Counter Science & Sourdough

Many of you know that for several years I've been milling my own grain in my Nutrimill and baking my own bread.  While this has had great health benefits for our family and kept us from eating copious amounts of refined (read: nutrient-void) flour, a while back I began stressing about phytic acid.  You can read all about my little dilemma here. 

A friend of mine recently let me borrow Jessie Hawkins' Vintage Remedies Guide to Bread.  The book is choc full of information on how ancient cultures baked, the advent of baker's yeast during the industrial revolution, and yes, phytic acid.  Hawkins' well-researched claim is that ancient cultures baked using starters containing microbes caught from the air, or in layman's terms, sourdough.  No baker's yeast involved, and the loooong rising times break down the detrimental effects of my old friend, phytic acid. 

Oh, and it tastes amazing.  Even to Byron, who hates sourdough.

But wait!  Before you go away, don't get turned off by loooong rising times.  Because guess what?  There is very little kneading and almost no dough babysitting involved!  Most of her recipes consist of mixing the ingredients, shoving the bowl into a corner overnight, putting the dough in pans in the morning, shoving the pans back into the corner, and baking the bread around dinner time.  That's pretty much it, I promise.

It sounds too good to be true, but it is.  And it is my answer to baking while working outside the home full-time.

You didn't honestly think I was going to start patronizing Monsanto, did you??

Anyway, buy the book.  And then procure some starter.  Another friend graciously gave me some starter she had bought online.  Hawkins also gives EASY directions on catching your own microbes (i.e., making your own starter), so I thought I'd give that a go:

You want to leave it as open as possible, but since we have ladybugs zooming around the house and waking my terrified kids up at night, I covered my experiment with cheese cloth.

And it is...bubbling!!  After 48 hours!  This is a good sign.

Hawkins writes about how starters caught in different regions of the world will give you different results.  For instance, San Francisco has some rockin' microbes, because they're famous for their sourdough.  This starter I'm trying smells differently than the one my friend gave me, probably because it's catching southern microbes.

And the South is famous for cornbread, not sourdough.  But it costs me pennies to try...

So why not?


Update on my Nutrimill: I had to have the motor replaced over Christmas.  Convenient, I know.  But since all I had to pay was shipping, I was pleased with their customer service.  I did read more recently, however, that the Wondermill kicked the Nutrimill's butt in a test that ran the mills until the motors burned out.  Granted, the article wasn't scientific, peer-reviewed, etc., etc., but a bit of food for thought, nonetheless, if you are shopping for a grain mill.

From Hens to Hay: Why I Love Multi-Purpose Structures

Remember the hen house we built last summer?  You know, the one I neglected to post final photos of?  Well, here it is, six months later, and filled with...

Hay. (Yes, we cleaned it out!)

The side pictured above is for human access.  In the fall we put plastic over the chicken wire to keep the hens cozy during the night.  But in the summer, the chicken wire at each end helps with ventilation.

Other side, with small door for chicken access.

Interior view.  I think we can fit eleven bales of hay in the center aisle.  Notice the roosts and egg boxes.  There are roost bars on the other side of the aisle, as well.

We've pulled it up right next to the garden, where the chickens are spending the winter.  They share a divided hoop house with the bovines, one of whom eats copious amounts of hay (I'm talking to you, Flower).

Storing the hay in the hen house for the winter accomplishes two things.  First, since it is mobile, we can hook it up to the tractor, drag it over to the barn, load it up, and drag it back to the garden, saving us time and work.  Secondly, it saves us from building a structure closer to the winter quarters in order to store hay.  And this is why I love multi-purpose structures.

Any other ideas out there for multi-purpose farm structures?  One of our next projects will be to build a larger cow shelter on skids.  Stay tuned!

Who Needs Video Games?

"When I was  kid, all I needed to entertain myself was a stick and a string!" 

Maybe my kids really will use that line on their grandkids.  Check out their most recent creation, made in the dead of winter:



Steps

Swing

Sticks and strings.  Proud of my kids' creativity.  Made by Akea, checked for safety by Byron.

New Arrivals

No, I didn't have a baby.  In fact, I don't have a legitimately valid excuse for being such a slacker for the past two months, except to say that we've undergone some major changes as a family.  For instance, my kids are both in public school now and I'm looking into going back to teaching next year.  In the meantime, I'm eating bonbons and not writing blog posts.

Per the title, I do want to share with you our two new arrivals.  Everyone, meet Flower and Rachael.  Flower and Rachael, meet everyone:



Rachael is the baby, and Flower is the mom.  Both are Black Angus.  Both were named by my kids.

Rachael has to be bottle fed for a while longer, so Byron is making friends.  Flower was still nursing another calf when she was born, and the previous owner never separated them.

Flower is still a bit skittish sometimes, but fortunately, the previous owner is very hands-on with his cows, so she doesn't totally hate us.  She also may be pregnant, so that could explain a lot...

Our steers have since gone to the butcher, which was a very interesting learning experience.  They weighed much, much less than we had anticipated and we ended up losing money on the venture.  So our [my] new rule is no more Holsteins.  Though we hear that the meat is great, they don't gain weight efficiently.  To their credit, however, we got an education by raising them.

I'm glad I'm back.  I miss writing as a creative outlet and I miss your insights.  And the spammers have begun their relentless, vulturous descent.  Let's hope as I dust off my blog, they go to the wind as well.

Updates

Yes.  I'm into creative titles these days.

I can't believe my blogging has precipitously dropped off these past few months.  When I was homeschooling both kids, I would oftentimes take a few minutes in the morning to at least start a post.  Now that Akea is attending public school, it's a rush to get everyone out the door to drop her off, and she comes home with plenty of homework, most of with which she needs help.

And having Charlie at home, by himself, means he needs more attention from me.  It's just the way things are rolling these days.

From a homesteading perspective, things are slowing down, but I have been attacking some projects inside the house.  So right now, our life looks like this:

Outside
1. The steers go to the butcher tomorrow.  When we bought them, we knew they weren't pets, but because we raised them from their first week of life, we've grown a bit attached.

2. The younger hens are almost six months old and have been laying small, pullet eggs for about a month.  We're happy that the flocks merged without a hitch, and the goats are enjoying being pastured with them as well.  Our thought is that the goats provide a degree of predator protection for the chickens.

3. The garden has been done for a while.  The no-till idea didn't mix well with my fatigue and the drought this summer, so Byron will till it in the spring and we will try raised beds.  I have a bit of lettuce in pots.

4. We need to prep the hoop house for the chickens, which involves clearing it out, protecting the sides where they'd dug under last year, and making a small access door into the garden.  We want them to be able to go outside when they want, instead of being cooped up (literally) all winter.

Inside
1. I painted the kitchen and large common area at the back of the house, and have begun to work on re-upholstery again.  Soon to come is painting and/or refinishing a few pieces of furniture, then organizing.  Lots of organizing.

2. Byron plans to repair the floor and damaged joist in the downstairs bedroom, and lay hardwood flooring.  Part of the holdup has been figuring out exactly how to reconfigure the bathroom, but I think we have finally made our decision...we're keeping it simple and not tearing up and rebuilding walls.

3. My Nutrimill died!  I believe the motor burned up.  However, I have to give props to L'Equip, the company that makes the machine.  They told me to send it in, and they're fixing it free of charge.  Totally took my word for it that I'm the original owner, too, and told me not to even worry about sending in the receipt.  In all this, a big thanks to my friend, Katey, who has let me borrow her hand mill!

In all this, we are trying to figure out some ways to streamline the homesteading aspect of our lives.  Raised beds will hopefully be easier on me, and Byron would like to set up some semi-permanent electric wire paddocks for whenever we get more cows.  Any by the way, we are going to try to get a couple heifers (young, female cows) that we can breed, which will be much more sustainable than buying calves.

I will be back to update from time to time, but my guess is that it won't be as frequent as it has been in the past.  As our kids grow, they're beginning to show interests in different activities.  For Charlie, it's soccer and guitar.  Akea is interested in basketball and drama.  True, this seems contrary to the homesteading lifestyle to a degree, but we are trying to find that balance.

There's No Place Like Home (Processing)

Even if, at our best, we only processed six chickens per hour, it was so good to be home!

Over the past couple weekends - and a couple evenings during the week - we processed our last batch of broilers for the year.  With over 70 chickens that needed to make it into the freezer ASAP, we decided to purchase some low-cost equipment so we could process them in our own backyard.  In the past, we would have travelled about twenty miles to another farm with said chickens and two very bored children in tow.  Even though our equipment is more rudimentary and the going was slower, we had happy kids, happy chickens (well, up until...you know), and showers.  All that was missing was a pumpkin latte from Starbucks at the end of it all.

Here's our set-up, along with approximate purchase prices:

Stainless steel table, 2'x4', used for evisceration.  Approximately $125 on eBay.

Polar Ware 30-quart stainless steel pot from Amazon, $67.40.  Underneath is a Bayou Classic outdoor gas cooker, $51.80.

Drill attachment plucker, approximately $30 from eBay.

Large cooler, which we used as a chill tank.  I can't recall the price, but many people have coolers like these already.  And see the green bucket?  When we were only processing maybe five birds in an evening, we would just chill them in FREE food-grade buckets we snagged from Chick-fil-A.  Oh, the irony.

Grand total? $274.20, not including the items we already had on hand.  Not too shabby, when you consider the professional stuff can climb up to the likes of $8,000.

One thing we do want to change is the plucker.  The little drill attachment worked, but I had to pluck whatever it couldn't (wings).  Not an issue if you're processing about five birds, but when you run into a couple or few dozen, you really need something more efficient.  We may try finding something used or attempt to make our own next summer.

We also could have purchased an aluminum turkey pot with temperature control, but we're a little leery of aluminum and its leaching abilities.  So Byron kind of got into the groove of knowing when to turn the valve up to heat the water, and when to turn it back down.  We kept a thermometer on hand to ensure that the water would always be between 140 and 150 degrees.

And this all wouldn't have happened without the Cornish X chicken.  

However, we may try Freedom Rangers next time, as they are much more hardy. You can do everything by the book, but some of the Cornish X will develop leg problems and simply refuse to move. Leg problems are caused by anything from genetics, to a chicken getting scratched by his buddy, and suddenly deciding he just. doesn't. want. to. move. anymore.  

And that's when home processing equipment really comes in handy.  Just saying.

I'm linking up with the Homestead Barn Hop!

In Which I Make a Trendy Wreath

The primary reason for making a trendy wreath is this bizarre need I have to create things with my hands.  It's not pretty when I go for long spells without making anything.  Oh, sure, I make meals every day and bake all the time, but that just doesn't do it for me.  I need instant visual gratification.

So I made one of those deals with the yarn wrapped around and around and around a straw wreath.  The whole thing cost me about $4 since I had the fabric and buttons already.  I like to think of it as autumn with a touch of elegance (work with me here, okay?).

I found that it was a relatively easy project, but I did originally use a muted yellow for the "flowers" and found that to be too much color.  I also found that the glue gun was the best thing I ever bought and that along with Google Earth, winding yarn around a wreath gives me vertigo.

Made by me, inspired HERE by Homemade Ginger. 

Since this cost me all of $4 (hint: Joann Fabrics takes multiple, competitor coupons), I'm linking up with Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways #46!