Some perspective on "off-grid" living

OK.  I admit it.  I like the modern conveniences of life.  Indoor plumbing, a refrigerator, washing machine and dryer, lights, TV, computer.....

But, I grew up in the 1960's.  In rural Pennsylvania.  On a dirt road, in the woods.  We did have electricity.  Thankfully.

The old homestead, barn, out house, chicken coop.

 We had an outhouse (a 3 holer!)  And a chicken coop, there's also a little building down by the creek off to the right of this picture.  We called it the "pigpen" even though we never had pigs.  When we got a pony and horse, it became the "stable".  The field to the right was the pasture.

The old red barn was torn down during the early 1970s.  There was also a cow pond off to the left, just off this picture.

This was a 39 acre homestead, I lived on this property the first 18 years of my life.  I loved that place!  Most of the property was wooded, but off across the field shown on the lower right here there was 5 acres of blueberry bushes.  YUMMY!

Behind the house was a covered back porch.  Off the porch was the well.  Complete with a little well house, windlass and bucket.  We even had a church pew/bench in front of the well house for us little people to stand or sit on.

That well went dry every summer.  Which sucked!  No water.  That means using the outhouse.  When I was little, we didn't have a phone or TV.  We did have a radio.

The dirt road in winter

 This is a portion of the road we lived on.  I think we were 5 miles off the "blacktop".  The road was well maintained, but could get pretty icy in the winter.

 

And in summer

Here's the same section in summer.














Now I want to show you OUR house.

NE side of our 12 sided house Spring 2013

 We live in rural NE Arkansas, on a long gravel drive.  We're 1/2 mile off the highway.  Our property is 42 acres.  Mostly wooded.  It's very hilly.

Front porch 2013

 We have a nice covered front porch.  Complete with rocking chairs and dog houses.  Our well house is off behind the house, near the south property line.  I've posted pictures of it before.

North flower garden, veggie garden & workshop.

This section of my flower beds is off to the north side of the house.  I planted lilacs, in honor of the bushed I loved playing under as a kid.  They were located to the left of the house pictured above, beside the large corn field.

Anyway, our beds are filled with edible plants.  Herbs and strawberries.  The guineas and the dog ate most of the berries before we ever got to them this past year!

The same view during the big ice storm 2009.

Here's the same view, in the aftermath of the big 2009 ice storm.

Now, here's the thing about "off grid" living.  During this storm, we were without power for 10 days.  We do have propane heat and a freestanding fireplace in our den.  We also have a bed in the den, and another bedroom off the den as well as a bathroom.

But, no power means NO water.  And for several days, we had NO PHONE.  No cell service.

Our driveway during the big ice storm 2009.

 Our drive was blocked by fallen trees.  It took us 3 days to cut our way to the road!

South entrance 2013.

Here's the south entrance to our home.  This bed is in full sun all winter.  And mostly shade in the summer.  Which is great, because my indoor plants get plenty of sun in winter.  And they don't cook in the summer.  I like that.

I over winter my cayenne pepper, and night blooming jasmine, basil, a tomato, and aloe.

South entrance 2009.

 

During that ice storm, we made a fire ring and set my husband's Grandma's old cast iron laundry cauldron up.  That way we had a constant supply of hot water.  Luckily, we had a cast iron clawfoot tub in the bathroom off the den.  We filled a "solar shower" with hot water and could take a nice hot shower.

My brother-in-law Joey and his family, and his friend Randy drove all the way from Georgia to help us out.  My step-son Joshua worked at Lowe's at the time, so he got us a large generator that Joey brought out.  So, now we could run the water pump.

We cooked food for 7 people in dutch ovens in our fireplace.

The house was nice and warm.  We had 5-gallon buckets with melted snow/ice  to flush the toilets with.
We kept the freezer and fridge cold with the generator.  We only ran it when necessary.  I mean, come on!  It was 30 degrees outside.  The freezer's on the unheated back porch... a no brainer.  No need to plug it in, when it's already COLD.

The 7 of us did just fine during that storm.  John and I had set our homestead up so that we'd be prepared during bad weather.  We have home canned food.  We had 2 small generators, but needed that new bigger one to power the water pump.

We have dehydrated veggies.  Flour, butter, milk... and chickens for eggs.  We have some solar panels and batteries set up for solar lighting.  Hand crank radio, rechargeable digital TV, hand crank generator for cell phones or laptops.  Hand powered kitchen appliances (old fashioned ones and/or brand new ones).  Our new summer kitchen building has a wood cookstove.  It keeps the building VERY warm, and the oven is big enough for a pizza!

Do I want to live without electricity?  NO!  Without my Roku?  Or the internet?  NO!

Can I live without it?  Yes.

I love living in the country.  Walking in the woods.  Sewing on our treadle sewing machine.  Baking bread, making cheese, making butter, canning, spinning, knitting.

But do I ever want to go back to needing an outhouse?!  NO!!!

Do I have a wringer washer? Yes.  Do I have and use a clothes line?  Yes.  Do I want to stop using my washer and dryer in the house?  NO!

People who have NEVER lived in the woods, on a homestead, in really primitive condition make the whole experience sound very romantic.  In truth, it's damn hard work.

Would I want to try raising all my veggies without a gas-powered tiller or the tractor?  NO!  Could I?  Yes.

Would I want to do my canning in our 1960's pressure cooker on the wood cookstove?  NO!  Could I?  Yes.  I could.

Do I want to stop using our propane heat?  NO!  Could I?  Yes.

Sure, we could put the woodstove back in the great room.  We still have it, and all the required stove pipe.  Do I want Josh to have to chop and split wood to keep the house warm, and so I could cook?  NO!  Could we?  Sure.  But, that's hard work!

Could we butcher a few deer, squirrel and rabbits for our winter food.  Sure.  Could we catch and process fish, and store it?  Sure.  Could we can all our own veggies?  Sure.  Make all our baked goods.  Sure.

But here's the thing.  I want to do it when I want to do it!  Not because I have to.  Maybe I don't WANT to mess with cooking today.  Maybe I want to go to town and have Mongolian Bar-b-que.  Maybe I want someone else to cook me chicken fried steak.

I like living in the modern world with modern conveniences.

I'm very greatful that I grew up the way I did.  I learned a lot.  I know how to do a lot.  I hope to keep all these skills alive and teach them to others.  But I don't want the modern world to go away.  That would be a hardship.

A foggy morning

It's cool and foggy this morning.  We had rain and drizzle all day yesterday.  So, I took some bread dough out of the freezer to thaw and rise.  I added the first addition of flour this morning.

We spent the day yesterday all snug inside.  We found this great app for my touchpad called Twonky.  It allows me to view Youtube videos on our TV using my touchpad and our Roku.  Very cool.  If you're a Youtube fan with a touchpad and a Roku, check it out.  Download the app to your touchpad and add the Twonky channel to your Roku...  Happy viewing!

I took a few spring pictures while I was out feeding the birds this morning.  Spring is on the way!

Peach blossoms

Lilac blossoms

Chicken birdhouse birthday present

Our front walk

Freshly tilled garden after a day of rain

I talked to our friend Erika today, and she's not having a good day.  She hurt her back and is really having difficulty.  I'm so sorry you're hurting Erika.  :(

Playing with fermentation

Yesterday, our friends Jim and Beth Saxe brought us some "fresh from the cow" whole milk.  Man, I'm excited.  So, I decided to spend the day making "fermented" food.

You see, my friend Gena Stout brought me a kombucha "mother" last week.  And it's been fermenting for the past 8 days, so it's time to remove some of the liquid and refresh it.

OK first to the milk.  I'm going to make it into cheese.  I usually get my milk from my friend JoAnn McElderly.  But she has a large family and so I've kinda been squeezed out.  So when Beth offered to pick up my jug and bring me some milk I was very enthusiastic!  Yes Yes Yes!

I usually make a batch of mozzarella cheese, then process it a second time and make ricotta.  The left over whey goes into a batch of bread.

But today I decided to try a new recipe.  Feta is a cheese we really like, so I decided to try making it.

I get all my cheese making supplies from The New England Cheese Making Company.  Here's the link to their site.  New England Cheese Making Company

I decided to learn to make cheese after Gena came over one day and taught me how to make mozzarella and ricotta using the microwave.  That was a fun day!  And boy that cheese is tasty!  That's when I decided to get my own cheese making supplies and some books.  I started with the Complete Home Cheese Making kit.  Complete Home Cheese Making Kit.  Don't forget to order red wax if you want to make some hard cheese.

Later, I also got the The Deluxe Goat Cheese Set Deluxe Goat Cheese Set.

The recipe I'm going to follow today for Feta is found on page 7 of their little handbook from the Home Cheese Making Kit.

Feta Cheese
1 gallon whole mike
1 packet Mesophilic direct set culture
1/2 rennet tablet crushed and dissolved in 1/4 cup cool water
Cheese salt for brine

I started by heating the milk slowly to 86F using the indirect heat method.

Heating the milk

I then added the started culture and stirred.  I kept the milk at this temperature for 1 hour.

The culture is very important.  Different cheese are the result of different cultures.  This direct set culture gives the milk the distinctive flavor associated with Feta cheese.  Having the right culture for the cheese you want to make is very important.  After making this batch of cheese, I need to order more of this particular culture.

While I was holding the milk and culture at 86F, I crushed my vegetable rennet tablet and dissolved it in water.  I only needed 1/2 a tablet.

Here it is, dissolved.














After an hour had passed, I added the rennet to the milk and allowed it to rest for another 1/2 hour.

Milk with culture and rennet resting at 86F

While the milk was resting, I started working with my kombucha.  I hadn't tried kombucha before.  Gena is a real fan of it, so I thought I'd give it a try.  Here's a Wikipedia article about kombucha.  Kombucha.

If you're interested in starting a kombucha culture and don't have a friend with some SCOBY to share, here's a site that can help you get started.  http://www.kombucha.org/

The SCOBY is the "mother", the culture.  SCOBY is an acronym for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.  Again, here's the Wikipedia link.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCOBY.

It doesn't look so bad...  Here's mine, after 8 days.

Kombucha with scoby on top

I simply used a ladle to remove most of the liquid, filtered it through a coffee filter and put it into a new jug.  I hope to invest in a ceramic crock with a tap so I won't have to use a ladle to get my daily dose.  But for now, this is the method I have to use.

The dark jug will help keep my tea fresh

I put a small piece of my scoby and a little liquid aside for another friend who wants to try it.

To add liquid to my culture, I simple made a new batch of sweet tea the way I always do.  Once it was cool, I poured it into my kombucha vessle.  Here's what my finished kombucha tea looked like.

Kombucha tea is slightly sour and fizzy

I still had to time to let my cheese rest, so I decided to make some pickled eggs.  My banty hen Pebbles has been laying up a storm!  I have 15 eggs from her and I'm not ready to incubate them... so pickled eggs it is!

To make pickled eggs, you start my hard boiling your eggs.

Then you have to put pickling spices in vinegar.  I got my recipe from an old cookbook I have from 1955 "The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook" by Ruth Berolzheimer.  The recipe I'm using is on page 307.

Pickled eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mixed spices
2 cups vinegar
12 - 16 eggs

Since Banty eggs are so much smaller, I added 6 large eggs from my Cochin chickens.

I used McCormick pickling spices.  I boiled the eggs for 15 minutes.  Then I drained them and then covered them with cold water.  I left these to set for about 1/2 hour while I went back to my cheese.

By now, my curd had formed and was nice and firm.  The curd is adequately firm when you see it separating from the edge of the vessel and when a finger inserted makes a clean break.  It looks like this.

Curd "breaks" when touched

I broke the curds up, then let is rest for 10 minutes.  While it was resting, I cracked my eggs and put them into the jars with vinegar and spices.  Here's the finished product.

Eggs in vinegar and spices

Now the jars go in the fridge for 7 - 10 days.  These eggs will keep for several months.  I could also heat the jars in a pressure cooker and seal them.  They'd stay good for several years that way.  But we eat our eggs much too quickly to bother with canning them.

Now, back to the cheese.  I gently stirred the curd and slowly raised the temperature to 96F.  I stirred it every 10 minutes or so.  The curd sinks to the bottom and the whey comes to the top.

Curd on the bottom, whey on the top

I lined a colander with cheese cloth and poured the curd into it.  The whey just filtered right through.  I want to make some bread using the whey, so I saved it.  Here's a picture of the curd draining.

And the whey collected at the bottom.

I transfered the curd to a fine mesh bag and hung it to drain.  I squeezed as much whey out as I could.

Curd draining

After it had drained for 45 minutes, I placed the entire bag into the brine solution.

Curd in brine

The brine is made from 1 1/4 pounds non-iodized salt (cheese salt) in 1/2 gallon cool water.  I also added 1 tsp calcium chloride and 2 1/2 teaspoons vinegar.  The cheese will remain in the brine for 12 hours.  It should be stored at 45 - 55F, and eaten within 10 days.

Now that I had my whey, I could start my bread.  The recipe I will be using comes from the New England Cheese Making Company brochure "Goat Cheese" on page 5.

Whey Bread

4 cups whey
2 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons bacon fat or tallow
1 1/2 tablespoons dry yeast
4 - 6 cups white flour
1 tablespoon salt

The whey was already warm.  I heated the honey and bacon fat until it was warm (about body temperature).  I added the yeast.

Bacon fat, honey and yeast

I added this to the whey.  I then added enough white flour to make it the consistency of honey.

The dough, ready to set aside

I took my thin dough, covered it with a towel and placed it near our wood fire.  Later this afternoon, I'll add the 4 cups flour and salt, knead it for 10 minutes... and bake it following the same procedures I did earlier this week when I baked bread.

I'll post pictures of the bread as it's rising and when it done.  That will probably be tomorrow morning.

Update 3/4/13

Here's the picture of the bread after it came out of the oven.  It tastes as good as it looks!

Baking bread & making chicken noodle soup

Yesterday, when I checked the weather forecast I saw we were in for 2 days of nasty weather.  It was warm but very rainy yesterday.  We got 3/4 inch of rain yesterday.  At times it was VERY windy.  At one point, we couldn't even see across the yard.

Since we had 2 days of yuck ahead of us, I decided to start some sourdough-type bread.  My favorite cookbook is the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  You know the one - red & white checked.

My go-to cookbook

The bread recipe I'm using today is on page 137 "Artisan-Style" French Bread.  I like this recipe very much.

First, it doesn't use any refined sugar, butter or other fat, or any dairy.  So it's great for those who are lactose intolerant.  The recipe calls for rye flour.  I substituted some 6-grain cereal.  I use King Arthur unbleached flour.

King Arthur Flour

I prefer King Arther flour because I like the flavor.  It's a little bit "sweeter". 







I will also sprinkle the same 6-grain cereal on top of my bread just before I put it in the oven.

6-grain cereal

To make the starter, I mixed 1 cup of warm water with 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast.  I set this aside and left it for 5 minutes.  In a separate bowl I combined 1 cup of unbleached flour and 2 tablespoons of 6-grain cereal. When the 5 minutes were up, I poured the water/yeast mixture into the flour and thoroughly mixed it with my trusty wooden dough paddle.  I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and 2 dishtowels.  I then let it sit on the kitchen island for 24 hours.

So, here's what the started looked like after working for 24 hours.

Sourdough starter

The starter is VERY sticky.  It's a bit bubbly.  And it smells very yeasty.  Not "sour" per say.

The little flecks you see are the cereal grains.  This will add some nice texture and flavor to the dough.

Before I did anything further to the starter, I got my work area prepared.  Here's all the different items I use.

My bread pan

My flea market find!  It's great for baking bread.

My kitchen island work station

Floured kneading board

See the bread starter there in the covered bowl?

When John and I were designing this kitchen island from an old dresser and a discarded butcher block that we found in the barn I made sure the top was at the right height for kneading bread.  With my wonky back, I can't be bending over at the waist.  And so this island is higher than most.  It's just the way I like it.




I had to put flour on my kneading board in preparation for kneading the bread.   This board is plastic rather than wood.  It has a nice elasticized cotton cover which can go right in the washing machine.  It also has nice rubber feet, so I doesn't move around when I'm kneading.  I really like that. 

Starter with flour and water added

Once I had my work space all prepared, I uncovered the dough starter and added 1 cup of warm water.  I stirred this in very well.  Then I added another 3 cups of flour.    I worked this in well.  I then turned the dough out onto the kneading board and worked with it until it wasn't sticky any more.  I then let it rest for 20 minutes to allow the new addition of flour to start working with the yeast.

Resting dough

Kneading dough - goofy face and all

Then I poured some additional flour onto the kneading board (but NOT onto the dough) and began kneading.  As I worked the dough over and over, I slowly incorporated this additional flour.  The trick here is to add enough flour that your dough isn't sticky any more, but not so much it becomes stiff.  It should be a bit glossy and smooth "as a baby's butt".  My mom taught me to knead bread when I was little... maybe 5 or so.  It's still one of my favorite kitchen chores.  I love kneading and baking bread.  And the smell of home baked bread is one of my primal "home" scents.  Bread warm from the oven with butter.  Oh man, I'm in HEAVEN!

Oops, I'm getting distracted and making my stomach growl.

Dough after kneading

After I've kneaded the bread to perfection, I place it in a clean bowl.  I cover this with clean plastic wrap and set it aside to double in size.  About 2 hours.









Now, while the dough is rising I'll start the chicken noodle soup.  Using the same cookbook, I found the recipe on page 497.  Old-fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup. Making chicken soup from scratch is very easy.  It just takes some time.

Chicken thighs

Thaw your chicken the night before.

Brown your chicken

Pour some olive oil in your dutch over and heat it.  Place your chicken in, and brown it well.  I also salt the chicken at this time, because I find it penetrated the chicken better than it would if I just added salt once I add the water.


Once it is well browned, cover it with water.

Cover with water and simmer until tender

Now lower the heat and let this simmer for several hours.

Once the chicken is thoroughly cooked, remove it from the broth and let it cool.  Remove the skin and bone.  Cut the meat into bite size pieces.







Add the egg noodles and carrots to your broth and cook for 8 minutes or until tender.  Add the meat back into the broth.  That's it.   It's done!

Sliced carrots

Yummy chicken noodle soup

Now, back to finishing the bread.

Once the dough has doubled in size, I get my cast iron pan heating in the oven (350 F).  That's important because it takes so long for the pan to get up to temperature.  If it's not up to temperature, it dramatically increases the baking time of the bread.

As the pan is preheating in the oven, I punch the dough down 1 more time.  If I'm making 1 large loaf I just knead this batch for about a minute and then let it rest for maybe 10 minutes.  If I'm going to make rolls, I'd start dividing this into balls about 2/3's the size I want my rolls to be.

Once the pan is up to temp, I put my dough in.  I then rub butter or olive oil on to help form a nice crust & then  sprinkle some of the 6-grain cereal and some sunflower seeds on. (Darn, I forgot to take a picture!)

Baking the bread at 350 takes about 60 minutes.  If you're baking rolls you can increase the heat to 450, and they'll be done in about 20 minutes.  You bread or rolls are done when they make a nice "thunk" when you snap them with your finger.  I always make a small slit into the top of a loaf to make sure it's baked all the way through.

Finished bread

This bread has a nice fine texture and is very tasty. 











And here's what our dinner looked like.  YUMMY!

Bread, soup and tea