Catching Up

I spent all of February either preparing to travel, traveling, or recovering from traveling. First I went to California for my grandmother's funeral, and then I went to Utah to visit my dad and step-mom. I actually have a fair bit to blog about, but it's sure hard to get back into the swing of it after a break.

--

First off, I discovered that Queenacres has given me a blog award. It's always nice to meet other people who share a similar vision. Welcome, Queenacres, and make yourself at home. I guess I'm supposed to now pass the award on to my favorite blogs, but I feel kind of silly to be perpetuating a chain, so I'll just point out that my favorites are always listed on the right sidebar.

--

February Egg Tally: 74 eggs, 97 for the year.

This count only includes full-sized chicken eggs. There were also a few bantam eggs and a bunch of duck eggs, but ducks don't lay their eggs in a nest box and so their eggs are far too dirty for human consumption. When it gets warmer I plan to separate the Pekins out and collect their eggs for hatching. At least one of the Australorp pullets has started laying, since a couple of the eggs have been small, pointed, and heavily speckled. I could be wrong about this, but speckled eggs seem to be mostly produced by young hens. I remember that when the Reds first started laying, many of the eggshells were speckled, but now they are all pretty uniformly colored.

--

Kefir Reboot

I don't remember exactly what happened, but the last time I set up a jar of fresh milk for the kefir grains, I wasn't home to refrigerate it at the proper time so it overfermented. The jar has been sitting on the shelf for months now, but I couldn't ever work up the motivation to deal with it. Today I finally drained off all the fermented milk, gathered the kefir grains, rinsed them in filtered water, and fed them fresh milk. Some eight hours later, the milk is starting to ferment, which means that my grains are still alive and salvageable. It will probably take several changes of milk before they start producing good quality kefir again, but the animals will be perfectly happy to drink the less palatable stuff. I'm looking forward to drinking kefir again; I was starting to miss it.

--

Progress on the 101 Goals

I've been working on reading Horticultural Enterprises, but I was disappointed to discover that the authors advocate for a very industrialized approach, with chemical fertilizers and pest sprays. This book was published in 1929 (first edition 1919), so it must have been one of the very first to take such an approach. It's certainly interesting to read from a historical perspective, but I don't wish to garden the way they teach. Therefore, although my goal list stated that I would answer all of the chapter questions, I will most likely only answer some. It's interesting to see the industrial agriculture mindset developing, but I have no desire to study it for my own use.

Sauerkraut a'Bubblin'

My dad got me the book Wild Fermentation for Christmas, and ever since I've been wanting to try one of the recipes. Sauerkraut is pretty basic, and green cabbages were on sale for $.19/lb, so I bought three of those and one red cabbage. Yesterday, I finally got a chance to shred them up and pack them into the crock. It turns out that four cabbages is exactly right to fill it.

All of this liquid is cabbage juice; I didn't have to add any brine to it.

A closer look at the shredded cabbage.

It was already starting to taste a little bit sour when I took it out today to check on it and wash the weight. We should be able to start eating it within a couple of days, and the flavor should change and mature as it continues to ferment.

Jewish Pickles

Up until yesterday, I had no idea that cucumbers could be preserved in a salt brine just like kimchee, but apparently that's the old Jewish way of making dill pickles. So I'll be trying out this recipe with our smaller cucumbers. I'm fascinated with all kinds of fermentation, so this is right up my alley. Plus, if it works, it's so much easier than vinegar pickling!

The large cucumbers are still slated to become dill spears in a vinegar brine.

Processed today:

Jewish Dill Pickles, using all of the small cucumbers (forgot to weigh them).