Sad news.

Hangmans Cottage is for sale! For several tears I have followed the blog of a Brittish homesteader. After several years of health issues he's selling his homestead. I'm posting a link to his site so others can get some inspiration. I know he's inspired me greatly. www.go-self-sufficient.com/index.html This is his post that got me started following him. www.go-self-sufficient.com/outlaw.htm Enjoy Woods

Bread, the families staff of life

In our house bread is a family effort. Last summer my dear bride Pelenaka ordered a bushel of Montana organic wheat from our local health food store. It was one of our rare instances of lack of communication. A week later found us getting ice cream at the county fair and talking to one of our food network friends. When I inquired to our friend about buying wheat from a local grower, Pelenaka said nothing until our friend left. A couple weeks later found us with the Montana wheat home in buckets and our friend knocking on our door with a couple bags containing 100lbs of local grown. The locally grown only cost us a couple loaves of bread to our friend and a couple more to the farmer. The locally grown has proven to be a blessing of sorts.The locally grown wheat came right from the combines auger without further cleaning. Here stepdaughter known as "sidekick" picks chaff from corns of the locally grown wheat. We often find the family sitting around the table doing this. No TV, radio, or video games, just family joking and conversation. Lately we've been cleaning and grinding for our next batch of bread while the current batch bakes. The warmth of the oven allows the thermostat to be turned down in the rest of the house. The warm room and the smell of baking bread soon has everyone relaxed, and the conversation soon flows.

Here the youngest stepdaughter, known from here on as "princess" grinds the grain. The Retsel little Ark mill makes short work of grinding flour. This past december it replaced the Back to Basics mill we had used for two years. The back to basics still works. But, the Retsel greatly increased production rate and quality with it's finer grind. The Retsel mill is well worth the money and a motor can be easily added at a later date should the desire or need arise. The only modification has been the adition of a piece of aluminum flashing cut to fit snugly below the stones of the mill. This helps keep the flour headed toward the catch pan rather than on the mills operator. We are very happy with the Retsel mill and highly recomend it for it's quality alone. The fact that it's american made made it's purchase part of my plan to save the American economy. If you read around on the net you may read of Retsel taking a long time to fill it's orders. That may or may not be Retsels fault. They tell you right up front on the website it takes 2-3 weeks for them to ship. Well it then too UPS a week to get our mill from Idaho to Salt Lake City, then another four days from there to Buffalo, NY. I'm sure you too will find home made bread good for your health. And I hope you'll find the time to grind your own flour. If you do grind your own, may your family find it's health in the family activity. And you know what? I was so busy enjoying myself making bread with the family, I forgot to take a picture of the bread itself. I'll have to post that one later for you. Woods

My second favorite time of the year.

I was born to be a farmer.

Too bad I was born into a family that stopped farming two generations before I was born. I would have gladly taken over one of the family homesteads in Ohio and PA. But, those farms being sold long ago, I make do for now on a 35'x90' city lot. Actually my wife is more the farmer on this plot. My last big garden was just before we married. Still I'm here to help with the bullwork and to be the creative mechanic. That being the creative mechanic is part of what makes you a farmer rather than just an ordinary gardener. Spring planting time is the favorite of all farmers. The smell of fresh turned soil, the chilly air, and the sun warming you. The minute signs of new life. New life created by you. All this can only bring you closer to god and his creation.

But, harvest time is a close second favorite. Knowing that your resting time is right around the corner. The larder is filling fast. All will be well for another year.

Today the final harvest push was on. All hands were brought in . Time to bring in the last of the tomatoes, peppers, Basil, dill, celery, and a small harvest of huckleberries. Pelenaka fired up the wood burner and started on picking the huckleberries, and turning them into juice. I pulled the basil as seen at right. After dinner tonight the leaves were trimmed from the stems and put in a dehydrator. After they dry they will be vacuum sealed in an old mason jar for later use.

Here we have a tray of celery ready to go to the dehydrator. With a heavy harvest of celery this year, we will be spending the next 5 or so days cutting up and dehydrating celery. They trays are lined with screening to keep the pieces from falling through. Celery shrinks quite alot when dehydrated. Two plants can fill seven trays. When they are dry they won't even fill a pint canning jar. The dehydrators are old Ronco units purchased from the thrift store. Cheap, simple, easy to fix and keep going. We have half a dozen of them and they work great. We also have the solar dryer I built last spring. It works great on a hot day with low humidity. The creative mechanic needs to do some even more creative engineering on it.

Here's the result of drying down two decent sized celery plants. Barely two handfulls now. A pinch or two added to a soup or stew goes along way. Tonight I experimented a little. The batch in the bowl at left was dried in a dehydrator without screens added. Thus the pieces were cut fairly large. The pieces shown above are closer to the size you would expect to find in your tuna sandwich. We'll see later on if they will rehydrate in a batch of tuna or chicken salad. When the celery is done the peppers will get thier turn in the dehydrator. I may try and dry a few of the paste tomatoes this year. I'll then grind them up in our grain mill. The powder to be added to bread dough, also to be used for thickening soups.

Maybe a bushel of various types of tomatoes finished my workload for the day. We grow alot of tomatoes. So many it makes an effective crop rotation difficult. If any of my readers knows of a vacant lot that can be rented in or very near Batavia, NY, for the purpose of gardening, please let me know.

Here the editor in chief, Hunter the cat gives me that stern look. I can read his mind. It's saying, "Isn't a vacant lot like a field?" "Isn't a field part of a farm?" "You silly fool, you'll always be a farmer in your heart!"

Either that or he just wants me to feed him!

Woods

The unintended collection

WOW! It's been almost two months since I last checked in. Summer is our busy time. I should have taken time to post, but, didn't.


Last time I posted I was showing off one of my custom cheese presses. I also make/restore presses of a different flavor. These are rapidly becoming favorites. This summer I tackled two restoration projects between working on our 105 yr old home, gardening, foraging, and working at a job.







That large cider press on the left looked like this when my DW Pelenaka dragged it home from a yard sale last fall. She paid a whopping $20.00 for it. There wasn't a good stick of wood in it. The big acme screw was siezed into the cast iron crossbar. With winter closing in I didn't get much done last year. As soon as it was out of the car I started soaking it liberally with KROIL penetrant. Best stuff ever made as far as I'm concerned. On the second day I started gently playing a propane torch over the area where the screw passed through the casting. Every day I followed the torch with another shot of KROIL as soon as the metal cooled. After about a week the screw would move back and forth maybe 1/8 of an inch. Then the rawhide mallet came out to tap the screw back and forth. After half an hour it would turn just as it was designed to do. It turns out the previous owner greased it with lard before leaving it out in the weather for the next 20 years. The KROIL broke the rust loose and the heat melted the old grease out. Now the screw has some pitting where it was stuck inside the casting. Not enough to affect operation though. With snow and foul weather on the horizon the old press was greased up and tarped until nicer weather could arrive. When july rolled around and I finally got back to it. I laminated a bunch of fir 1x4's to make a new frame. You may ask why I didn't just make it from maple like it was to begin with. The answer, as it sits today this press weighs close to 100lbs. Using the fir gave me strength, but saved many pounds of weight. Three coats of Krylon white make for easy cleanup. The old basket bands were from a different press and were so oversize you had to fight to get them in and out of the press. So, new ones were made from nice no rust aluminum. All the fasteners that might come if contact with juice are stainless steel. Slata sre red oak treated with Boo's Mystery Oil. Good stuff a bit pricey at $16 a pint, but well worth the price. A new press disk was made from a plastic cutting board. All this effort was made in an attempt to simplify cleanup. It's nice being able to just spray it down with a hose when you're done pressing.

The black press looked worse than this when we found it on somebodies lawn 2 years ago. Covered top to bottom with rust at least it was functional. I shot the red paint and cleaned the loose rust away so we could make our first three gallons of home made cider. Pelenaka hated the red, so when I finally got serious about doing the rebuild last year, I scrounged up some food safe black paint. New red oak slats and a bunch of stainless fasteners really made a difference. I did make one concession to technology when it came to the press disk. That was cut out from a heavy duty resaurant cutting board. When we're done pressing we just spray it down with a hose and wipe some oil on the slats to preserve them until next year. Last year we finally aquired a proper fruit grinder to prepare pomace. Prior to this we used a food processor. This brought a doubling of production and we could have done more if the wind hadn't knocked down all the wild apples before we could get to them.

The little green wine press was another of this summers projects. Found burried in a pile of junk next to an antique shop. It had somebodies version of a home made basket, made from galvanized pipe hanging strap and some entirly too small pine slats. A little grinding to smooth out the casting was all it needed before a coat of food grade paint was applied. Some new aluminum basket bands and some maple slats held in place with stainless screws finished the project.

The big white one is available if somebody wants it. The same for the green wine press. The black one isn't for sale. $300.00 takes the white one and $100.00 takes the little green one. I'll consider taking an anvil, forge , or hand cranked drill press in trade. I am also willing to buy more old presses to fix up. I can fix up your press if you have one needing restoration.

Woods

The home dairy part1

Our first christmas together I made my wife a cheese press. Having seen one in a catalog I figured I could do much better quality for alot less than the $140.00 they wanted. Now I've made several the latest version can be seen at right. Up until this point my dearest had only made ricotta style cheeses. Such cheeses are fairly easy only requiring some milk and an acid such as lemon juice. At one point we had a family member that worked in a convenience store. She had struck up a friendship with the milk truck driver. This friendship netted us many gallons of just out of date milk. Usually in quantities we couldn't consume before spoilage set in. That is when the cheese press came along. Now we can press the whey from the curds and make hard cheeses like cheddar. To date all our batches have come out pretty much like monterey jack. Which is just fine with me. Recently we found a new source of milk. Not quite free like before, but, cheap enough to be making our own butter and cheese again. Right now there is a cheese press sitting in the sink full of curds. I have a gut feeling this will be our best batch yet. My fingers are crossed. My DW loves her cheese press so much she thinks I should start making them to sell. I do occasionally make one to barter for services we can't do ourselves or for things we can't grow.