Testing editor

Just a test of my blog editor.  This picture is the backyard at Wags-End earlier this fall.

One of my favorite meals

Here is a simple meal that I would like to share. It's easy to fix and pretty good, in fact it is one of my favourites. The ingredients, listed below, are all optional, meaning you can add or delete according to your own preference. I don't usually add any meat to this but I don't see why some hamburger, roast or ham couldn't be added.

In a casserole dish layer in:

cabbage

lima beans

oinions

garlic

sun-dried tomatoes

mushrooms

zucchini

brussel sprouts

broccoli

add about 1/2" water

sprinkle with sea salt

cover and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until tender

It's delicious heaped on a thick slice of homemade bread!!

Starting to look a little like Christmas

First, I would like to congratulate Lance on becoming debt free.  You can read more about it at his blog in the links to the right under "Living the Dream".  Now that you no longer have any personal debt Lance, you can start in on your share of the national debt, let's see, that would be about $80,000.  Keep in mind you will have to pay at least $10,000 per year to stay even.
A couple of Christmas pictures from around Wags-End:

A robin in the snow

This guy (or gal) missed the flight south.  Perhaps the Radiant crabapples were just too good to leave.  I hope there are enough to last till spring because it is a long way off.

It's been a busy summer.  I've spent most weekends and vacations working on various projects.  This weekend I took a break from that and have been mostly lazy and done nothing.  Probably not a good idea since we are heading into winter and there will be plenty of time doing nothing and we will dream about getting back to work and seeing progress on our numerous, ongoing projects, but having said that it was still nice to catch up on news and play around a little with my new linux system.  I do have a few things to post that may be of interest.

As I mentioned above I have converted my main home system to linux, ubuntu distro.  I have played with linux for many years and have installed it hundreds of times on my boxes all with varying degrees of success.  After a particularly persistent virus attack on my windows system a couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to repartition my hard drive so I made accommodations for a linux partition.  After getting XP back on I found an ubuntu disk and installed it.  It was positively the best install I have ever done, almost everything worked from the installation.  I am now dual booting into either linux, which I am using everyday, and XP which I will only use when I want to play a windows based game.  Everything was configured easily, the only thing not working is my scanner and there doesn't seem to be a linux driver for it so I will have to boot into XP if I want to use it.  There are enough linux apps to cover most every basic XP based program that I should not pine for the XP system, although some of the apps will take a little learning.  The fun part is the highly customizable desktop.  See picture below.


Chicken house/barn:
I haven't done any more work on the chicken house since my last post on it but it is more complete than the picture below.  I post this picture to offer a different view and to bring attention to the roof which extends over the outside chicken run.


Some might wonder why I would go to the expense of creating a covered outdoor run for them, it certainly wasn't necessary but it will provide some outdoor access during the winter when there would be heavy snow cover.  The primary reason though was because our future plans are to make it part of a larger structure, the barn.  Our idea was to provide for access to the total building (chicken house and barn) under one roof to minimize the amount of snow removal.  See the image below for a conceptual drawing of this future building.

November 1, 2009

November marks the start of winter for us.  It is really the first days that snow could fall and remain for the duration until spring.  Today, however, was very nice, mostly sunny and comfortable.  A good day to burn a brush pile.  It was almost too wet, some of it will not burn but spring projects will see it grow again for another try.

Apple Cider Day

What a beautiful day to press apple cider.  It poured rain for half the night but when we awoke this morning the sky was clear blue.
It was about 10:30 before we actually got started on the pressing.

Here's our setup:
The two tubs in front are for washing and rinsing the apples.


The grinder and press:


The ground apple mash.  I am not sure that this ginder reduced the apples to a fine enough pulp or not.  We tried to run it through again but that did not make it any finer and it didn't feed well.  Grinding was the hardest part of the whole process.  I don't know if other grinders are better or worse than this one but I think an electric motor on it would make things a lot easier.


The mash in the press:


Juice coming from the press:


Juice has been put in containers and is ready to go in the freezer.  We got about 17 gallons today, we still have 4 more large boxes of apples to press.


It was a lot of work and there were 6 of us washing, rinsing, quartering and removing bad spots, grinding, pressing and filling jugs.  It certainly isn't the easiest way to make cider but it was a lot of fun.

Hot Bread

Hot buttered bread.  There's an old wives tale that says it isn't good for you to eat hot bread, I disagree.

The Wood Pile

It has taken most of the week and a lot of hard work but the logs have finally been turned into wood.  The woodshed is full and there are a couple of nice ricks sitting outside.
I figure this is close to 5 cords.
That is Cali next to the wood pile.

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

Having a special diet can sometimes (most times) be a pain, but having to come up with my own bread recipe was a definite benefit.  I make this in a bread machine, sorry but I'm not going to make bread twice a week by hand.  I would rate a bread machine right up there with a washing machine and definitely higher than a dishwasher for must have appliances.
The recipe, added in order given:

• 1 1/2 cups tepid water
• 1/4 cup half & half cream/milk
• 3 3/4+ cups of whole wheat flour (almost 4 cups)
  
• 1/3 cup oatmeal flour (this adds a nice texture to the bread.)
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
  
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 heaping tablespoons coconut oil (non-hydrogenated)
• 2 teaspoons yeast

You can reduce or eliminate the oatmeal flour if you want but you will need to add a corresponding amount whole wheat flour so that the total flour equals 4 1/4 cups. 
We are not currently grinding our own wheat flour because we have a full bin of purchased flour but as soon as that is gone we will be buying wheat and grinding it ourselves.  It takes a lot of work and energy to grind even small amounts by hand.  Our grinder is made so that it will accept a motor and we may in the future set it up with one.
Use the whole wheat baking setting on your bread machine, if you have more than 1 setting you might choose the longer one.  It takes almost 4 hours for ours to complete the process.

Grinding oatmeal into flour.


It takes a lot of grinding to get the flour shown below. Thanks Tessie.


Adding the honey



Ready to put in the bread machine.


The finished loaf of bread.

Woodshed

Here’s a picture of the woodshed/storage shed/shop/office.  It’s hard to imagine that little building performing so many different functions. 

The firewood is stored in the lean-to on the right side.  I also keep the garbage cans there (brown cardboard barrels in the foreground).  The sticks stored in the rafters over the wood are for my future walking stick projects I am planning for some winter work once the shop is completed.  The wood pile is growing, another load went in today.  All total the shed will hold about 4 or 5 cords, which will meet most of our heating needs.

The lean-to on the left side of the picture is the storage shed.  The low ceiling is a real head clunker.  I wish I had built the whole thing 2 feet taller but when we built it we used what we had on hand and what we could afford. 

The center section, with the window and doorway with no door yet is to be the shop.   It isn’t anywhere near useable yet, too many other projects taking precedent.  It used to be where we stored the wood when originally built but has been (or soon will be) promoted.  Currently the shop has boxes of apples stored on one side and the other side are the dog beds.  The dogs don’t know it yet but they are moving out before long.  I will build them a dog house in the front section of the woodshed just opposite the garbage cans.  I think it will be a lot warmer and cozier than where they are now.

My office is in the center section, back half.  It is not very big but easy to keep warm and just right for me.  I will not show any pictures of it because I am not a very good housekeeper.

It may be hard to tell from the pictures but the whole building is in the process of being painted.  There is not much left to do but the cold weather has put a stop to it.  One or two more days of warmer weather will see it done, if it doesn’t rain.

The hot tub felt wonderful last night.  The sky was clear and the milky way put on a brilliant display.  We saw 4 or 5 falling stars and multiple satellites passing over.  Half a dozen deer grazed in the field below the house although they were hard to see in the dark but we could hear them moving about.

Brrrr!!

If you can’t tell from there, that’s ice in the barrels.  Not terribly uncommon this time of year but it was only 15 degrees last night and that seems a little unseasonal.  I don’t think it even got to 40 today and forecast is for more cold tonight.  Hence the frenzy of activity now getting ready for more cold and eventually snow!

The first load of wood went into the woodshed today.  The logs have been cut for several months but when I cut it to stove length and split it today it felt a little heavy.  I threw a couple chunks in the stove not long ago and they seemed to burn good, but then there was a nice layer of coals under them too.  I think they will be okay as they are but they will season in the woodshed pretty quickly now that they are quarter-split.  There was a little more cedar in the log pile than I would like to have seen but I won’t run out of kindling.  The logs were a byproduct of some road work we had done this summer so whatever species had to come out- came out.

I haven’t posted on the garden in quite a while but it’s a given that it’s toast.  We had our first frost several weeks ago and have several since with the worst last night, the 15 degrees I mentioned above.  We have hundreds of tomatoes laying about the dining room under layers of newspaper in varying states of ripeness.  Unless they decide to rot rather than ripen I will have fresh tomatoes for a month yet.  I also moved a container planted tomato into my office and put a grow light over it.  It has several dozen baseball sized tomatoes on it that are starting to ripen.  I am hoping to keep it alive as long as possible.  It is somewhat of an experiment to see how long I can keep it producing. 

After the first frost hit us several weeks ago the deer decided they weren’t staying out of the garden any longer so we lost our fall lettuce crop and any remaining beans.  I salvaged the red cabbage, the green cabbage and brussel sprouts succumbed to cabbage loopers, next year I will have to order in some Bacillus Thuringiensis to combat them.  When the worms first appeared I went to the garden supply store and asked for some Bacillus Thuringiensis for my lepidroptera and they just gave me a blank stare.  Needless to say I did not find any locally.  The worms did not bother the red cabbage hardly at all, maybe they didn’t like it.

We did get a nice crop of white onions.  We hadn’t planted a large number but most of them grew to medium size and are currently drying out some as they lay on the piano bench.

The tobacco never really matured like I thought it should so consequently it was never pulled and set to dry.  It looks pretty bad now and is probably a complete loss.  That is the big problem we are having here on the end of our ridge, our season is just not long enough and the nights during the summer are just not warm enough.  The two conditions work against us.  Most everything grows pretty fair but just not fast enough to do much before the season ends.   If we want to have a good harvest we are just going to have to erect some type of greenhouse structure.  I haven’t settled on any particular plan yet but it will probably be something cheap and easy.  I have talked to different people about what they are doing so I have some ideas.  Next spring I will have to decide and get something in place.  Another spring project will have to be some kind of real deer-proof fence.  I only have a portion of the orchard and garden area semi-fenced now and it is more of a psychological deterrent rather than a real barrier.  I have put up some plastic orange construction fencing, if you look closely at the background in the icy barrel picture at the top of this post you can see it.  It only keeps out the deer until they decide they really want in.

I have the next week off from work so I will be home getting wood and getting things ready for winter.  I have a lot of projects planned and will try to post something everyday. 

The upcoming week’s project list:

• The apple press has arrived.  Must apply food safe urethane gel to wood parts. 
• Press out the apples.  Tessa has been faithfully picking the apples.  I think she only has one tree left.  I am expecting about 20 gallons of juice.
• In anticipation of a whole beef that is now at the butcher we realized our already full freezer was not going to hold it, so we ordered a new one.
• The grain mill is now mounted on a counter in a little pantry area we have.  We have used it a little to grind some oats to add to homemade bread.  I will try to do a post on making bread.  We have developed a really good and healthy whole wheat bread recipe for the breadmaker and I would like share it.
• 
• My wife, Wanda and my daughter Tessa have been painting the woodshed/storage shed/shop.  I need to make a door for the shop section and replace some hinges on the storage section.
• The outside freezable water faucets have all been shut off.
• The hoses need drained and put away.
• The chicken house still needs one more window installed.  I went with the acrylic panels.  I hope that wasn’t a mistake.  They were awful cutting and getting them framed.  Door and window latches have been installed.
• I hope to cut and split a load of wood and get it into the woodshed everyday.  Day one down and one load in.  I think I will sneak up to the neighbor’s hot tub tonight and take a long soak.  They are gone to Hawaii on vacation for the week so I think their hot tub will get a lot of use.

Chicken house update, Sept 26, 2009

 

Most of the outside work on the chicken house is done now.  Still left to do outside is:

• Install light
• Attach door latches
• Install window panes, acrylic, I think.
• Install window latches
• Install fencing for run (next spring)
• Paint (next spring)
• Lay in some stones for step (next spring)

On the inside:

• Put up nailing blocks
• Insulate
• Put up sheeting
• Construct door for chickens to access outdoor run
• Paint (next spring)

Chicken house update – Thursday

The chicken house is really progressing.  Almost all of the external sheeting is on and so is the tar paper on the roof.  It is now ready for the metal roofing.  I’ve got 3 more days at home to work on it and then it’s back to the money job.  Work on the chicken house will progress a lot slower then but at least I expect to have it so it can withstand the coming winter weather.

Chicken house update:

The chicken house is progressing a little faster now that the foundation is done and I have some time off from work.  It is ready for sheeting.

New Arrivals Today

New toys (tools) arrived today.

This first picture is our new apple/fruit crusher.  The press hasn’t arrived yet, it is backordered until the end of September.  That should give me enough time to decide where I want to mount this.  The second picture shows the inside of the hopper and teeth where the action happens.

This is the new grain mill.

 

We picked the first ears of corn yesterday.  I have it on good word that they were as tasty as they were beautiful.  I can’t eat corn, because of allergy to it but these tempted me.  It was cold this morning, 33.6 degrees, don’t know how many more we can expect to pick. 

 

I am watching the thermometer on a nightly basis hoping to save every  tomato that I can.  It is unfortunate that we are just coming into our tomato production. 

Of course tomatoes aren’t the only thing that will suffer…