My new experiment: Lactofermentation

Ok, so anyone who eats yogurt enjoys the benefits of lactofermentation, it's basically growing good bacteria, the kind that your tummy likes, in a milk medium.  I've found out that it can be used for preserving foods, too, and still with all the benefits to your tummy!  Not to mention, there's no cooking involved, so the food remains nutritionally dense during preservation, unlike canning or to a lesser extent, freezing.  So, because so many of us like to eat pickles on a regular basis, I've begun with those.  Here is a recipe from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, which I highly recommend (and it costs a lot less now than it did when I first bought it).

Pickled Cucumbers

Makes 1 Quart

4-5 pickling cucumbers or 15-20 gherkins
1 T mustard seeds
2 T Fresh dill, snipped
1 T sea salt
4 T whey (or substitute another T of sea salt)
1 cup filtered water
Also, I added 1 clove of garlic

Wash well and place in a quart sized, wide mouth mason jar.  Combine remaining ingredients and pour over cucumbers, adding more water if necessary to cover the cucumbers.  The top of the liquid should be at least 1 in below the top of the jar.  Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage (read refrigerator).

Dude, that's like so many times easier than normal pickles I can't even describe it... I mean, liming, sanitizing, heating vinegar and spices, salt, processing, and all in a hot kitchen is the normal modus operandus.  So, here are mine!

 

I used the extra salt because we've been using yogurt for soaking grains for eating and I'm running short of whey...  also, mine seem to be slightly foamy, which I fear may be detergent residue from washing them out?!  I'm trying sliced jalapenos next!

Anyway, with all this yogurt consumption, I'm thinking I need the big yogurt maker, so I can make like  a quart at a time, without having to wrap my jar in a towel and put it in a warm oven and hope for the best!  One like this:

 

Or, I could make kefir, which incubates at room temperature and can be used for soaking grains, too.

Or, I could make both, some yogurt for yogurt cheese, whey, and sauces, and the kefir for when I need the bacteria to predigest and counteract enzyme inhibitors in grains.... hmmmmmm....  so many little microbes to farm, so little time!

Garden Progress

I planted the herbs in April, like a week after we moved in.  This is what they looked like immediately after planting.  Kind of bare and scraggly... I know.  There's rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano, and parsley, plus marigolds.

In June I took pics of the gardens as we planted and prepared them, it was late for planting, but we took awhile to get the gardens ready.  Between unpacking and Jeremy's crazy work schedule, it took till early June to get things started.

Here's the herb garden again, just getting established... it took awhile!

The green beans, and some empty, but seeded dirt...

The tomatoes, some mesclun seedlings, and pink petunias...

And here's the planted garden and unplanted bed along the fence.

These were all taken today, in very hot, bright sunshine!

Herb Garden

Tomatoes

Beans, Okra, lettuce, radishes, broccoli, zucchini under the dwarf apple tree...

And the crunchy, dry grass and sfg's growing in the heat.... along the fence, there are yellow squash, more okra, and more green beans, planted later even than the ones in the sfg... I'm gonna put cabbages and carrots in this bed, too, for fall, and then plant some spinach and kale and chard for fall... we also planted melons and pumpkins on a slope beside the driveway, too, though I forget to water those...  I'm praying for rain!!!  Also, the buckets and rack for our killing cones for butchering chickens are in the background... we put 24 in the freezer last Wednesday!  Yay!

Hempathy Buttercup Top

Buttercup in Elisabeth Lavold Hempathy...

Size 4 circular needle

Cool and comfy, except for the plunging neckline, which requires a tank, which sort of ruins the sublime coolness... I'll make it again, and make the neck line a bit more discreet!  And this color, really any shade of blue green makes me feel happy... looks good with my hair, too!

A New Farmhouse?

So... I haven't posted in MONTHS! I know you're all busy and hardly noticed, but I missed blogging. I always wondered why people decided to take three months off in the summer instead of having year round school... and now that I have a little mini-farmlike lifestyle, I KNOW WHY! Summer is hard work. The freezer needs to be filled with veggies and fruits and chickens, and the pantry needs to be filled with jellies and jams and canned tomatoes. If we had a cow, we'd need to make cheese and get all that surplus milk dealt with. Not to mention the laundry. Yeah, it was a busy one!!!

It is fun, though, to open a jar of your own tomatoes, from your own garden when a recipe calls for 28oz canned tomatoes. It's fun to work with your kids around the kitchen table putting those tomatoes into jars, too. The knitting and sewing suffered over the summer, too, and now that cool weather has returned and I'm indoors more the urge to clothe people is compelling me to make stuff. So far I've made a shrug and bonnet for a friend's baby, a sweater vest for my baby, I finished the knee socks, started a pair of socks for hubby, cast on a stranded sweater vest, and have knit the back and left front of a cardigan for hubs. No sewing. Guess why....

We've been house shopping! We toured and compared, we walked lots and explored pastures, we debated gas vs wood fireplaces, and we finally signed a contract to buy a house. Of course, it's a short sale, and so many things could fall through before we close on the house. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to reconcile myself to it falling through now. I mean, if I don't get this house I'll know that God wants to remind me that Heaven is for the afterlife and not the here and now, because that house is perfect, OK, it's darn close to perfect.

It's yellow. My very favorite house color (I'm so ordinary). It has five bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a family room, and a great room attached to a kitchen with granite counter tops and an island and a double oven with a gas range. It has beautiful distressed oak floors (exactly the kind that my husband daydreams about when we talk about our dream home) and gorgeous light fixtures that are the perfect mix of traditional and simple. It has a front porch with a tin roof, a fenced yard, a creek, a pasture, lots of trees, and a view. I wouldn't even need to paint... and I like the carpet, and the windows are big, and it's only 3 years old... Should I go on? I mean, I could, if you want me to. I could mention the great big storage room.

I really have appreciated the farmhouse here, and the farm itself is glorious, but we are a bit shoehorned in.... not that the bedrooms aren't adequate, they are, but there's just one living area and we do EVERYTHING in there. It's a foyer, and a schoolroom, and an office, and a playroom, and a living room, all at once. So it gets messy, and really downright dirty rather quickly. Living in a house built in the 20's is rather romantic.... but the windows are really old and one can feel the wind in the winter, and the floor isn't insulated, and the furnace burns heating oil, which is stinkin' expensive. The stinkbugs and ladybugs just wiggle right into the house through the windows in the fall and try to hibernate in the bedrooms by the hundreds. Not to mention the constant battle with paint chips and lead in the pipes that would make any mom rather worried. So we're ready to go. In the spring.

What have we learned here on the farm? We learned that we can grow a whole lot of our own food. We learned that we love chickens and the eggs that pastured hens lay. We learned that we are NOT city people. We love the country life, and we love the outdoors, and we love to be able to LIVE in our house and not just sleep in it. We learned that we love Jersey milk from Josephine, the cow who provides it...and we like knowing our milkmaid's names too. We learned that it's waaaaaaay harder work than we thought it would be, but it's fun, too. We learned that my husband wants to be able to go on vacation, so we'll probably never have our own cow! Oh, also... that largish yellow labs sometimes like to steal eggs from chicken coops and can squeeze themselves through remarkably small chicken doors to do so. AAAAAAAaaaaaaand that I hate raccoons and love MaryJane Butters.

VIP Weekend Getaway

Wow, have we had a weekend! My wonderful, studly husband and I had our 13th anniversary this past weekend and.... all I can really say is WOW! We went to Baltimore, which is not exactly my idea of a romantic vacation, but I was definitely looking forward to the seafood. I mean, I'm a seafood super fan. I'm, personally, not very good at cooking seafood, so I try to eat it when on a waterfront any time I have the opportunity. Aaaaaanyway, the hotel we stayed at.... the Monaco Baltimore was.... well, to be precise, DA BOMB! I've never stayed at a really four star hotel before. This hotel is all of like 6 weeks old and it was beautiful, luxurious, friendly, accommodating, and magical. We started by dropping the kids off at our friend's home a bit south of us. And can I say now, anyone who will take six children for more than a couple of hours for a friend is a keeper. I made her an apron and hubs made his bro hubs a quart of killer salsa from our garden, but I think they're gonna get another thank you, especially in light of the amazing vacation we had. We drove to Fairfax VA where hubs got a haircut and scalp, neck, shoulder massage for $13. I shopped at Nature's Yarns and bought some pretty blue yarn and chatted with some fiber ladies. (Nature's Yarns is having a workshop with Nancy Bush soon, and if I didn't pauper myself in Baltimore, I'd totally go!) One of said ladies was eating really yummy smelling food and I asked her if it was from the Vietnamese restaurant next door.... and yes! We found our lunch venue. It was wonderful food, delicate, fresh, clean, but with wonderful hints of spices that made it interesting. It was also relatively healthy for a quick lunch: lots of veggies and sprouts and bone broths.
On to Baltimore, and the drive was very enjoyable, since I got to knit my fair isle vest the whole way. We went to the Hotel Monaco, WOW! Totally awesome interior, amazing flower arrangements, and a historic building!

We talked to the concierge and he gave us several fun walking destinations, and we chose to hit the harbor, just to look at it. We got some drinks, did a little window shopping, and then walked to the hotel to check in... We spiffed up and started to think about dinner, and the bell boy brought us a bottle of wine and a signed card to celebrate our anniversary, all on his own. Hubs headed to the concierge desk to arrange for reservations while I headed to the lobby to knit in modern elegance. I met the man who had overseen the reconstruction of the building our hotel was housed in and his 90 yr old Aunt Jane (who didn't look a day over 70). He commented on my knitting, and showed off his belt, a gift from his wife in petit point embroidery... Aunt Jane thought my sock looked too small for an adult man, and I said I thought I'd have to pull it out, though hubs does have skinny calves AND she complimented my skin.

Later they asked to see Hub's ankles when we saw them at the elevator! And I got to hear a bit about the building, which apparently is the quite famous headquarters of the B&O Railroad. Who knew! Hubs returned, and come to find out, it was Restaurant Week in Baltimore and the restaurant we wanted to go to didn't have an open reservation till 10, so Hub asked the receptionist if she had an alternate recommendation. The Oceanaire, she said. The concierge walked in and says, “Oh, yeah, that's a really great restaurant, but you'll never get a reservation tonight! I know a guy, I think I can get you a reservation.... and lo and behold our concierge got us into the Oceanaire at 8pm... he told them we were VIPs and got us a car... I mean a private, black, window tinted, leather upholstered car driven by a chauffer. Well, I had to change clothes, of course!

Then: “Mr. D., your car is here.” and off to the restaurant in our private car (how much are you supposed to pay a private chauffeur?) When the host hears our name, he says, “My name is Nick, Mr. D, you let me know if you need anything at all.” Off we went, immediately, to a table squeezed into the back (it was obviously not part of the normal seating) where we were served so quickly and with eager attention, the surrounding tables complained! The food was sooooooo amazingly wonderful that I'm spoiled for ordinary calamari from now on, and the crab cakes were to die for, plus we had asparagus in hollandaise, yum. Then Jeremy called our chauffeur (he gave us his number), who said “I'll be there in five minutes!” Soon, I was handed back into the car while I saw people on the curb whispering to each other, wondering who we were. Of course, we're nobody, and I think the waitress figured that out about halfway through dinner, not that her service changed, but she wasn't sooooo much fawning over us anymore. Still, it was really fun being VIPs for one night! We went back to our world class boutique hotel and slept on a VIP cloud, which was quite restful. I highly recommend VIP clouds.
The next day it was breakfast and coffee at Caribou Coffee then a walk to shopping for sunscreen and a chunky, beady, artsy necklace to grace my VIP neck, and a tour of the USS Constellation, then a shortish walk to Camden Yards and a Orioles game. Can you say giant roasting oven? It was hot, so hot the ballpark had free ice stations set up on each level so people wouldn't die of heat stroke. I had nachos. The Orioles did not provide a particularly stellar performance, except when one outfielder jumped waaaaay up to catch a ball over the center field fence which prompted me to jump up with both hands in the air and “WoooooooHooooooooo!”. It was too hot to knit, but I was diligent enough with sunscreen that I didn't burn at all, yay! Then we left early so that we could shower and nap and go to dinner. We went to Bertha's and ate mussels and rock fish and cream shrimp and scallops. And sourdough bread. Mmmmm. Also, we met people who had just left the ball game in the 14th inning and were hot and sweaty. I'm glad Hubs was thinking of my delicate constitution. Then we went to the Cat's Eye Pub and made friends with Danny the bartender and listened to live music and watched locals do the Lindy Hop, which was really fun... then back to the hotel at 11, with a cabby that tried to run me all over Baltimore (the one bad note from a wonderful stay). We had breakfast at the Brasserie, which was wonderful, then a drive to Culpepper to look around and see a real estate agent and rescue our lovely friends from our children. Did you know that it can take 4 months to close on a short sale? Which means we need to get pre-approved for a loan and be ready to look at bargains on short notice. Our impending move date is now around 6 months away. Terrifying and exciting at the same time.

Farmer's Markets

Our first real initiation to a farmer's market couldn't have happened at a better one. San Luis Obispo's farmer's markets are kind of legendary, really they're rather more like carnivals with really fresh food. Street musicians, fresh flowers, magicians, street corner preaching, and prepared foods joined the fresh food in vying for our attention. Our local markets are less complicated, but they've got plenty to satisfy our hunger for local food and farm products.

We bought lots of yummy veggies and some berries and some ground lamb and lamb sausage... ground lamb mixed with ground beef for hamburgers is really good... I only wish we'd gotten some fresh goat cheese to stuff those burgers with a la Eat Make Read. Ooooh, also this cocktail... mmmmmm.

I even bought yarn! and some fiber covered soap from the Dream Keeper Farm in Orlean VA. They had 220 yards of hand dyed worsted wool yarn from their sheep (not handspun). Fun! For $10 a skein! Score! I bought a loverly bluey, lavendery, aquaey variegated skein for my friend's 6th baby. OK, I'm knitting a gift for said baby with said yarn. Actually, I'll probably finish knitting it tonight after I write this. More on that later! Those half gallon jars are for our milk from our cow shares... we start getting at least two gallons a week next week. And look at that cool bag I got from the Dream Keeper booth, just for free with my stuff!

Blueberries

We are locavores, when at all possible. We like to eat stuff that is grown around here, which is really easy in our area because we're very rural, but near a city, so there are tons of small farms and farmer's markets, etc. very near. Monday morning we went to Hartland Orchard and picked blueberries. We have the luxury, being at home to go in the morning on a weekday, which is the best time because it's cool, there are fewer people, and the bushes are less picked over, which is common on a Saturday anytime after the first hour a u pick it farm is open. Anyway, the people there are just as friendly as can be, and helpful, and eager to answer questions, which is wonderful. Soooo, here are our five pints of blueberries:

What to do with all those berries? Jeremy had picked up a bargain cookbook featuring food from Maine and I used a recipe for a blueberry crumble pie... yum.

The Prairie Princess made the crust for me and put it in the fridge this afternoon.

I rolled it out and fluted the edges and popped it in the fridge.

Mmmmmmmm, blueberries, flour, baking powder, and a pinch of black pepper!?!



Next the Crumble! Flour, dark brown sugar, and lots of butter...



And very small people to help.



Baking the pie crust, using dried green peas as pie weights



More crumble-ing, and little baby helpfulness:

The finished crumble all, um, crumbly

I popped this all into the pie crust, put it in the oven, and made a little tart with the leftover filling and crust... to give to the neighbors. What do you do with the leftover crust and filling.

All served with a litle iced cream, warm and tangy sweet, with that nutty, molassas flavor in the crumble, wonderful! I'd have added some oats and maybe some nuts to the crumble, but it was really good.

It's absolutely amazing, a bit of summer on your tongue.

Of course, I forgot to plan supper, so we didn't eat till 9:30 pm, cause we're a little short on cash right now and hub says no eating out... and the kids went to bed late and were grumpy all morning, but the pie was worth it.

Summertime and the Livin' is Crazy

Wow! I'm going crazy here... there is so much to do in our life right now and waaay too little time to blog about it. We have gone camping, to Williamsburg, and to the Hill Country and Odessa in Texas. My in laws have some wonderful river front vacation rental property and a bed and breakfast (Bend O' the River) where we always love to go. Plus the grandparents are always highly desirable to visit for the children... of course! And my honorary parents have a backyard pool! Plus I got to visit with my best friend Addy, who introduced me to the Twilight books and movie and... wait for it... Edward. Ohhhhh, Edward!

I've been neglecting the garden, in favor of house cleaning, much to the garden's detriment, it looks awful. It's about time to plant some fall greens and carrots and beets, and we're about to get a whole lot of tomatos for popping in the mouth, slicing, and turning into sauce. I wonder how the potatos will turn out? I've gotten three heads of broccoli, all with little green worms which were easy to pick off, but yucky. They were all good eating, and welcome to the table, since all of us are broccoli fans. The onions seem to have trouble staying put in the raised beds, they keep pushing their way up to the surface.




I've been contemplating a name change for the blog... I realized that the name I chose for our cottage is really the lesson I'm continually learning in my life. Contentment. I believe I'll change the name of the blog to reflect it. Also, we're planning another move, which is typical behavior for me. I'm pretty much assured we'll move as soon as I've got the house about half settled. It's our modus operandus.





On the needles: the blue sock... again. I finished it, tried it on and was surprised at it's snugness, then realized that it was made in the smaller size, so it had to be ripped out, in it's entirety and reknitted. I re cast-on, began again and I've turned the heel and finished the gussets, so it's in the home stretch now. Again. Also, a stranded colorwork vest, which probably it all wrong for my body type, but I don't care. It's a knit picks kit, on size 2 circular needles, in teal and gold. I've already knitted an inch of ribbing, but I had to rip it out as I forgot those very important words when joining in the round "being careful not to twist." So I decided to go ahead and do a gauge swatch... just to play with the colors... I'll cast on again when I cast off the sock.





Piper had her "procedure" yesterday, and is recovering by napping in the girls' bedroom right now. She's been an admirable mother, and we were able to get good homes for all the kittens, and kept our two favorite Black Susan and Hamelin, who are busy learning to hunt, ruining my sheer curtains in the guest room, and practicing their pounce and wrestle technique.





The children are making leaps and bounds, the baby is practicing his manners, trying to say please in the following variations: large cheesy smile, "meeeeeeeeeee", "peeeeeeeeeeee", or "teeeeeeeeee". Very sweet. Little J has graduated to a bike with training wheels and is triumphantly peddling around in circles in front of the house. She is a wonderful talker now, telling us stories in her preschool lisp: "Mommy, he tan wide his bite wifout the taining wheels!" JW has learned to ride without training wheels at the ripe old age of 5, he's been endeavoring to steer at that terrifying speed that comes with that new liberty and has been wearing his helmet voluntarily. He and M (who is mostly learning to do her hair this summer) are excited about taking swimming lessons starting on the 20th and the Prairie Princess and Dauphin have been taking theirs already and making marvelous progress. Also, they've been trying to read up the whole library and are frustrated by any censorship on our part. The possibility of evil doesn't really seem real to them in the library. My oldest (12 yrs) ascends from the pool after lessons with this incredibly large grin, which is so wonderful to see as he was the most terrified toddler in the world of water. He even was afraid of his bath. Now he thinks he might want to join a swim team! Who'd have thunk it! It almost, almost makes me want a swimming pool... perhaps it will be a positive instead of a negative in our house hunt that begins in January, along with the packing. Ugh.... packing!





Soon to start: some sewing lessons for the Prairie Princess and a neighbor (who recently moved onto the farm). Our first project will be a small skirt, just rectangles and a bit of elastic for the waistband, easy peasy, with a topstiched hem. I'll perhaps start to get some of my own summer sewing done, maybe, then some winter jumpers for the girls, then I'll pack away the stash in anticipation of the move.





Also soon to start: changing the workroom to a workroom/bedroom for the Dauphin... he made a very good argument for having his own room, and at 12, needs to have a little privacy, especially in a large family that occupies a small house. Also he digs the orange walls! Yay! So I need to move my yarn stash OUT of the dresser in that room and INTO something else... perhaps a plastic storage bin? Something I can access up until we load the truck in March, because, as we all know, I and my yarn cannot be parted for long, much like my hub or my kids or my Bible...





Can we all say OBSESSION?

Finally, a pic of the night sky and a crescent moon, and it's pretty.