Time flies when you're having fun....

Another week has passed us by.  Although the weather was warmer the past 3 days, last weekend and the early part of this week (2/14 - 2/18) were cold.  Cricket and I did get to take some longer walks in the woods, which she really likes.

Our little water pools are coming along slowly.  The pools on the east side of the property (I need to come up with a "name" for this area), are looking very good.  All the pools were holding water.  It's interesting to see how the water seeps out of the ground in various places.  It's not really a "spring"... because the water seeps out in about 4 different elevations on the side of the hill.  But the water does all flow down hill following the same path... So I guess it is a spring.  A very small one.  But, small is better than none.

The springs on the north end of the property have a few natural pools, and I haven't started working on that area.  This is the area with 4 different "springs" that come together to form a seasonal stream.  The stream had water in it the other day when we were down there.  Once I'm sure the pools on the east side of the property are holding water successfully, I'll focus my effort down here.  We've just been calling this section "the hollow"... Not very imaginative, but accurate.  First, I need to impede the flow of the stream to start a pond... then I need to define the pond and get water accumulating.  I'd really LIKE to have a pond down there.  It would be great!  This property really needs a pond.  We'd have more wildlife around if we had a pond.  Blocking that seasonal stream is going to be hard work without any machinery.  But, if a beaver can do it, I can!

I find my energy level is pretty low.  I can walk down to this area, work about an hour and then walk back.  If I try to work any longer, I can barely make the walk back.  This damn Parkinson's really does hamper me!  I hate that!  I'm not old (I'll be 55 in March).  But I have the energy level of a much older person.  I get so tired I fall asleep just sitting in my chair.  Or riding in the car.  When it's close to time for my next dose of Sinemet CR, I'm very shaky and my voice is weak.  My balance is crappy too.  Most people call this their "off" period.  Off because the medications has no effect in relieving the symptoms.  After I take my pills, I'm "off" for about an hour.  My day consists of taking my meds to manage my off times, so I can accomplish something useful while I'm "on".

I take Sinemet CR every 6 hours, at 4 AM, 10AM, 4PM and 9 PM.  I go to  bed after my evening dose, and usually fall asleep by the time it takes effect.  And I wake up with my legs kicking at 4AM.    I get up and make myself some coffee.  Read my emails and look at Facebook, maybe listen to Coast to Coast.  Or watch Youtube videos.  John and Josh are still asleep at this time of morning, so I try to be quiet.  The cat and dogs get their breakfast at this time also. 

John usually gets up around 8.  After we eat and I finish my indoor tasks, I go outside and feed the birds.  For some reason, going out to feed the chickens is VERY exciting to the dogs.  Some times they get so excited, they almost knock me over to get out the door!

I take my 2nd dose at 10AM.  Once my pills have kicked in and John's have too, we're ready to start our daily activities.  John runs out of energy before I do.  That makes sense, as he's 9 years older than me and his Parkinson's is more advanced than mine.  By about 1 PM, we're both ready for a break.  I cook our main meal of the day and we eat as a family.  After we've eaten and I've done the dishes, I find most days that I still have a little energy left.  I usually spend the afternoon watching TV with John while I work on one of my knitting, crochet or other handiwork type projects.  Sometimes John naps, sometimes I do.

We don't go out at night.  John and I can't see well to drive in the dark.  And I get so shaky by 8PM or so, that I really don't accomplish much.

I'm supposed to help with the Hardy Homesteader's Quilt again this year.  The ladies get together on Monday nights from 6 - 9 PM.  I missed last week.  I never know how my day is going to go, so I can only tentatively commit to activities like this.  I wish I could just say "sure, I'll be there".  But I can't.  If I don't have the energy to sew, I don't go.  It's that simple.

Crazy weather

This week has seen some wild weather.  On the 16th, it got up to 90 degrees... and then by the evening of the 18th it was 37!  That's hard on the plants and animals.  We had very strong winds, and several inches of rain (I'm not sure how much because our rain gauge developed a leak).  The weather forecast warned of frost the past 2 nights, but we escaped that thankfully!

Our trees are in full bloom.  The peaches, plum, cherry, pear and blueberry are all blooming.  I haven't seen any blooms on the apples yet.  The dogwood is just starting to bloom.  The redbud are done already.  My lilac are blooming again!  I'm so excited.  I took some pictures earlier in the week (before it got windy).  Have a look.

Spring is really shaping up nicely.

Now let me show you what our "landscaping" looked like 7 years ago....

See. No flowers... No bushes.... just rocks and weeds.  No walkway.  I laid that stone walkway myself that first spring from rocks that were lying around in the yard.  All those bricks were just stacked up or lying around also.  There was no patio either.  I did all that.

John helped me a lot, but he was busy cleaning up the workshops and getting them organized.  Man, what a mess he had to deal with!

I bought a lot of plants those first few years.  Some lived and some didn't.  I'd lived in the Puget Sound area for 17 years before John and I got together.  So my gardening experience was NOT up to the challenge of gardening in Arkansas.  Washington has 3 seasons; warm and wet, warm, and cold and wet.  In 2004, the area I lived in got 300 days of measurable precipitation.  That's definitely NOT Arkansas.

Here we have 4 seasons.  The low temps in the winter can be downright cold, 11 is the lowest we've seen in the past 7 years.  And the summer highs can be damned hot at 111!  YIKES.  Some years we get so much rain that the Spring River floods 3 times... and last year we had a drought with no rain for 5 weeks.  None.  Not a drop.  And it was over 100 every day during that 5 weeks.  That's really hard on the vegetation. 

The native plants do very well.  But those nice "cottage garden" plants I wanted just don't survive.  Luckily, we were bless with LOTS daffodils, irises, viola and day lilies.  So that's what I've been moving around.  And I think it's coming out very nicely.  Have a peek at a few pictures from the height of the drought last year.

I love to take a walk in the woods at see what new colors I can find.  That's always an adventure.

Daylilies are tasty, very good in a salad or stuffed with creamed cheese and covered in tomato sauce.  Yum!

Our veggie garden is off to a good start.  I need to check and see that everything survived that nasty weather.  Hopefully I won't have to replant everything!

Ok.  Off to feed the chicks (13 in total), and get on with the morning. 

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!

Trips to town & other miscellaneous stuff

Yesterday, our friends Michelle and Jerry came for a visit.  They're a nice, young couple who live about an hour away in Bono, AR.  We met Michelle about 5 years ago when we were doing a spinning demonstration.  She came up and asked John if she could try spinning on his wheel.  We've been great friends ever since.  Michelle met Jerry at her workplace.  They started dating, fell in love and got married.  We don't get to see them as often as we'd like, but they come and visit when they can.

Jerry and Michelle Friend at a reenactment

The five of us visited for awhile and then Michelle and I made a trip to town.  First we visited Sugar Creek Goods, owned by my friend Vicki Husk-Mann, and spent two hours at the knitting circle.  That was a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, Vicki was under the weather.  Hope you're feeling better today, Vicki.



 Sugar Creek Goods Facebook page








After knitting, we headed to the bank and post office in Hardy.  Hardy is a great little town.  It's kinda dead in the winter time, but come the warm weather it's a hopping place!

 Hardy city demographics and more data

Main Street Hardy

Then we decided to grab a bite to eat.

So, we stopped in at Words Afterwords.

Words Afterwords

 


That's a really great place to eat lunch, find a good book to read or listen to live music.

I was at a seed swap there earlier this year.  That was alot of fun.

But I digress!  So, who did we see at Words?  Why my good friends, Karna and Erika.  What a wonderful surprise!
 

Karna McFadden

Erika Schindler

We had a great lunch.   Here's the link to Erika's blog.  Erika's Craft Corner

Michelle and I then headed home to see what our men were up to.  Jerry had also headed to town to run some errands.  And we beat him back.  John and Josh were puttering around, waiting for the mail to come.

They made their daily trip to the mailbox (taking the farm truck), one of their favorite daily activities.

The farm truck

Peanut and I headed out to make sure all the birds were fine.  And all was.

We got some checks in the mail, so Michelle and I headed back to town to make the deposits.  While we were there, we decided to stop at one of my favorite little clothing stores.




Jade's

We looked around a bit.  Earlier in the week, I had seen a cute little dress on their Facebook page.  And I found it.

A cute little cream and brown dress I wanted to try on

It turns out they had one in my size, so it came home with me!  I'm not usually a "shopper",  but I do like finding a bargain.

Some of my other favorite stores in Hardy included the following:

Ozark Classic Craft Mall
 


Hardy Pottery





 


So, if you happen to be in Sharp County Arkansas; check out our little town.  Have some food, go shopping and enjoy yourself.