craft type items and if you quilt these are the places to go. They also have home goods and clothing, surprisingly racks and racks of English clothing.

I was able to whip up a less than stellar skirt.

A Christmas gift for my Mom.

A clothes pin bag.

And still have some reading material left for the cold days of winter. All for $5.00. And I didn't need to shop a certain day, have a card, or a coupon. Shopping low on the food chain is the only way to go.

I have been thinking...

2011-11-28T08:04:00.000-05:00

We have been having a strange stretch of weather here in PA. It has been unnaturally warm and extremely overcast. Not only do the overcast days prevent the solar panels from charging the batteries , but it prevents me from getting on line. I have a wireless Internet card and even on a good day I am quite far from the nearest tower so reception is questionable. Throw up a few clouds and I am off line. A downside to living in the country. But yet Verizon still expects me to pay the full bill. Grrrrrr. But I can still read all your blogs on my phone, but I cant post on mine and leaving comments on yours doesn't always work. So bare with me during the winter.

Now for the other effect of the warm weather. Slugs, slugs, and more slugs in the greenhouse. I have tried every imaginable natural way to rid them, but considering every slug on this 75 acres are lining up to feast at the inside salad bar, it is a losing battle. So each bowl of greens that come in from the greenhouse has to be soaked at least three times and hand sorted to make sure you don't miss one of these.

Some try to make a break for it.

But back to my thought. See all these little dots floating in the bowl. You know what that is? That is slug poop. Yep poop. Now my question is, do you think that slug poop contains e-coli? I have no idea of the bacteria in a slugs digestive track, so not sure what could be in it. Not only is the though of some being left of the lettuce leaves distasteful, but I am wondering if there are any health issues with eating it. Now I am sure probably not, after all I truly believe that bugs were a food of choice among early man and I would bet we could all still benefit from eating them now. (Although I am vegetarian, so none for me. More for you guys;)

So I guess the third side effect of this weather is that I have more time confined in these four walls and my mind wanders. That sun better come out soon cause I think I have spent far too many brain cells thinking about slug poop. Cabin fever came far to soon.

Sour Beets

2011-11-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

No, nothing like sour grapes ;)

But if you find yourself with a few beets that are not happy in storage in the root cellar, they may be calling for another home. Enter sour beets. Fermented in much the same way as sauerkraut they are a delicious and healthy addition to winter eating. Just take about five pounds of beets and peel.

You may want to wear gloves. In a vegetarian home, this is as close to 'blood on my hands' as we get.

Shred the beets and add 3 TB of canning salt to 5 pounds of beets. Mix up well to distribute salt evenly.

Pack the mixture into a fermenting crock. If you do not have enough liquid to cover the beets add 1 TB of salt to 1 cup of water and dissolve. Add to the crock to cover the beets and weigh the beets down with a plate.

Let the mixture ferment for several weeks. If you don't have a water seal crock, make sure to skim the scum often.

While I was at it, I did another round of JaneChi but with mostly roots this time around. Carrots, celery root, leeks, radishes, and a few small napa cabbage heads from the greenhouse.

I cant imagine why anyone would want to snack on unhealthy chips and processed crackers when you can eat salty, tasty, nutritious fermented veggies instead. Each serving packed full of the healthy bacteria that keeps your gut working smoothly and boosting your immunity. I am really getting addicted to fermenting since we don't have a refrigerator, it is a great way to keep fresh vegetables all through the winter. Come to think of it, maybe we should try....sour grapes.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T06:00:00.001-05:00

I used to work with these adorable fellows in Equine therapy. I miss them terribly. Thanks Chelsea for for the picture. Now we know how they celebrate Thanksgiving in the barn. Have an enjoyable Holiday everyone.

It's that time of year again

2011-11-23T06:00:00.001-05:00

Where it is just too cold and damp to dry outside and my house starts to look like the Chinese laundry.

Mornings are full of frozen and frosty gates.

And you have to make lunch by lamplight. Yes lunch. It is 1:00 pm here. Nothing worse than several days of no sun or wind in a row for an off grid home. The dark days of winter came a little early this year.

The Apron

2011-11-21T06:00:00.001-05:00

Susan over at E-I-E-I-OMG gave us bloggers a challenge to make a new apron and we would all display it by Thanksgiving. Now she was very loose in how we could assemble the apron. Duct tape was allowed. I love aprons so I was excited to create a new one. The problem was I was large on enthusiasm and short on time. We have decided to do some major and much delayed work on our house so any spare time has been filled with estimates and workman with rulers. More on that another day. Plus our cloudy days have not been conducive to using an electric sewing machine for hours on an off grid system. So short of duct taping some material together, I remembered an idea I saw years ago when I was in Maine at a campground of all places. First you need a tea towel or a piece of material. I started with a 28 x 18 inch towel.

Next you will need 4 pieces of ribbon. 2 cut- 21 inches and 2 cut -16 inches. Of course you may need to change this depending on where you like your apron to sit and body shape, beads and 4 alligator clips.

Attach the alligator clips to one end of all the ribbons. Now you will want to feed opposite ends of same length ribbon through two beads. This will make a slide adjustment so you can make the neck or back tie larger or smaller by pulling the ribbon.

Attach your short ribbons to the top of the towel. I like to fold the two corners in a little so it lays more fitted on your chest.

Attach your long ribbon to the side of the towel about where your waist is and clip around your body to the other side.

Done. No duct tape needed. One apron ready for duty. (boy I wish I could teach the dog to take photos. Is is very hard to take a picture of yourself)

And at the end of the evening you can remove the apron and clean up the mess from dinner WITH the apron. A real mutlitasker. Once the clips are made you can change the look of the apron as often as you pick up a new towel or piece of material.

So there you have it. One Apron thrown together in the nick of time. Thats just how we roll here on the homestead.

Sourdough cornbread

2011-11-18T06:00:00.001-05:00

I have had some popcorn that I grew two years ago just sitting in the cupboard. The kernels were very small and don't amount to much when popped. But they needed to be used, and what better way than cornbread. Popcorn is the hardest grain possible to grind, so get the arm warmed up before taking on this hefty task if you have a hand crank grain grinder like I do. You also may want to wear ear plugs.

I often do not sift my grains since most grain i.e., wheat, oats, spelt, all contain nutrition in the germ. I like to keep that in what ever I am baking.

But ground corn leaves a papery chafe that really is not palatable. It is best to sift it.

Now on to the show. Mix together

1 cup of primary batter

2 cups of ground popcorn or cornmeal

1 tsp salt

1/4 of a fat of choice

2 eggs

1/4 honey

1 1/2 cup of milk or buttermilk

Mix together and put in a well greased iron skillet. Bake in a 400 degree for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

This cornbread did not rise up as much as ones baked with baking powder/soda, but it was not too dense and really moist. The taste was fantastic, and I reused the left overs to make a squash casserole. I was sorry I did that. It was so good it was much better eaten as a nice side bread to the meal. Smothered in butter wouldn't hurt either.

Curtains in the coop

2011-11-17T06:00:00.001-05:00

Now that the weather is cold, and the bugs have died off, the birds no longer get to free range. They are far more likely to become a meal outside, than find a meal. So they are resigned to milling around the coop run all day screaming to be released. But I do not like the fact that once I open the coop door in the morning all the stored heat just pours out into wide open. Enter these used strip curtains.

I had my Husband bring home a few used strips from work. Now if they are designed to keep cold air in a freezer, why cant they keep warm air in the chicken coop. I was also hoping they would discourage the free loading wild birds who raid the chicken feeder. Unfortunately they just fly under it. Drats. I had to keep the length of the curtains only half way down the door because if they were to close to the floor it would terrify the birds and they would never go through the door. I have sissy birds.

Hopefully this will make even a few degree temperature difference during the coldest winter days. Because I would really hate to have to knit 8 little cardigans. I am just not that good at knitting.

Potpourri

2011-11-16T06:00:00.001-05:00

I don't buy oranges unless we happen to make a trip down south. But every once in a while, a bag shows up to the homestead because someone thinks we will die of scurvy. sigh. So following the rules of homestead living, nothing goes to waste. After using the oranges, I dry the orange skins in the wood cook stove oven on low heat-mostly as the oven is cooling down for the day.

After a day or two of drying I add a variety of great smelling spices from the pantry. Cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, whole allspice, etc. Mix all together.

And store in a jar. Now when you want to infuse your home with a great natural smell (or cover up the fact your old dogs are stinky) just simmer some of this potpourri uncovered in a pan on the stove on low heat. If your using a wood cook stove, put the pot on the coolest part of the stove and let it simmer away.

This would also make a great non-toxic, no chemical, gift for the holidays.

The solar dehydrator

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

One of my projects I had hoped to have built this year was a solar food dehydrator. Of course I was hoping it was done for this years garden season, but better late than never. We followed the very detailed instructions in the book Solar Food Dryer by Eben Fodor . We assembled the list of parts described in the book, cut them, and spread them around the house. Perhaps you may use a nice work shop to get your projects done, or maybe a garage, even a basement. But here on the homestead, no surface goes un-littered when a project is in the works. First we line the house with the supplies. A few tools sprinkled about for good measure.

Next spread the work out over the course of several days and several rooms. Build a little in the living room. Any flat surface should be covered with a variety of screws and drill tips. Lazy dogs optional.

Take it into the dinning room for the final touches. Spread instructions around to give the appearance of following them. Oh what people must think when they visit the clutter that is Hard Work Homestead.

And ta-da! Three rooms and one week later, the dehydrator is done. It has a total of 10 square feet of drying space and adjustable vents to control the amount of heat in the dehydrator.

While I love my Excalibur electric dehydrator, the off grid power system does not appreciate such heavy energy hogs. So I hope to preserve much more of our food with dehydrating and oven canning. Our small old freezer is a chink in the solar armour. The bulk of our food is canned, but I love having a freezer as part of our preservation system. It may be time to rethink how we preserve food until we are able to afford a freezer than is designed to run on solar and use the least amount of watts possible or learn to live without it.

I am now prepared for the next growing season and can not wait to try out the new dehydrator. I highly recommend this book if you have ever though about building one of your own. It has detailed instructions and information on cutting all of the pieces needed as well how to use the dehydrator and sun patterns. Here is hoping for a bountiful season next year.

Sourdough dumplings

2011-11-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

Ahhh dumplings, the thing that takes an ordinary soup to new levels of tastiness. These whip up quick to top any stew or soup. Mix together

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt

1/4 of fat of choice

1 cup of primary batter

1/4- 1/2 cup of milk

fresh chopped herbs

and I added a little left over feta cheese.

Mix until just blended

Drop them by the spoonful over your boiling soup pot and cover. Let the dumplings cook covered for at least 15 minutes.

Doesn't that just scream warm, happy tummy?

These sourdough experiments are tough, but someone has to do them ;)

Sourdough salt crackers

2011-11-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

Furthering my experimenting with using sourdough over baking soda/powder, I have come across the best crackers I have made. They disappeared within a day of baking, so double the recipe if you want any left over.

Take 2 TB of shortening- I used coconut oil

1 tsp of salt

1/2 cup of primary batter

1 cup of flour

Mix the ingredients and knead the dough adding flour if necessary to get a stiff dough.

Roll the dough out very thin, I used the pasta roller. Place dough on a greased cookie sheet.

Cut into cracker shapes

And sprinkle with extra salt. I found in my cupboard a container of chunky red sea salt that worked perfect

Bake at about 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes, just until the crackers slightly brown. Don't walk away or you may burn them. Every oven is different, my brick oven baked them in minutes.

These would be great with soups, sliced cheese, or just popped right in your mouth. They are much healthier than any store bought cracker and really satisfy that crunchy, salty craving. And the sourdough added just the right amount of flavor. These are a real homestead favorite.

The new farm critters

2011-11-11T06:00:00.003-05:00

I finally got around to a project I tell myself I will do every year around this time, but had yet to do. I have added to the homestead head count by 2000 head, well sort of. I finally built the worm bin. Once the temperatures drop below 60 degrees outside, all composting stops until spring. The problem is that I still need compost and still have tons of fresh food scraps that need to go somewhere. Enter vermicomposting. Basically getting worms to eat the scraps, poop out the fertilizer, and we are back in the composting business. But first the worms need a home.

I took a large plastic storage bin and drilled holes all along the top four inches of the bin

As well as holes in the base and the lid.

I shredded newspaper and soaked it to get it wet, then wrung it out to the moisture content of a damp towel. Worms like moisture, but too much sends them heading for higher ground- outside of the bin. I don't want to be herding worms, or cause a stampede.

I threw in some leaves and about a quart of good garden dirt. All of this was loosely added into the plastic bin.

Next step, add the hard working worms. All 2000 of them - dehydrated and cranky from the trip through the postal service.

They can eat up to their body weight a day in food scraps. They, like me, prefer a vegetarian diet. Favorites include breads and grains, coffee grounds and tea, fruits, and vegetables. They do not like oils, dairy products, fats, or meats. You bury the food scraps in a corner of the bin covering the food with the newspaper/leaf matter. Keeping the food covered keeps down any smell.

Once everything and everybody is in there, put a wet piece of cardboard over the casting(poop) factory and let them do their thing. Feeding them often enough to keep them happy, but not to often as to cause the food to rot before they can eat it. Adding more wet newspaper as they consume it.

I put the bin in the basement elevated over a tray. Any moisture that would seep out would be good compost tea for the greenhouse. Hopefully as they multiply (doubling every 90 days) they will be able to keep up with our food scraps and reward us with a big bin of worm castings for the garden come spring.

Now whatever you do, don't tell the chickens about the new farm animals. I would hate to see them plan a fowl home invasion. The lure of the wrigglers would just be too much.

Another fall ferment

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

The greenhouse is growing right along and we almost can not keep up with eating it all. Almost.

So it was time to use some of it up and make my mild version of Kimchi. Now this is nothing like the spicy version you will find in Korea, nor is it made the same. Kimchi making can be an art. So lets just call this Janechi. I started by pulling a mix of Asian greens, radishes, celeriac, carrots, and leeks from the greenhouse. I washed and chopped them.

I made a brine of 1 cup of water to 1 TB of salt. I used about 8 cups/ 8tb in this bowl. Dissolve salt in the water.

I used dried ginger, 4 cloves of garlic, and one hot pepper. You can make this into a paste, but I just put them in slightly chopped. Feel free to add more or less of each ingredient to your taste.

Submerge the vegetables in the brine and weigh them down with a plate. Leave them in the brine several hours or overnight. Once the vegetables are soft, take them out of the brine but reserve the brine.

Put the vegetables in the vessel you are going to ferment them in and push the vegetables down under the brine level. Add reserved brine if you cant cover them. Weigh down the vegetables with a clean sterilized jar, brick, or plastic bag filled with brine and cover the container. Start tasting in a week to see if they are done and move to a cool place to store.

The sauerkraut that was made 5 weeks ago has turned out wonderful. And I can not recommend one of these fermenting crocks enough. The water lip seal keeps any smell from the fermenting process contained. I keep this in my kitchen and you would never know I was even making sauerkraut. And if you keep the water seal full, you never get any scum on the surface of the brine. My Husband claims this batch was better than any we made in an open crock. I love this crock so much I am asking Santa to bring it a little sister because I hate to empty it since it will be such a great air tight container to keep the sauerkraut in a cool place for storage.

Fermenting is an easy way to preserve food and with the bonus of adding natural beneficial bacteria to your diet. We all can use a little boost to the immune system this time of year and fermented foods are just what the (country) doctor ordered.

Frost and flakes

2011-11-09T06:00:00.007-05:00

When the morning dew turns to frost, it is time to start thinking about starting the day with a hearty bowl of rolled grains. But alas, my grains all look like this. Straight from the field.

I have been looking for a grain flaker for some time. I finally found one that did everything I wanted, plus a little extra bonus. It was the Family Flaker Mill. It even came with a kitchen aid attachment.

Now if you recall, my kitchen aid bit the dust a while back. See that little burned up mark on the board, that is what happened after less than a years sporadic use. I looked up this issue and found that it is quite common with these mixers. So we called the company to see if we could order the board and replace it. Immediately the service tech started blaming me for using the wrong flour. Can you imagine! It is the professional series and I wasn't mixing cement in it. When I explained I just wanted to order a part, kitchen aid said no way, that it had to go to a repair center and would cost $150 minimum-if it could even be fixed. Hog wash! See this is why I hate my Kitchen aid and am in love with my hand crank Little Dutch Maid mixer. But I digress. I was able to find the replacement board for $30 on eBay and replaced it myself. It works fine now. So since the machine is still running, I figured that a motorized option was well worth it.

But the real draw for this flaker is that it is a hand crank model. It turns effortlessly and may even work faster than when it is hooked up to the kitchen aid. Plus no drain on the off grid power system.

I had fun flaking everything I could find. From left to right we have barley flakes, oat flakes, and spelt flakes all from whole groats.

So why would I want to flake my grains. Well first, it gives a new texture and variety to what we eat. Since we will be growing our own grains from this point on, it gives us more options in our meals. Second, all commercial rolled oats and flakes are steamed before they roll them. That means they are already cooked before you bring them home and cook them again. The more you process food, the less nutrition it contains. This way I am able to even eat the flakes raw with yogurt, cooked, or my favorite, made into a multigrain granola.

Yum!

Dont leave the leaves on the ground

2011-11-08T06:00:00.002-05:00

One of the 1, 653 things I do each day is to rake up any leaves as they fall. No I am not one of those lawn fanatics who need to eradicate any signs of nature on their unnatural green lawns. (on a side note, doesnt it make you laugh that they are raking up the lawns best food source and then bring chemical sprays in to "feed" the lawn?) I am just taking advantage of this free fertilizer that falls from the sky.

Dry leaves are a wonderful source of carbon for the compost pile. I try to fill several of these bins each fall. They also make great bedding for the chicken coop, worm bin, and mulch for the gardens.

So one mans litter is another's future vegetables.

How to take five years off your life

2011-11-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

Put up a wind turbine. Yes folks, we were finally able to put the last piece in the off grid puzzle. But not without a few more grey hairs. While it may seem like it went together seamless, there is a very large margin for error in erecting a tall pole with a spinning turbine at the end and if something should give way, it could result in serious injury.

(No we didn't paint it this color. The previous owner did, but never installed it. We just never re-painted it)

We started the weekend by digging holes for the anchors for the guy wires.

Then cement was poured into them to hold the anchors. Nothing like the smell of Quickrete in the morning, right.

The next day the turbine was mounted and wired. Now here is where my Husband has issues with these turbines. Once it is up, there is not much more you can do. It constantly produces power whether it has a place to go or not and it feeds directly into the batteries. They do not go through the inverter or charge controller. Nothing regulates how much energy it puts into the batteries. It can cook your batteries if it produces too much power, so you must have a load diverter installed. We have an issue with the load diverter we have, but more on that in another post. The only way to shut down the turbine is with a transfer switch we installed that shorts the energy to ground. It is not a system like the solar panel installation that has several safety features, load controllers, and safe ways to manage the energy. Time shall tell.

There was much argument over the best way to erect it. Finally, what I feel was the safest route was to tie off 3 guy wires and pull it up by the 4th. I pulled the fourth guy wire with the tractor while the guys had to very carefully hold the pole and slide in onto the four support bolts that are positioned in a yard of reinforced concrete.

One bolt was slightly off from when we poured the concrete months ago. It took a sledge hammer and a prayer, but it eventually went down on all four bolts. All the bolts were were capped with washers, lock washers, and nuts. We are still going to do a little extra precautionary work at the base of this pole just to be extra secure. You just cant be to safe with things like this.

And finally it was up. WHEW! I am happy to report that no injuries occurred and no loss of property.

The turbine was wired in to the batteries and we are now just watching the wind and the trimetic battery monitor. Fingers are crossed. Now excuse me while I go have a drink.

Sourdough biscuits

2011-11-05T06:00:00.002-04:00

One of the first recipes I thought to make with sourdough rather than baking powder/soda is biscuits. You just take your primary batter (not the starter) that has been bubbling away for at least 12 hours.

You will measure 1 1/2 cups of primary batter (any left over primary batter can go back in the crock with you starter) to that add 1 cup of flour, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 TB of honey, 1/4 cup melted butter. And lightly mix

Put the dough out on a floured board and knead for just under a minute. Just to bring it together. Too much kneading results in tough dough.

Roll or pat out the dough to your desired thickness. I think I went a little to thin here and I would keep it at least 1/2 inch or more.

Cut your biscuits. I prefer a square biscuit because it is one less utensil to wash and you can use all the dough at once. No taking up scraps to re-roll which increases the amount of times the dough is worked. Let the biscuits rise in a warm place on a greased baking sheet for at least 1/2 hour. Bake at about 375 degrees for 30 minutes or for you fellow wood oven cooks, a moderate oven until tops start to brown rotating once.

The result is a light, airy biscuit. It was very tasty with a slight sourdough tang. Perhaps a little more like a roll than a biscuit since these are softer than a heavy baking powder biscuit. I can say that the baking powder/soda is not missed here.

One recipe down, many more to make over. Stay tuned for more adventures in sourdough.

Downsizing the pantry -sourdough

2011-11-04T06:00:00.002-04:00

One thing I have noticed about homesteading is that a large portion of your time is devoted to thinking about food. How to grow it, store it, preserve it, or cook it. I was under a self imposed restriction to only restock supplies 4 times a year with a bulk order to the local mill. I checked my calender and could not believe that it had been 6 months since I did a restock trip, and I still really had more than enough to keep going. Plus we have the possibilities of growing all of our own grains next season, so using up what I have in stock is imperative. So I have decided to only shop once a year for supplies.

So that led me to thinking about the things I am still buying and how many do I really need. I have been trying to make a list of things that I would have to buy as opposed to make. I will always need to buy salt since I know of no salt springs in my area, and lye. I could technically make lye, but it is a very unstable process and I would be worried about the strength. Since I make soap with it, I really feel safer with lye of the appropriate strength.

Then there are the things that I make from food we have right here on the homestead: vinegar from our fruits, oil we press from seeds we grow, sugar from our abundant maple trees (a new spring project-the gear is ready to go), yeast pulled from the air naturally.

Then there are fringe items. Like baking powder and baking soda. I did a little research on these items to see how they are made. If you have baking soda, you can make baking powder with a few other ingredients. But most baking soda these days is made from a chemical process of sodium chloride, ammonia, and carbon dioxide. So I started to think, do I really need these things for cooking? All they really do in the simplest form is cause expansion of the batter by releasing carbon dioxide when heat is applied. A-. I could live without light and fluffy food. and B-. I bet there is something else to take its place. And there are many, but one of the tastiest - Sourdough.

Now I have started sourdough many a time, but have let is fizzle out due to the fact it can be one big mess if you don't pay close attention. But this time I am determined to see if it can successfully be used in baking to replace baking soda and powder. Now I love sourdough pancakes and bread, but how would it be in other baked goods? Well I am going to find out. But first you need to make the starter.

Take a vessel that is at least 3 times bigger than the amount of starter you are going to make. Trust me on on this. Sourdough has a tendency to grow larger than whatever container you put it in and once it dries on something, you need a pick axe to get it off. Do not use metal because it can react with the starter over a period of time. Take 2 cups of flour and add 1 TB of sugar or honey, and if you want to make sure it gets off to a fast start, 1 tsp of yeast. It can pull yeast from the air if left uncovered if you want an authentic sourdough to your exact area. Then mix in enough warm water to make the consistency of pancake batter.

Let it sit for 36-48 hours until it sours.

I cover with a towel to insure air can still get in and I always put a plate underneath. Like I said, you will need a pick axe to remove any over spill.

When you are ready to start baking with the sourdough you must make a primary batter about 12 hours in advance.

To make the primary batter you take 1/2 cup of your starter and put it into a separate bowl,

And add 1/2 cup of flour,

And enough water to make a thin batter. Usually not more than 1 cup of water. Stir and let this sit for at least 12 hours. It will start to bubble and get sour. This is what you will be using in your recipes. But more on that next post.

Any time you remove something from the starter, you will need to replace what you took to keep the yeast nice and happy. Replace whatever you took out with equal parts flour and water. So if you just took 1/2 cup of starter, add 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 of water and stir. Put your starter back on the shelf and get ready to bake with your primary batter.....

Sheep are over rated

2011-11-02T06:00:00.002-04:00

Who needs wool?

Goats too. Cashmere smashmere.

Yes one good brushing. Times that by 365 days a year.

German Shepherd's- the new fiber animal. Eat your heart out Angoras!

Canning- the next level.

2011-11-01T06:00:00.001-04:00

Last weekend the cold and snow made me want to just curl up with something to read. I picked up the newest edition of Countryside magazine and I noticed a lot of comments raving about an article in the previous issue on Oven Canning. I was intrigued! So with much searching, and calling those friends who have a subscription, I was able to track down the original article from the Sept/Oct issue. I just had to try it. Revolutionary!

Basically if you don't know, like me, oven canning is a way to preserve anything dry -dried fruit, dried vegetables, beans, grains, pastas, anything with out fat. It seals the food item in the jar and you don't have to worry about bug or air contamination. This was wonderful for me since I have way to much stored in my poor little freezer. I often try to put dried fruits/vegetables and grains in the freezer to keep them fresh. This would give me a way to keep dry goods preserved and free up space. I hope to purchase a freezer than runs on 24 volts (more efficient for our off grid system), but the largest 24 volt freezer is still half the size of the one I have now, so down sizing what I use the freezer for is imperative. And this method was so simple.

First you fill your canning jars (any size) with your food stuff. I canned a batch of homemade Grapenuts and some rolled oats, just since this was a trial run. How nice would it be to be able to have pantry shelves stocked with homemade cereal. You only need to whip up a really big batch, can it, and you wont need to make more for months. Great to have on hand for when it is to busy in the summer and no one want to turn on a stove.

Then you put the full jars on a cookie sheet and put them in a 200 degree oven for one hour. Now this is where she leaves out info. She does not say how full to fill the jar (I think next time I will try to leave almost no space), why the time is one hour (what happens at 1/2 hour?) or how to treat the canning lids. I put the lids in the oven too. I didn't want to heat them in water since that could add moisture to the dry goods. No good.

After the hour, bring the jars out of the oven one at a time and wipe with a cloth. She said to use a wet cloth, I used dry. Wet could cause a drastic temperature change and could break the jar. You can decide which you think works better.

Screw your band on and your done.

I now had shelf stable grapenuts and rolled oats. No further preservation needed. I will be very curious to see if the grapenuts are still fresh after a few months in the jar.

All of the lids did seal. Amazing. She recommend storing the jars in a dry place no warmer than 75 degrees. She also claims the food can remain fresh for 20 years. I dont know about that, but even a year is a great thing.

I am so happy to have found this method since this weekend coming up we are working on a project that will greatly benefit from this type of preserving. More on that later. I am very happy to have found this as it adds another dimension to long term food storage. I just keep coming up with things I plan to put in jars - my homegrown dried mushrooms, granola, pasta, homemade pancake mix, I could go on and on. Oh the things that thrill a homesteader.

What?

2011-10-31T06:00:00.001-04:00

You don't keep squash under your bed too?

I didnt know whether to say

2011-10-30T06:00:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween or Merry Christmas.

And I guess I will have yet another thing to keep snow free this winter. Why let the greenhouse get all the attention.

The mystery of the black walnuts

2011-10-29T06:00:00.003-04:00

Last night we decided to take a little family ride. So as we sometimes do, we took out our little camper to blow the dust off. There is nothing worse for a machine than to sit idle. And it is the most comfortable riding arrangement for our little family: us, the elderly dogs and the chickens. Just kidding about the chickens....... Or am I?

Anyway when we pulled out of the driveway it was still light. Nothing out of the ordinary, but 1 1/2 hours later when we returned in the dark of night, several piles of black walnuts were found the length of our driveway. Strange, they were not there when we left.

I jumped out of the camper and inspected the trees to see if there was a sudden dumping of nuts, but there were no walnut trees along the driveway. And to make it stranger, they were all perfectly cleaned. So in Sherlock Holmes fashion, I started examining the facts and deducing hypothesis.

A. Someone gifted us cleaned walnuts, but must have had a hole in the bag as they walked to the house dumping them along the way.

B. A sudden wind burst blew the shells off the nuts and deposited them in piles along the driveway.

Ah-ha!
C. A squirrel must have made the undercarriage of the camper a makeshift root cellar and stored his larder there. Upon driving along the bumps of the driveway, we dislodged the mother load, spilling them in piles as we went.

Yep, that is more like it. I have to tell you I did feel a tinge of guilt as I collected all those nuts the little furry guy worked so hard to clean and store away for winter. But..

Finders keepers, looser weepers.

Of mice and cellars.

2011-10-28T06:00:00.002-04:00

I have a wonderful root cellar. It is located under the back part of my house. You must enter it from the outside, as it is separate from my basement. It is 35 feet long and 10 feet wide. It stays very humid and cold. Perfect for storing the summer bounty, right? Wrong

Just as I was ready to start using the root cellar full force, I started to think about how secure my food would really be down there. So I did some investigating. I know we had a family of squirrels that had called the cellar home for years, but they were evicted this summer and the entrance that they had dug was spray foamed shut. But I think I had other squatters that took the eviction far less serious. Mice have eaten every piece of wood and every electrical wire in site. The drop celling had holes that I think were letting these free loaders access. I had food that needed stored and not any time to figure this problem out. Trapping them could be an endless job and how much would they sample before they sampled a trap bait. More serious work was needed in the fruit cellar involving hardware fabric and sealing up accesses areas. But with a dirt floor, how secure can it ever be? This will require some more thought but I have food that needs to go somewhere. Now.

Next, I considered using a cool corner of my basement, but since we installed the outdoor wood boiler, the piping and heat exchangers are constantly running 185 degree water making the basement far to warm. It is so warm in fact, that the heat radiates up to my kitchen floor making it feel like we have radiant heating. Nice for me, but bad for fresh food storage.

So my last available area was the stairwell that goes from my basement to the outside. It is not optimal but would have to do for now. I am hoping the heat from the basement will pass through the basement door, offsetting the freezing temperatures coming from the outside access door keeping the area just above freezing. The stairwell is no where near the humidity I need for storing root crops, so I have been dampening towels or burlap and laying them over the potatoes. The leeks and celeriac are packed in buckets of damp sand, and the onions and garlic are in mesh bags for air flow. I have more potatoes curing and hope to get those and a few carrots down here soon as well. Maybe a few cabbages.

I will be putting a very heavy, insulated cover on the outside doors once our temperatures drop in the 20 this weekend. Hopefully this will keep just enough cool in, keep the humidity level up, and keep the warmth of the sun on the outside doors out.

This is a new, old stock circa 1960's cover for a military vehicle. They just do not make stuff like this anymore. Heavy, thick, well made in the USA, back when craftsmen cared. **sigh**

So again, a rodent keeps me from my original plan. But perhaps this will work better in the end (she said hopefully). I will not need to sweep or shovel snow from the fruit cellar doors in the winter. For that matter I wont need to even go outside to access my storage crops. Time will tell. Sometimes the detours in life lead you to a far better destination. Lets hope this is one of those times.

My walk in refrigerator

2011-10-26T06:00:00.009-04:00

Thirteen years ago when we moved to this house, I replaced a ramshackle screened porch with this patio room. I had no idea at the time it would so greatly contribute to our homesteading/off grid lifestyle. Of course at the time I had no idea I would ever WANT to homestead, but life is a funny thing. First, we sleep out on this porch when the weather is hot, not only for the view, but for the wonderful evening cool breezes. These old brick homes can become horribly hot in the summer, making it almost impossible to sleep in the bedroom. Then come the cool days of late fall, it becomes the largest refrigerator known to wo(man).

I use it as a cool down area for hot off the stove foods that will eventually need to be put in the ice box. I am able to cook larger portions now with a safe temperature area to store them, unlike in hot months.

In a perfect world where our solar/wind system supplied enough power to run a huge freezer, I would keep all my grains frozen. But alas, we must work with what we have, and in spring, winter, and fall, this back porch makes a great area to keep the grain temperatures cool enough to stave off rancidness for a while longer.

This porch is also where I keep the ice box. Keeping the box cold from the outside helps keep the contents cold on the inside.

My need for ice has greatly lessened with the advance of the season, and soon ice will not be necessary at all. I will then have both compartments of the ice box available for keeping items cold.

The porch stays nice and cold, yet doesn't freeze in the coldest months. It expands our food storage area and keeps the food safely from the grips of rodents (something I can not say about my root cellar, but more on that later) Yes, this porch has the highest energy star rating a refrigerator can get. And roomy too.

Bringing in the taters

2011-10-25T06:00:00.006-04:00

Our local weather is guessing there may be flakes flying by the end of the week. Ugh. To soon for snow. So the potatoes needed to come in. First were the sweets. I was optimistic that my first poke around a plant yielded these nice tubers. But subsequent plants proved less fruitful. They looked more like large carrots. Well, it is pushing it when planting a warm weather crop like sweet potatoes so far north, so some are better than none.

Next were the whites and reds. First we go through and cut down any plants or weeds. We then go through the field and use the broadfork to loosen the spuds.

Then pull the potatoes out by hand as carefully as possible so we don't disturb the delicate skin before it can harden off. Sophie is the ever helpful farm hand. The thing about a ball obsessed Shepherd, is that anything that is round, semi-round, small, smooth, furry, dirty, smelly, fits in her mouth, could be a ball. So potato digging holds her interest and she had to be right in there. And if you happen to dig up a rotten potato, well that is of even more interest.

And she figures that in doing her part, she will gladly plant or harvest any balls that we may pull from the earth. Or eat , roll, or both in any rotten stinky matter that may surface. Silly girl.

Curing in the field for a few days is great, but fall doesn't cooperate here. So I had to bring them in to my 'curing area' where I let them dry, rotating to allow all sides exposure to the air, before they are stored in the root cellar.

Once dry I wipe away large clumps of dirt and store in baskets. Potatoes are a favorite here on the homestead, as there is nothing more versatile and filling. They can be prepared a different way for a month and never taste the same. Ok old man winter, bring it on, I am stocked with spuds and ready for ya!

Shutting the garden down

2011-10-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

The last item to go into the 2011 garden is Jerusalem Artichokes or often called sun chokes. While they do not produce anything that looks like the artichoke family, they lean on the side of the sunflower family. They produce an abundant tuber crop that can be eaten raw or cooked and hold up well stored in root cellars where the sugars turn to starch making them a good potato replacement. To plant, you chop them much like potatoes leaving a few eyes on each piece.

And plant them in well fertilized soil. They have been known to become invasive, so it is suggested you plant them away from other garden crops. They produce a flower head and act as a pollinator attractor. Decorative, functional, and tasty.

Of course as the last items go in, the last items come out. Any warm weather crops that have made it this far had to be picked and brought in for storage. Our first fall freeze had arrived right after these were picked. It is all about timing.

The celeriac remains to be pulled along with the leeks. It can take a frost or two. I found this crop did much better than the celery who petered out months ago and was very finicky with our strange weather year. You can use the top of this plant just like you would celery.

Or use the root, which also has a celery flavor. I grew these this year since I wanted a celery that would hold up in the fruit cellar storage. Celery doesn't freeze or dry well for my taste and this root can be used fresh all winter. Most years I go with out celery in the winter ever since I saw printed on a package of store bought that "patent pending on product inside". Yes GMO has hit celery too. But this gives me some flavor variety this year. I highly recommend this plant as it is much hardier and easier to grow than celery.

So this closes out the garden year .

We worked for 2 days straight putting 3 large gardens to bed. Now normally I have been known to put off this task until spring (I can hear Mama Pea wince now). But this year I wanted to be on top of it. I pulled everything, composted, and covered the soil with straw to keep any erosion at bay and weeds to a minimum.

There was lots of sweat, there were a few tears, but we ended up with a full larder. Some things came up short, some abundant . Every garden year proves to be another learning experience. But as long as we have our own food on the table, it can never be considered- a bad garden year.

Really?

2011-10-22T06:00:00.001-04:00

I found this nut between the cushions on my front porch furniture. Even the squirrells have gotten lazy.

Coop clean up

2011-10-21T06:00:00.001-04:00

Worst job of the year. Time to clean the coop. Yuck! But they need a nice clean space to spend the long winter months, so I had to suit up, suck it up, and get down to business. Of course the residents must leave for the cleaning crew to work, so you think they would be happy to be out. Nooooo, they had to stand there and critique us the whole time. I think they were squawking something about turn down service.

A dusty, dirty, hour later the new sheets were on the bed, no bug on the pillow though. This isn't the Ritz. And I am ashamed to admit I found eggs that were from LAST YEAR. I know they were from last year since they were in last years nesting space under two bales of straw. Now that is some tough, tough shells. Bugs must be very high in calcium. Maybe we should rethink our own calcium sources ;)

I am going to try wood chips in the run this year, in the hopes that water will not puddle quite as badly. Nothing worse that a soaking wet bird on a freezing day.

I need a new coop. This one is on the verge of collapse. I am running out of good wood to keep screwing the door back into, and the whole coop is starting to sink into the ground putting everything off square (not that it ever was square). I am crossing my fingers it makes it through the winter. I have been actively looking for a new coop, but most used sheds are not worth the effort to tear them down and rebuild. It would cost more than they are worth. Which leaves us with building from scratch and we all know how long homestead projects take to get done. So the coop is spray foamed and duct taped together and we must hope for the best. Not sure the dogs would appreciate feathered poop machines for room mates should the coop give way. Ugh, me either.

Ribollita

2011-10-20T06:00:00.001-04:00

Nothing like a rich and hearty Tuscan peasant dish to warm you from the inside out this time of year. Take a stroll through the last of the garden produce for this hearty soup. Have some day old Italian bread laying around, even better.

Put 2 TB of oil in a soup pot and saute
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 large carrot
once softened add
2 potatoes
1/2 head of cabbage
4 cups of tomato juice
2 cups of white beans
add enough water or stock to cover the vegetables and simmer
Add salt, pepper, and parsley to taste.

To serve, toast a few slices of day old bread and spoon this hearty soup over the bread in your bowl. Yes the bread goes in the soup and will break apart and thicken the soup giving it a heavenly texture. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese for an extra bump in taste if you like.

Pleasant cooking suitable for a king. Enjoy.

A wake up whinny

2011-10-19T06:00:00.002-04:00

I was awaken to the sound of our driveway alarms going off last night. I have two to let me know at what part of the driveway the visitor is in. Both were going off. I checked to see if I saw headlights, and if not wrote it off as deer, which is always the case.. But last night it was accompanied by my dog running to the window and barking. It was 4 am, and as far as I am concerned 4 am is a myth and doesn't really exist since I have never seen it. Well that all changed. Once I got up to see what the dog was barking about I heard it. A frantic whinny. Oh crap. I threw on a robe and ran like crazy. Once outside I could see (well mostly hear) one horse running the fence line full out. I knew there must be another somewhere out here. Yep this is what I was working in. Since going off grid we no longer have barn spotlights and security lights. It sure is dark at 4 am in the country.

I had to get the hysterical horse that was charging up and down the driveway towards the road, back in. And why is it they always head for the road? Going to catch a cab? Flag down a bus? Anyway, Since I knew her favorite pasture mate was still in the fence, I knew she wouldn't go to far. I hoped. So finally my brain kicked in (this 4 am stuff is hard on the brain) and I stopped wandering the yard in my robe and pajamas and I headed to the barn yard for a bucket of feed-but still in my robe and pajamas. I filled the feed trough and the inside horse who was equally hysterical came over to see what was for this early breakfast. Thank goodness they think with their bellies. This allowed me to close her in the barnyard and open a pasture gate for the other to come in. The outside horse became equally interested in what was in the feed trough, so she came right in. Whew! This is the downside to pastured horses. They have access to the barn, but only choose to spend the night there on cold rainy nights. Even snow doesn't keep them from frolicking in the field most of the night. It is far more natural for them, horses don't prefer stalls, we do.

So my escapee was safely in...what, you cant see that in the picture? No night vision? Me either. And it was off with a flashlight to check fences. Fun, fun. At least the break was found, probably done by deer running through it, and repaired. All at the fictitious hour of 4:30 am. Who knew these times were real?

And the next day I had two very, very tired horses and a yard peppered with hoof prints. Sleepy horses are good horses. Ah me, not so much. My day will be shot now. I don't take kindly to horse wrangling in the wee hours. And the strange part was this break was in no way related to the direct actions of a pony, which is usually the case. A night of two firsts!

Goodnight.

Wood burning is illegal?

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

While we have not experienced a freeze here on the homestead yet, it is just cold and damp enough that the time had come to start up the outside boiler.

While we know this means more work- wood cutting, checking the fire twice a day, loading the boiler with the largest chunks we can carry in the rain or snow- we also enjoy the warm heat and endless hot water it provides. It is a real feeling of security to provide for yourself by taking a dead organic product and turning it into energy. But in the last year Pennsylvania has outlawed the sale of this type of boiler.(we will be grandfathered so still can use ours - for the time being) No longer can these wonderful and natural heat sources be purchased. Now you must purchase an EPA certified unit that cost thousands more, requires the wood to be split and seasoned for at least a year (what happens when you run out and all you have is fresh wood?), has a much smaller firebox, and at the end of the day is more difficult to use. Now I am not saying that some people don't abuse what they burn in these boilers, I know of people who burn tires and that is awful. But to out law the safe burning of natural wood when our state has allowed the Marcellus Shale natural gas drillers to use UNNAMED chemicals in the fracking process and NOT to be REGULATED by the EPA or any other office for that matter, and to have been found to be dumping these highly toxic chemicals into streams only to get a small fine is unbelievable. Plus they pay no taxes to the State of PA and the workers that they bring in to do the work are all from other states, even though this was pitched as a job building industry for Pennsylvania.

The chemicals the gas drillers use have found their way into the water table, leaving many farmers with dead livestock from drinking it and their wells useless. The Drillers often take no responsibility for the pollution and say it "must have been there before". (on a side note-we were told off the record by a driller that you should get your water tested regularly BEFORE they start drilling in your area so you have proof if your well becomes contaminated. Otherwise you have no recourse and they have great attorneys and politicians in their pockets and will always deny responsibility) Every month there is another explosion at the drilling rigs, sometimes people die, sometimes they don't. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. (If you are not familiar with deep well drilling and fracking, please educate yourself on the horrors of how it works so you can be aware of what the cost of turing on your natural gas burning appliance really is). And our corrupt state just keeps telling us that this is a wonderful thing for the Country and will bring energy Independence. What?

Yes folks raping the land of a finite resource so deep we have no idea what effects it will have on the structure of ground strata, destroying our only water source, injecting toxic and cancer causing chemicals deep into the earth and bringing them back out again, disposing of them who know where, is still less dangerous that burning this downed tree. And Independence? From who? Isn't dependence on natural gas that will eventually run out still dependant? Then what?

Even thought humans have burned wood for heat since the first time we saw lightening hit a tree, it is now something too toxic for our planet. Even though these trees will reproduce and grow infinitely, supply the world with oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide, provide food for humans and animals, and have for millions of years,-a tiny amount of natural gas locked deep in the earth and has to be extracted very dangerously is the ticket to energy Independence?

**Sigh**

So I am sure that soon they will find my solar panels are far to dangerous to the ozone layer, or my organic garden is effecting the fly over patterns of thousands of planes, and hand crank appliances cause cancer. Who knows. But I am just going to keep burning my downed wood from my property, making power from the sun, eating food that I grew myself, and try to keep that middle finger in my pocket. This ride has just begun.

A downside to a warm up

2011-10-17T06:00:00.003-04:00

The greenhouse is growing right along giving us plenty of fresh food to eat. It is so nice to eat fresh greens again. The salad bowls always runith over.

But, we had a recent warm up, which actually makes me cringe because I know what the result of that will be.

More bug invasions. Normally the cool to cold temperatures of fall keep most leaf chomping bugs like the cabbage worm out of the greenhouse leaving me to deal with only the ever present slug. Even heavy diatomacious earth applications don't seem to be slowing down the feeding frenzy of my newest invaders. And the worst hit are always the Asian greens. Pac Choi leading with the most damage, Maruba Santhoh and Napa close behind. Who knew worms preferred Asian flair.

Here are a few culprits caught in the act. These are just a few of many. And that is what an Indian summer does to a greenhouse. The bug battle never ends.

Bottling the brew

2011-10-15T06:00:00.001-04:00

I made a total of six different types of wine this year and three were ready to go to their permanent homes in the bottles. Some would re rack and bottle after the that, but I look at wine making as a form of food preservation. If the wine has not completely settled out, I am fine with that. As long as the yeast is no longer active. Maybe it has some medicinal purpose, yeah medicinal....

From left to right we have Concord grape, Peach Mead, and Peach wine. All tasted quite good at this stage but will need to age for a few more months yet. Mead is said to be best if allowed to age for years.

You will want to get your bottles clean. They sell a chemical that is supposed to disinfect the bottles, but no thank you. I prefer the good old soap and water rinse. Lets face it, do you think they worried about it in medieval times. I bet they cleaned the bottles with their tongues. So soap and water is just fine.

I use the old school siphon hose. There is always a little swearing and a lot of spilling with this thing. But it is the simplest way going. Suck until you get the vacuum,

and drain into your bottles. Notice my Husband and his flashlight. For all you X-files fans, I think he has a Mulder thing going. Always with the flashlight.

We got a total of nine liters to add to the wine cellar with a few pint mason jars of wine left over for sampling. You know that quality control is very important here on the homestead. So sampling is a rule you must abide by. We will drink every wine....before its time.

Cleaning a hen

2011-10-14T06:00:00.001-04:00

No not those hens, they would peck my eyes out if I tried to wash them. I left a small Hen of the Woods mushroom in the woods to see if it was going to get any larger. But I was becoming very nervous, since fungi can be very fickle. One day it is in beautiful shape, the next a rotten soggy mess. So I picked my last wild mushroom and it weighed in at slightly over 1 pound. Now if you have ever processed these mushrooms, they are about as dirty as they come. So many nooks and crannies where dirt and bugs can burrow in. This is the best way I have found to clean them.

First chop them up into the size pieces you will be using. The smaller the better. And do this outside! I made the mistake of doing this in the kitchen with the first one and I had so many creepy crawly things shooting out everywhere that I am sure I have started a new colony under the kitchen island. Start scraping off any dirt or ingrown twigs.

This little spider didn't want to give up his nice home. And he is just one of many that did not take to kindly to the eviction.

The small pieces also help you find any hidden worms, like this. They are very well hidden. Makes me wonder how many I have already eaten. Ugh.

When thoroughly chopped and bug free (hopefully), soak the pieces in some water to rinse off any remaining dirt and then dry them. They can be put in freezer bags and frozen as is, or will keep for several days in cool conditions for fresh eating. And keep the toothpicks handy, cause you know those bugs always get stuck in your teeth ;)

Panels are set

2011-10-13T06:00:00.003-04:00

Yes almost one year to the date of the start of this project, the solar panels are finally in their permanent home. It took the help of a deputy Iceman, a tractor, and a little acrobatics. First the 70 watt panels went up and were secured.

Then the 200 watt panels were slid into place.

Now the panels can be moved throughout the year to track the sun so we can capture the maximum sun exposure.

The brand new inverter has been wired into place, and we are still learning all of the different features and factory presets that need changed for our individual system.

I feel like this was a long road to travel, but we have arrived. Of course the off grid system is not complete. Next is installing the wind turbine. As we loose sun throughout the winter, wind will be important in keeping our batteries at full charge. We have had it tested and have all the required wire and poles ready to go. Now lets hope that installation doesn't take another year.

**On a side note, our area of western Pennsylvania always ranks at the low end of the charts that rank if solar power is feasible in your area. Even with our panels setting on the ground we were able to power our farm with no problem. You may not be able to live a typical energy hungry lifestyle, but isn't that the point. We can attest that solar is very possible even in a less than desirable location and don't let 'studies' persuade you. The electric company sent a truck out the other day to 'investigate' why we were not registering an electric bill. They took one look at the panels and left. You cant help but do a little happy dance to that.**

A white flag

2011-10-12T06:00:00.001-04:00

I have a love/hate relationship with my little friend here. Most of the year he is trying to eat everything I plant as fast as I can plant it. But now the garden has surrendered, and since we are not in competition to see who gets to eat the most from the garden, we can live in peace. If you step outside in the spring, these buggers will take off even if they are 100 yards away. This time of the year all they can think about is eat, eat, eat. Which somehow is different that the eat, reproduce, eat of spring I guess. They have a one track mind to see just how big they can get those bellies before the signal goes off for a several month slumber. Self preservation seems not to be an issue now. So as I sit out on the pump house porch keeping an eye on my free ranging flock, he just waddles right up as if we have not spent the last months as mortal enemies. I ask him if he sees me here.

He nods , and goes about the business of cleaning the yard of all fallen pears. Appearing as if this is a gesture of a truce, I try to exchange pleasantries.

I ask about his family, what he thinks about the economy. He basically ignores me, and chomps away. He thinks so little of me, he turns his back on me. Humph. I guess I am no longer a feared adversary.

Soon the flock makes it back to the coop, so I stroll off to close them in for the day. My furry friend watches me leave, but still doesn't stop the munching for a minute. Fall marks the end of the battle between us. Come spring, the war begins again. And back into the battlefield we shall both be. Until next year you little....

Soups to stews

2011-10-11T06:00:00.002-04:00

One of the great things about falls arrival is soup. Any combination of foods fresh from the garden or storage can be put together to form a hearty and tasty meal.

This was a peanut squash soup.

Yummy potato leek with fresh dug potatoes. Doesn't get any better.

I find soups satisfying, easy to whip up, and even better served the next day. But my Mother thinks different.

We have made it a goal here on the homestead to get through the year with mostly just the food we grow ourselves. With some odds and ends coming from other farmers within 15 miles. We just can not stand the current food system in this Country and I can not even tolerate being in a 'grocery' store these days. (I am ashamed to admit that my last foray into the local 'grocery store' resulted in me becoming overly frustrated and in my haste to leave the establishment immediately, I ran over the heel of a poor unsuspecting patron with my empty shopping cart. Oops)The colorful packaging and slogans nauseate me. Most everything, even the fresh vegetables, are not even food anymore. They are genetically modified, irradiated, sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, shipped thousands of miles, are weeks or months old. Even the 'organic' vegetables are often sprayed(some pesticides are allowed by the USDA for USA grown and still considered organic and no regulation for foreign imported), irrigated with contaminated water, old, and treated to who knows what in handling. I am just fed up.

So we grow as much as possible and dry, can, freeze, press, ferment, grow in the greenhouse year round, and root cellar it for the years use. We have a good supply of fats, protein, and carbohydrates with the various foods that we grow and gather to provide what I believe are healthy meals that meet all of our nutritional guidelines.

My Mother is very aware of our goals. But when she hears that I am yet again making a pot of soup, images of us starving conjure up in her head. She begins to worry that we will waste away to skin and bones. How can we survive with out going to the grocery store? Perhaps it was her being born to parents fresh out of the depression, but my Mother insists that soups were things that starving people make with the few meager scraps they could scavenge. The hungry ate at 'soup kitchens' to stay alive. Soup to her, must be a sign of emanate death. *Sigh*.

So perhaps to sooth my worried Mother's fears, I will from this point on refer to them as stews. After all, no one could starve to death by eating a stew, right? Stick to your ribs, hearty, and wholesome. Yep, we are having stew tonight.

Self sufficient garlic

2011-10-10T06:00:00.001-04:00

I almost fell over this year when I saw 'seed' garlic going for $16 to $20 a pound. What is going on here? First of all, seed garlic and eating garlic are the same thing, and I know that no one would pay $20 a pound to make pasta sauce. All marketing. The sad thing is that most of the garlic that is sold in the US for consumption is in fact grown in China. So choose wisely and know your farmer. I have also seen web pages that insist that you can not grow garlic yourself from a true seed, a bulblet. I beg to differ. If you choose hardneck varieties and you do not cut the scapes (the long tendril that forms on the top of the head), you will never need to buy garlic to plant again. It just takes a little longer.

Below I have three years of garlic growth. The first on the left is what forms in the bulb at the top of the hardneck scape if you let it go to 'seed'. Some say that this makes the bulb in the ground smaller, but I have not found that to be so, and you know how I like to experiment. In the fall plant all those little bulblets and the following summer you will harvest what you see in the middle. A one clove head. You could even eat this if you wish but it is best put back in the ground that fall. And by the second year you have what is on the right, a fully formed head of garlic. Self sufficient garlic growing, no loan needed.

Growing garlic this way also keeps you from having to make the hard decision of do you replant this years garlic for a larger harvest next year, or do you just eat the garlic you grew this year and have to buy more to plant. Problem solved. You can have your garlic and eat it too.

Of course the best thing is when you have friends and family that love to grow garlic. They are always willing to send you home with a bag like this. And that my friends, is the simplest way yet.

Tomato experiment- the results are in

2011-10-09T06:00:00.001-04:00

Earlier this year I decided to conduct an experiment with growing tomatoes. I was trying to find out if all the human intervention we do was actually necessary to get a good harvest. I have suffered from late blight for the last few years and found nothing I was doing was helping. No other food we grow in our gardens seems to get as much time and gadgets devoted to it than the growing of tomatoes. I wanted to know if a more natural approach would be healthier for the plants. I planted an equal number and type of tomatoes in a trellised manor with landscape fabric and mulch to keep down weeds, keep moisture in the ground, and to keep early blight away.

And a carbon copy of the same plants in what I call free range growing environment. No mulch, support, or other human involvement.

The first major difference I noticed was that the trellised plants did show signs of late blight by July. The free range plants never showed signs of late blight. Very interesting. I chose not to prune the trellised tomatoes this year as I have done in years past. It seemed the pruning actually makes the late blight spread faster. I can imagine that has to do with the stress of pruning on top of fighting off a fungus is more than the plant can take. I was able to control the late blight with spraying a weak peroxide solution every few weeks. It worked.

The free range plants were very healthy all summer. We had a very dry summer and while the trellised plants looked much worse for the ware with even regular watering, the free range required no extra watering and were very vibrant.

I attribute the free range plants ability to survive the dry spells due to this. Each place the plants stems touch the ground they send out more shallow roots. This keeps the plant more evenly hydrated than the trellised plants which only had the one root system to feed from.

Now on to the the actual fruits. The tomato on the right is from the free range plants, and the one on the left is from the trellised plants- same variety. I found this to be true of most of the plants. The free range produced bigger fruits than the trellised. Of course finding the fruits on the free range did prove a bit more difficult. So free range loses points for ease of harvesting.

And lastly, bounty. Once the end of summer rains started to arrive, the trellised plants fruit all started to crack from the sudden increase in water. The free range did not crack with increased amounts of moisture, but they did suffer from rot. The free range tomatoes were under constant attack from slugs, yellow striped army worms, and little black beetles that would puncture the skin leading to a rotten fruit within hours. As the season progressed, the rot became worse. I was forced to start pulling tomatoes from both sections of plants before they were ripe to keep them from suffering an early demise on the vine.

Trellised tomato

So in review, I found the free range to be a healthier way to raise the plant. It survived disease and drought much better than the trellised. But its short coming proved to be the fruit laying on the ground. What I think I will try next year is to mulch the base of the plants with landscape fabric hoping to keep the hungry bug population at bay, yet still allowing the plant to vine to its hearts content. Each method has is positives and negatives. If your short on space, trellising might be your only option. But if you have the space, let your plants go natural. And be sure to let me know how it worked out for you. No experiment is ever really finished.

But for now tomatoes are just a memory. Falls cold, wet weather has been the kiss of death to all the plants. Nothing we do will ever be able to fend off Mother Nature for ever. We can only hope to ride under the radar long enough to get our baskets full. Until next year.

A hen, a hen!!

2011-10-08T06:00:00.002-04:00

Before the last of the leaves fall for the season, I thought I better get out there and mark some maple trees so I know which ones to tap in the spring. We have purchased some equipment and plan to make maple syrup in the spring, giving us a homegrown source of sweetness. I am no good at identifying trees in the naked form, so a walk in the woods was on the agenda. But boy would it pay off in another way.

Some of you may remember I had zero hits during morel hunting season, so I was a little miffed at the mushroom gods. After all, not one? So what do I find to make up for my mushroomless spring? A huge Hen of the Woods mushroom!! These things have perfect camouflage, so I almost passed it up. What a score.

I also found this little guy. I have not seen a turtle around here for years, so I was thrilled to see him. He was not as happy to see me though. He was a pretty yellow and black color, but the cell phone camera leaves a little to be desired in clarity.

Our load of Hens of the Woods weighed in at 6.4 pounds. I left a small one out there just to see if it would grow any larger in the next couple days. We continued to look, but alas, found no more in that area. I have a lot more oaks in my wood lot, the preferred tree of the Hen, so we shall be taking another stroll tomorrow. With this find, plus my cultivated mushrooms, we will be well stocked on mushrooms for the winter.

Funny how finding free food feels a little like winning a prize. Considering on our recent trip to the big city, we saw where Hen of the Woods mushrooms were selling for $20 a pound!! That makes our take worth $128 dollars. A real prize if you ask me. Oh the simple things that amuse a homesteader.

Signs of winter?

2011-10-07T06:00:00.003-04:00

As the jet stream starts to pull cold northern winds our way, you cant help but wonder what type of winter we are in for. Even with warm days forecasted for the upcoming week, I am starting to see signs that are pointing to a very nasty winter. One such thing is the seed pods of the Honey Locust tree. These pods contain beans that I just found out are edible and sweet. It would figure that after I obtain this knowledge, the normally fruitful tree produces no seeds in any of the pods. This makes me wonder why the tree chose not to reproduce this year. Maybe it knows its offspring don't stand a chance this spring? Hum.

Then there is the horse and pony hair. Their coats started to fill in extra early this year. This is a picture I took in September and the fur coats were already coming on fast. Hum

The Woolly Worms have no brown in their markings this year. Doesn't that mean a long winter? Hum.

And dried corn cobs are already filling feed boxes as all the farm animals use corn to help them produce extra heat throughout the winter . We call it the BTU food.

As the squirrels outside scramble to hide away their own stashes like there is no tomorrow, the squirrel in me has been busily filling my own larder. The freezer is bursting at the seems and the dried beans, grains, onions, and winter squashes are lining the basement shelves. The jars are all filled and this years wine waits to be racked. Only the root cellar remains to be filled with potatoes, carrots, celeriac, nuts and leeks yet to be pulled from the garden. A years worth of food in the wait.

What the winter will truly bring, I guess we wont know until it gets here. But if you believe in folklore, well its time to get those extra blankets and sweaters out. We might be in for a bumpy one.

Lentils

2011-10-06T06:00:00.000-04:00

Oh the poor lentils. They were a new plant in the garden this year but they did not fare well this hot summer. The plants were scrawny and slow to grow. They are a cool loving plant and I just got them into the ground far to late.

Each lentil is formed in a pod that turns brown when ready.

And one lentil is grown in each pod. The harvest is small and I will probably save these lentils for sprouting during the winter and use them in salads.

The lentil plants seemed to have no problems with bugs or disease, but they did not care for the dryness ans heat of this summer. I will definitely try growing them again, but will get them in the ground in spring when the ground can first be worked. If you are limited on space I would not suggest them since you need quite a few plants to make it worth your time. But it was an interesting experiment as I enjoy knowing how my food comes to be.

Sauerkraut - my families way

2011-10-05T06:00:00.002-04:00

It is that time of year again, time to make the sauerkraut. Every Eastern European culture has a way of making this fermented cabbage dish. The Germans may make it a little different than the Russians than the Ukrainians and so on. Some may add caraway seeds, different vegetables, etc, but they are basically the same. I have even seen some abominations of sauerkraut recipes floating around out there. But this is the way we have done it for many generations and never have had one flop. And you don't mess with tradition. First you start with good fall cabbage. None of that early cabbage because it may not have the right amount of sugars for the kraut to turn out correctly. Wash and cut the cores out of your cabbage. I wanted four gallons of kraut so I used 5 big heads. This is actually the least amount I have ever made, and find it easier to make 20-30 gallons at a time. But the two of us just can not eat that much(as I still have 2009 kraut in the freezer from a 20 gallon batch), so I am opting for less this year with the plan of switching the fermented vegetable every three months for variety.

I have a cabbage slicer that is the best in the world. I have no idea where it came from, if it is homemade or purchased, but it has been in my family for a long while. It slices so easy and makes perfect shreds, which you need. They should not be too thin or too thick. That will also effect the outcome.

It is a hand crank machine and the cabbage shoots out of the bottom. Use a wooden stick or spoon to hold the cabbage to the cutter because it is inevitable that you will hit the blade and at least wood shears off and can be picked out of the cabbage. Metal will dull the blade.

The bowl the cabbage falls into is also very important.

It has also been passed down through the generations since it is the measuring device. You will want 5 pounds of cabbage to 3 tablespoons of canning salt (no iodized). This bowl has been weighed and thanks to a note from my Father, I know that almost full is my five pound mark.

Sprinkle your salt on the cabbage.

And dump it into the crock for smashing. I use only a crock for this. Some use a plastic bucket, but I do not want this highly acidic food in a plastic bucket that can leach into my kraut. Crocks are non-reactive and wash up well leaving no residual smell. I highly recommend an earthenware crock. Now you will want to tamp and smash down the cabbage so that it begins to release its juices, but not hard enough to overly bruise the cabbage or it will come out soft. What do I use to stomp the cabbage you ask?

Yes that's right, my foot. Washed and bagged in plastic for the squeamish. I have been making sauerkraut since I was a little girl, so for well over 30 years. I have only ever done it with my feet. I know exactly how the cabbage should feel this way and I would never be able to tell that with my hands or a tool. It also goes much quicker since you can use just the amount of body weight to apply pressure on the cabbage. Now I know some may find this appalling, but just remember this- most people prepare food with their hands. And when you wipe your arse, it is not with you foot ;). Enough said.

You want enough juice to be released from the cabbage that 1-2 inches will cover the kraut. All the cabbage needs to be under the brine. I have heard people use whey, but I find that odd. You want the sugar from the cabbage to facilitate the fermentation, adding an animal product just doest seem right to me. But again, this is our way. Weigh your kraut down with a sterile plate (some use a ziploc bag with brine, again I do not like the plastic sitting in there for weeks at a time). Store the kraut in an area that is in the middle to high 60 degree F mark and dark. Too cold and it wont ferment, too hot and it will ferment to fast and be mushy instead of nice and crisp. Another reason you want to do this in the fall is that it is the right ambient temperature.

I seal my fermenting crock with water in the seal, if your using an open crock put a towel over the top to keep the fruit flies from drowning in the kraut. Now you wait. Check it every couple of days and skim any scum that forms on the top. Start tasting it at 3-4 weeks. It should be crisp, and taste like sauerkraut. It should not taste salty, if it does- it has a way to go. It can take up to 6-7 weeks. Now the old timers would say "when it stops stinking, it is done". I prefer the taste test.

Sauerkraut is said to be a great immune booster, a digestion regulator, prevent scurvy, and improves vigor. When you first start eating fermented sauerkraut eat just a small amount at a time or you can end of with a big belly ache until your system adjusts. The reason it does these things is because the fermenting process creates all kinds of good bacteria your body can use just like the bacteria in yogurt. Now the problem becomes what to do with your kraut once it is done.

What I am going to tell you is DO NOT can it. If you can it, you are subjecting it to heat that will kill every one of those good for you bacteria and what you end up with is a jar of cooked cabbage. Sauerkraut should be served as a room temperature or only slightly warmed food to about 108 degrees F. Cooking your roast in kraut will kill the good bacteria. You didn't go to all this trouble, mess, waiting for weeks for it to be done, only to kill it in cooking. Some freeze the kraut, but I find this makes it soft, BUT it will keep some bacteria intact. The best way is to make a small enough amount that you will eat it in a few months and you can store it in your refrigerator in glass jars, or if like me you don't have a refrigerator, keep it in the crock. Now the longer it is in the crock, it will continue to ferment and become overly soft. But the whole idea behind fermenting was to preserve food with no refrigeration needed. So I keep mine on the unheated back porch where it is very cool and scoop out what I need. It truly is natures medicine if prepared right. And very tasty too.

Happy krauting.

A fungi fall harvest

2011-10-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

The mushroom logs are loving this wet fall weather. You can go from a few mushroom buds one day.

To a full on loaded log the next.

I am getting 4-5 pounds of Shiitake mushrooms from the two logs. That gives us plenty to eat and plenty to dry for storage. And this is just the beginning. I am told that the harvest next spring will be even more abundant and by then the other two types of mushrooms will be ready to fruit too.

One thing I did learn from the Mother Earth News Fair, was that this invader mushroom on my logs is called False Turkey Tail and will not effect the spawn that I impregnated the logs with. Whew! It is edible but taste like eating a postage stamp. So not going there.

I was surprised to see that the slugs are even connoisseurs of mushrooms.

No matter what you grow, something always wants to eat it first. I guess that is proof your doing it right.

The Little Dutch Maid

2011-10-03T06:00:00.012-04:00

I developed an infatuation with a hand crank food processor a while back after my electric junk Kitchenaid mixer burned up at barely a year old. At the time it was known as the Troycraft hand mixer. Then the company started manufacturing the mixer under it's own name The Little Dutch Maid and did a little redesign. I wrote it off as something that was too expensive for something I could do with a little extra elbow grease. But I still longed for it. I have a problem.

Then as fate would have it, during our vacation I accidentally on purpose came across the factory. It is in a nondescript building nestled in the middle of Amish farm area. It is an Amish owned and operated facility. They happily showed us the mixer and gave us a tour of the factory which also makes by hand butane clothes irons, frost free hydrants(these are gorgeous and on the list of wants), and gas lights. I was so moved by the fact these products were not only still made in the USA, just hours from my home, but done on a small scale cottage market. I just HAD to buy the mixer to support this long forgotten way of doing business, right?

So the mixer was now mine. What really attracted me to this mixer was that the top is all made by Bosch, but the bottom is all hand made to be manual driven. The best of both worlds.

It comes with a dough hook, cookie paddles, and beater attachments.

There are two speeds. I know that sounds silly on a hand crank, but they are geared differently so that you turn the handle the same speed, but the implements will move at different speeds. Genius.

We just had to try it out the moment we got home. So I cooked up some of the 150 pounds of potatoes that we brought home. We took turns trying the crank mechanism and it moved so smoothly and effortlessly. The base weighs 22 pounds and helps keep it in place. It was like butter.

The potatoes were perfectly whipped before we got our fix of playing with the mixer, so I see a batch of cookies in the future, maybe some bread dough too. And they were the best mashed potatoes I think we ever had. Honestly! Smooth and so creamy. And best of all no drain on the solar system, so even if cloudy days stretch on for weeks, we can still be turning out homemade goodies.

I was also able to finally find a really big ladle for canning in one of those shops in the basement of the Amish homes. They had all the great canning toys there. You can fill a quart jar in a second with this bad boy.

And my husband was also able to pick up the worlds most expensive light bulb at an Amish solar dealer. Now I do not see the beauty in this that he does, but it is a 24 volt D/C, 1,200 lumen's, LED, and only uses 10 watts per hour. Because the lamp the bulb goes in will be able to draw power directly from our batteries instead of going through the inverter where it is processed to 110 volt A/C, there will be less load loss, meaning more efficiently lighting with the least power than even the best CFL bulb. Must be a man thing, I am happy with the oil lamps.

Shopping takes on new meaning for us these days. Gone are days of big box shopping and bringing home mounds of imported junk that is designed to break. There is a satisfaction in knowing that each dollar you spend stays right here and helps keep our local economy healthy. And if the stuff you buy is fun to use, well that is just the cherry on top. Cookies anyone?