Making charcoal with open fire

We made charcoal on the bonfire last night! What a neat project to do while drinking small mead (yes, I made that, and it was great!) and eating many different kinds of pie...

The procedure, as shown by Bedwyr:
- poke a small hole (~ 1/8th, or a nail) through paint can lid
- fill a new paint can tightly with (dry) wood.
- add lid and put on tightly
- place paint can on embers near the fire
(not too hot, not too cold)

- after a bit smoke will come out (1-2hours)
that's the from water of the wood evaporating

- then a blue flame will come out (30m-1h)
those are the combustibles burning off

when the flame gets real small, pay attention:
- because when the flame goes out, remove can from fire

- and immediate stick small piece of wood through hole in lid

this is to prevent air from coming into paint can, while the can is cooling down
When the paint can is cool to the touch, open lid, and enjoy your newly made charcoal!

You'll find the wood has shrunk to about 2/3rd of it's original size, but still looks identical to how it went in, knots and everything!

I've been told Grapevines make artist grade charcoal sticks, I think there'll be a bonfire in our near future I'm gonna check that out  

Soft goat cheese making, day 2

Soft Cheese making, day 2:
- sterilize cheese cloth by pouring boiling water over it

- take pot with cultured milk out of warming box (oven)
- the whey will have separated from the curds, which with this cheese looks like a large white pancake floating in watery greenish liquid.

- suspend a colander in/on a stockpot and line with the cheesecloth. 

- pour the whey off through the cheesecloth, and you'll be left with a spongy cheese mass in the pot.
- carefully dump the cheese into the cheesecloth, as not to spill any around the edges.

- tie the four corners of the cheesecloth together, to make two loops
- hang the cheesecloth by the two loops with a hook off a door handle or something similar

- let gravity drip out excess liquid (whey)

I stop when it only drips occasionally.

If you mix it with a standmixer it will become a cream cheese.
If you add herbs and salt while packing it in a mold you can make great herbed cheese (no mold? poke holes inside out with hot nail in small butter tub) - dill makes a good one, as does nettle.
If you mix in honey it makes marvelous honeyed chevre (also keeps longer).
If you keep it on the wet side, you can use it as a "kwark" substitute to make gelatin european sweet cheesecake.

It freezes well.

Soft goat cheese making, day 1

For our Heralds & Scribes dayboard next month I want to use herbed and honeyed chevre. For people not familiar with this insanely easy way of making goat cheese, here is my modern method.

- Heat the goat milk to circa 90 degrees F (or use body warm raw milk straight from the source, my preference).

 - measure out 1/8 tsp of culture (I use MM100) per gallon

 

- add 1 drop of rennet (for up to 5 gallons I think) (or calf's stomach)

- whisk calmly all around and up and down to incorporate culture & rennet

- put in oven, turned off but with (pilot) light on (insulated dough box)

- wait until the next morning...

comfrey udder salve

My first freshener Dirty Socks delivered a single healthy buckling a few days ago without complications, yay! Unfortunately, I did not realize she was producing way more milk than needed and the little buckling was only nursing one side... She is a daughter of Thirteen, my main milker for years who would get so much milk that the teats would be too big for newborns to suckle, so I guess I should have checked...

I did check the buckling latched on successfully, that I learned from Thirteen, but I did not check to make sure both udder halves were used... so now Socks has a hardened right udder, which can mean many things including plain and simple backup, edema, mastitis or even CAE. For the past two days I used hot towels, massage, hand milking and even taped up the other teat to have the buckling help suck out the blockage during the day, all to no prevail...

So I went on the internet and came up with a couple of udder salve recipes, based on products and recipes listed below. I made two versions, one a short but hot au-bain-marie infusion of dried comfrey leaves into sweet almond oil, and one a long term cold infusion of fresh comfrey leaves in olive oil. I went down to Wegmans to pick up the EO's needed, Greenstar is closed as it is easter, gosh darn it :)

Version One:
dried comfrey leaves, as much as will be covered by oils
4 oz sweet almond oil
1 oz shea butter
1 oz bees wax
1 tbs natural menthol crystals
2 tsp natural vitamin E
10 drops Peppermint EO
10 drops Tea Tree EO
10 drops Lavender EO
10 drops Eucalyptus EO
10 drops Frankincense EO
5 drops Helichrysum EO

heat up oils au-bain-marie with dried comfrey leaves, cover and simmer for 3-4 hours until the oils turn dark green. filter out the leaves (it's smart to measure after filtering, I did before and lost about 2 oz of bulk)
add grated beeswax and heat back up in au-bain-marie
when everything is liquid add crystals, menthol and EO's, stir well and cool down.
this made about 6oz of salve.

Why these EO's?
Peppermint oil applied to the skin can cause surface warmth, which relieves pain beneath the skin.
Tea tree oil may kill bacteria and fungus, and reduce allergic skin reactions.

Lavender for soothing and inflammation.
Eucalyptus oil contains chemicals that might help pain and inflammation.
Frankincense to promote cell renewal and reduce edema.
Helichrysum because it promotes healing, cell renewal, and regeneration.




(Next time at Greenstar I'll get some Melaleuca for anti-microbial properties to add as well)

Version Two:
3 oz comfrey infused olive oil
1 oz shea butter
1 oz coconut oil
1/2 oz bees wax
1 tbs natural menthol crystals
2 tsp natural vitamin E
15 drops Peppermint EO
15 drops Tea Tree EO
15 drops Lavender EO
15 drops Eucalyptus EO
15 drops Frankincense EO
15 drops Helichrysum EO

 Heat oils, shea butter and bees wax au-bain-marie
when liquid add Vit E, menthol and EO's
stir well, makes about 8 oz


http://fiascofarm.com/herbs/oils.htm#masalve

http://www.flipflopbarnyard.com/critters/homemade-udder-balm/

http://slowlivingessentials.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/comfrey-ointment.html

http://experimentalhomesteader.com/ah/2013/06/10/mastitis-udder-massage-salve/2/

http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2011/11/diy-homemade-udder-balm.html

Hot Lava

Did you also have a bumper crop of peaches last year, ran out of space in the freezer and ended up canning a hole bunch on syrup? Then have I got a recipe for you... and preschooler approved!

 It originated from my husband's college time, where they liked to challenge each other to cook in single color. The name comes from the blub, blub, blub the sauce does when cooking slowly, it really does look like lava! Since I use home canned ingredients, there also is not a whole lot of cooking involved, it's mostly a matter of waiting for the rice to cook and the ingredients to warm up.

What you'll need (~5 people):
2 quart jars of thick milled tomato sauce (no seeds)
1 jar of peaches on heavy or medium syrup
1/3 cup corn starch (not needed if using condensed tomato sauce)
chicken breast or tofu
and 2 cups brown rice
(spices to taste, tho I normally do not add anything else)

Boil water for rice, add rice and slowly cook until tender.

If using chicken breast pan sear until done, then add tomato sauce.
Dump the two jars of tomato sauce in a thick bottomed pan (we use a cast iron wok, or more properly called a wadjang). Add the syrup from the peaches but NOT the peaches. If using tofu cut in half inch cubes and add. Slowly simmer until the rice is ready.

When rice is ready, add peaches. Mix corn starch with a little cold water. Add liquid starch slowly to sauce and stir well, bringing back to boil to set for just a bit.

For a kick, start with frying a big spoon of sambal oelek (hot pepper garlic sauce) or sambal badjang (sweet pepper garlic sauce), when seared add either chicken, or the tomato sauce.

Do not add peaches until the end, as they get burning hot (quote from preschooler) and will burn your mouth! It isn't called Hot Lava for nothing :)

starting seedlings

Busy sowing seeds, we did two flats yesterday, one with tomatoes and peppers and one with brocolli, cabbage and some brussels sprouts. The tomatoes and peppers are for the greenhouse, next month we'll seed more for the veggie yard. We used cut down yoghurt containers as markers, they're easy to write on and don't mind the wet.

first kids of the year!

We have kids!

Maybe delivered two healthy little kids Tuesday morning at 11am; a boy and a girl, 7.5 and 8 pounds each. And a perfect day for it too, sunny and in the fifties! Much better than today, around freezing with a winter snow storm going on! The kids are a saanen boer mix and look almost identical to their mommy, the girl with pointy saanen ears and the boy with floppy boer ears. Maybe comes from a show farm so was not allowed to nurse her own kids, and at first did not like them looking, but settled in quite quickly when realizing they sure take the pressure off. 


We liked the boer buck we used last fall, and these two are some nice kids, so we hope to buy one of our own for the coming season. Makes it easier if we have a buck right on property, I won't have to chauffeur the girls to their date :)

Snow White also gave birth to a nice buckling during the night, but as far as we can back track the little buck asphyxiated on a piece of inhaled caul and was found dead at the morning feed... I'm going to try to keep her in milk, but she's not having any of that, and sits down, right on the bucket!