January 19, 2009
I have become very interested in the concept of making bread without store bought yeast. Ever wondered what did they do before supermarkets that sold it in jars? I never even gave it a thought until Mary Janes Farm magazine had this great article about it. Then I looked it up and found all kinds of information. They call it “The Mother”. The reason for this is because you take some of the dish full of yeasty bubble stuff and mix more flour and water and salt and honey and whatever you want the kinda bread to be. So your bowl of “The Mother” gives birth to a new loaf of bread every time you take some. Well with everything you must give back if you take…..so everyday you add to it or feed it. I know it sounds really weird but it is true. Apparently they have Mothers that are passed down through generations…
Anyway my first try was a flop. I fed it all week and took some and added my ingredients and waited for it to rise. It didn’t. So here I am trying again but this time I have 3 going. Surely one will work? Or I could be taken over by alien Mothers…
1st with rye flour
Next is wheat flour
So far got a good bubble on all my “Mothers”
January 18, 2009
Sun was warm and got some digging done in the garden. I am amazed that I still have tomatoes in the greenhouse. Look:
The elk meat is great. I made this stew even though we had warm weather it was still good!
The temperature in the incubator is staying constant and so I hope the quail eggs will all hatch!
January 17, 2009
The Quail eggs arrived! Not as gory as the last post…
9 were broken, I cooked three as you can see. Taste just like chicken (eggs)
17 days to incubation! Lets hope I get a good hatch. You can see the little fertile spot if you look close at the broken ones. I have had success with guinea and chicken eggs.
Must go get on will add more later
January 9, 2009
a couple of posts because Dale did an upgrade of something computery and lost some of the data. I will try to redo in the next few days. So lost but not forgotten.
In the meantime we finally got an Elk. We have two Owner Preference tags and we have been trying to get an elk since November. Today when we were going to get some more wood: there they were. The whole herd.
But nothing is ever easy. She rolled all the way down to the creek. And believe me it is a long way down. Long story short here is it hanging up before we cut it up into bit size pieces! Squeamish please look away!
January 5, 2009
Nice Job Joe.
Off the shelf cabinets from Home Depot. Not bad. All appliances are Maytag. About a $10,000 kitchen, with appliances, cabinets and installation. Size 11′ by 12′ . Lots of counter space and cupboard space.
Hints: Make sure you order enough trim, Don’t wait till evening to do the plumbing, you invariably will need something and the shop will be closed!
January 4, 2009
As promised here is the construction that has been keeping me from the farm for the past week. Here is the before of the kitchen we are redoing. 
It is now almost complete. We would have finished it yesterday but one little copper washer in the water line cracked and so the water had to be left off last night. And I was one piece of molding short. So today I am off to Home Depot again to get a couple more things. Joe has made a nice job of it but is going back to Eugene today. And I will be able to work on the greenhouse this week. By the way the little boy is Titus who lives there
I will take the after photo today.
I guess I should to say it, Happy New Year. I don’t think it will be though, I have a feeling we are in for a rough ride. Not that I am as bad off as many. I am worried for the country. I am worried for my kids and their future. We are in a deep recession. I read about what they are proposing and it makes very little sense. Bail out the car industry? Where is the money to come from? And by March will people be buying cars again? Mend and make do. That is what people are doing for cloths and “stuff” and they will make do with their vehicles. If you don’t have a car payment, do you want to go out and get one? If you have to buy a car will it not be a second hand one?
I don’t think we will ever buy new again.
They put money into the banks but where is that money? And they lowered the prime interest rate, but they didn’t lower the mortgage rates. Why not? We need to see 3% for people to benefit and start buying houses.
And the creation of jobs that are proposed. If you know how to build cars and loose your job how can you suddenly know how to build roads? Well they must know what they are doing…..