radiocake

of butter and burdock pickles

Pocketina — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:54:32 +0000

just finished making butter…there are all of these gadgets out there for firming up your arms, but I recommend making butter by the jar method (put cream in a jar, and shake the hell out of it until it’s butter) for tightening up the old triceps and putting an edge on the appetite. Exercise & food production in one. I guess that’s the point, isn’t it?

Also made some burdock pickles, using a recipe from the lovely foodblog, phytofoods. They should be ready to test tomorrow, and should be good for a month. Yum! I’m testing a bunch of recipes now, so that when our own burdock crop comes in, this fall, I’ll have all the guesswork dealt with.

Up early for more apple tree pruning

Pocketina — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:40:11 +0000

Well, there’s more pruning ahead for the next several days: the weather should be nice, and I’m somewhat looking forward to it. It causes a good kind of fatigue, and the knowledge that I’m slowly regaining strength, in advance of the planting/weeding/landscaping that needs to go on here. It’s strenuous, but less so than digging (we have very rocky soil, and it usually goes better if you alternate between a shovel and a pick axe). We’re also getting a lot of usable wood for the remaining sections of the cottage fence around the pond & flower gardens.
Most of that post work is seasoned apple tree limbs, and some cherry tree limbs, as well. The trees are all getting pretty old, and since we don’t use pesticides, we periodically struggle with some of the diseases that come through, especially in overly-moist years, like the last two have been.

The additional benefit of getting up into the trees is getting my mind off my impending math class at BU (I hate math), and the medieval condition of my stupid, expensive teeth.

We’re really hoping that all this pruning work restores the trees to bearing. With the disappearance of honey bees in our area, as well as the trees’ venerable ages, it’s difficult to know for sure what they’re up to, and whether pruning will help them at this point. Oh well, we can always use them as graft material for new trees, if this doesn’t work out.

Manna bread

Pocketina — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:02:29 +0000

Since I got a seed sprouting bag a few days ago, I thought I’d sprout some wheat, and got to tinkering in the kitchen. I just made manna bread for the first time: it’s kinda… interesting. It definitely tastes healthy. It’s essentially 2-3 ingredients: sprouted wheat berries and raisins (a pinch of salt is optional), crushed into a floury paste in the food processor. I threw in a couple pinches of sesame seeds and about a tablespoon of chopped walnuts (to a cup of sprouted wheat, and about 1/8 cup raisins), and put it in the oven on the lowest setting for several hours. I was tempted to use the dehydrator, but I think the thickness of the loaf would have prevented it drying out enough.
The theory is that sprouted wheat flour is more nutritious than the traditional, and this loaf is more like a kavli or wasa type of bread: in other words, it’s not “bready” (yeasty, fluffy, etc). It reminds me a lot of the wholegrain, oily flatbreads eaten in Germany, in a good way.
And it makes a change from the everyday homemade load of bread. It’s worth googling if you are into raw vegan: you can adapt the recipe to keep the loaf under 120 degrees F, to preserve the enzymes.

Apple tree overload

Pocketina — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:15:18 +0000

It’s March. The ground is a freezing slurry of snow, slush and mud, and is slippery as hell. Not the greatest surface to run around on, toting a saw, but hey…that’s March.
Although the chainsaw is back, I was impatient to get started today, and just went at it with the handsaw, and got a lot of the big branches down. Hopefully, pruning helps rejuvenate the trees, as they’re not yielding anymore: if they don’t set fruit after all this work, we’ll have to dig them up & start with new trees next year. Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to that.

As much as I’d like to be hiking around in the hills right now, the mud season will keep my enthusiasm in check…why not be up in a tree?

Winter’s almost over…

Pocketina — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:10:36 +0000

It’s just about time to get back to the barefooting thing. I spent the winter in shoes, boots, ski boots, hiking boots, etc., and now I’m feeling it’s time to start getting my feet ready for hiking in VFFs again. Since I left my full-time job, I’ve been barefoot most of the time I’m in the house, so that’s a decent start, but I still have a ton of work to do to get my feet primed.
I really don’t want a relapse of the foot problems I had last year, which kept me from hiking for a couple of months, so I’ll have to try and work this out with a minimum of error in my trials.

Damn dese teeth.

Pocketina — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:02:51 +0000

Another cracked tooth! I’m so damn frustrated by now, this is the 4th one in less than a year. Here’s my PSA: if you even suspect that you grind your teeth at night, get to the dentist right away and get a nightguard made. It’ll set you back a chunk of change, but it’s nothing compared to what a mouthful of cracked molars will. Ugh.

Junco in the greenhouse

Pocketina — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:47:10 +0000

Thanks to the wonderful warm day, the plants in the greenhouse got a nice dose of pre-spring fresh air, and a visit from a junco, who was plenty annoyed after ending up stuck in there all night. He’s free now, though.
I wonder if he spent any time in the chick enclosure (which is a couple of cardboard boxes), because you’re supposed to be very careful about wild birds being anywhere near chickens, but I don’t think it should be a problem. Hmmm.

Snow Update

Pocketina — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:50:59 +0000

Snowfall, Wednesday – Friday: 12 inches.
Calories burned shoveling snow: 1224 (408 x 3 hours).

Man, my back is not happy today. I’m hoping it will loosen up while I’m out snowshoeing.
In other news, the chicken coop delivery is rescheduled for some time when we can see the ground.
The box & heat lamp are set up in the greenhouse for the chicks, when we get them, but I think we’ll all be a bit more at ease when we actually get the coop and run set up.
We’re getting closer and closer to seed-starting time: it’s technically just a few weeks until the peas get planted, too, but it’s a little hard to imagine with the beds under 12 inches of snow.
(And of course the apple trees still need to be pruned, but the repair of the chainsaw will dictate when that can happen.)

Hey, more snow!

Pocketina — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:52:41 +0000

How novel.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Snowshoeing!

Pocketina — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:17:07 +0000

I’m whupped! Went snowshoeing up in one of the local parks: it’s got a big nice field with a long downhill side & a long uphill side (where you have to regain all the altitude you lost on the way down), and it totally kicked my ass.
I think a few more times this week, and I should be starting to adjust to it: it’s just killer the first time.

Also, got my pickling stuff in the mail today, so I’ll be doing some mad scientist stuff very soon (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled daikon, etc.)…I’m really looking forward to it all. Yummy!