RC sent $100 and IL sent $10! Woh. Thanks guys!
April 10, 2007
April 7, 2007
Fancy New (Old) Butter Churn
For our first wedding anniversary, Kevin and I received a fabulous antique Blow butter churn from my sister and her boyfriend. (Thank you Heather and Simon!!) We couldn’t have dreamed of a more wonderful gift. My sister bought the butter churn in England, and carried it all the way to New Zealand in her suitcase. After all the drama of bringing it here from the other side of the world, we were desperate for the butter churn to run perfectly. We have have been saving up the cream and waiting eagerly to give it a test run.
Blow butter churn
Yesterday was the big day. After thoroughly washing and drying the churn, I poured in about 2 quarts of cream. Then Kevin and I took turns cranking the handle. It seemed to be working! It was working! We were able to make much more butter much faster and more easily than we could when we were shaking the cream in a quart jar. Once we are milking our own cows, we hope we will be able to make many more batches of butter in our wonderful butter churn.
Full throttle
Delicious, raw butter
For me, churning butter brings back memories of helping my grandparents, who had a similar butter churn to this one. For Kevin, it is a new and miraculous experience that has become part of his life since moving to New Zealand. This butter churn is a beautiful old piece of machinery. We have it set out on a shelf in the kitchen so that we can admire it as we enjoy the fresh home-made butter on our morning toast.
April 4, 2007
Sourdough Pet
In late March last year, very soon after we were married and moved here to the Farmlet, I decided we should make a sourdough starter to mark the beginning of our new life here. I wanted to make a special “Farmlet Sourdough” with wild local yeasts rather than using commercial yeast to get it started. Though I’d heard some reports that trying to catch your own wild yeast could yield less-than-satisfactory results, I felt we had nothing to lose by giving it a go. Of course, there is a lot of advice about making a sourdough starter on the internet. I found this site especially helpful, as it has clear instructions on how to get the starter going. I’m not crazy about his bread recipe, though.
Sourdough crackers
Once our starter began to bubble, I tried to bake a loaf of bread with it. The bread came out with a promising sour smell and taste, but had the consistency of a brick. As a novice, I had obviously tried to use the starter too soon. We tasted (nibbled) the loaf, and Kevin made polite comments about the taste and flavour, while I lamented at having baked a horrible brick. Still, I didn’t give up, and kept hoping that the sourdough would mature enough to raise a loaf properly. Our patience was rewarded a couple of days later when the starter literally started bubbling out of the jar. I tried again to bake a loaf of bread. Success! The sourdough yeast colony was our first “livestock” on the Farmlet; our first “pet.”
In the course of the year, our grain mill arrived, and we were able to start feeding the sourdough with freshly ground wheat. With time, the starter has mellowed and matured, and I’ve continued to refine my sourdough baking techniques. Our starter seems to be reliable and robust, surviving occasional neglect and not getting contaminated by outside organisms. The bread we make is dense and sour, and leaves us feeling nourished in a way that store-bought and commercial-yeast bread never has.
Lately, as per one of our goals for the Year of the Pig, we have tried a number of new sourdough recipes — trying to expand our repertoire beyond the sourdough bread (and occasional sourdough pizza crust) that we enjoy so much. We have now sampled batches of sourdough herb-cheese scones, sourdough crackers, sourdough crumpets, and sourdough pancakes. All were delicious, and look set to become regular fare for us. Kevin says the crumpets are probably his favourite new sourdough treat. The crackers are my pick. I’d like to have some of those in the cupboard at all times. The success of these new recipes is really heartening, since last year I had a couple of less-than-stellar results from sourdough scone and pancake recipes.
Sourdough pizza
All of these new and successful sourdough recipes came from Jessica Prentice’s Full Moon Feast. I love this book! Prentice uses the seasonal rhythms of thirteen lunar cycles as a framework to deliver thirteen chapters of intelligent and thought-provoking insights into our cultural relationship with food. Starting in the dead of winter with the “Hunger Moon,” the book moves through the seasons — “Sap Moon,” “Egg Moon,” “Milk Moon,” “Moon of Making Fat,” — until it ends in winter again with the “Wolf Moon.” Each chapter includes a selection of delicious recipes. (At least, all the recipes we’ve tried so far have been delicious!) The author lives in Northern California, but I’m pleased to say that the recipes seem to contain relatively few ingredients that we couldn’t hope to find here in rural New Zealand. Often the recipes suggest adaptations and alternatives that take into account local variations in ingredients. I really appreciate that. When this book first arrived, I read it from cover to cover. Now we are enjoying it as a recipe book.
If anyone reading this post lives locally and would like some sourdough starter, we’d be more than happy to share it.
April 2, 2007
March 30, 2007
Rainy Day Update from the Farmlet
We are looking out the windows at a sodden and misty world. It rained cats and dogs for all of yesterday afternoon and last night. When I woke up this morning, it was still raining. I sneaked out during a lull to tend to the goats. The forecast yesterday predicted that we would get 100-150mm of rain overnight, and it surely felt like we did! Kevin and I are already getting a lot of use from the heavy-duty waterproof coats and pants that we felt driven to purchase after the last heavy rain. The rain is much lighter today, but since it is still too wet for most outside jobs, I thought this might be a good time for an update on some of the things that are going on around here.
Autumn Planting
We have built two new pea frames, and I will probably soon put on my rain gear and plant out some more of the pea seedlings that we have started. I hope we haven’t left it too late to get a good crop of autumn peas. Time will tell! Of course, every year is different, but I’m keeping a record of planting dates, so that we can refine our timing as the years go by.
Fruit
A while ago, I started seedlings for passionfruit (mostly purple ones, and a few golden), cherimoya (also known as custard apple), and red tamarillo. By now, the tamarillos and some of the passionfruit look ready to be transplanted into the garden. We are thinking of putting a couple of the tamarillos in the rather sheltered bed next to the house, since they are quite frost tender. For the passionfruit, we will have to extend the trellis system that we have started on the western side of the house paddock.
Young passionfruit plants
Joining a Co-op
We have arranged to join a co-op, so that we can buy our bulk organic goods at wholesale. We are looking forward to less packaging and better prices. We will place our first order this weekend if the catalogue arrives in time. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait two more months for the next order to go in.
Goat Fence
Work on fixing the fence around the uphill goat paddock is underway, though of course it has been suspended with the wet weather. Kevin was finding it hard going, since Daphne and Lulu were very keen to taste each fence fixture as he tried to nail it into place. They were also sure that the bag of fence fixtures must contain tasty treats for goats. And anyway, why would Kevin be in the goat paddock at all if not to cuddle and play with his dear little goats?
Harvest
I have canned several more batches of tomato puree, by now. We have quite a little stock of it in the cupboard to enjoy during the winter months. Our bell peppers (mostly red and a few yellow) are also very prolific. I picked a whole bucket-full the other day, and I’m thinking we might try to make a lacto-fermented pickle out of some of them. Perhaps we’ll roast them and remove the skins before fermenting them as per the recipe in Nourishing Traditions. Does anyone out there have any advice or suggestions about lacto-fermenting sweet peppers?
Sweet yellow pepper
Earthworks
We have been in touch with Barry, the digger operator, who will level the site for our much-needed cow shed. He plans to do the work next week, although it’s possible that this wet weather may delay him somewhat. While he’s here, he’s also going to dig out a dam for us. A dam can cause major problems if not properly constructed, so we have taken extra care to choose an experienced digger operator with an excellent reputation. There are a lot of things to think about! The site for the cow shed needs to be big enough to fit the large water storage tank that will sit next to the shed. We need to figure out what to do about drainage and overflows. We also need to make arrangements to save the topsoil that the digger disrupts, so that we can spread it over the wounded subsoil and plant it as soon as possible after the job is finished.
We feel blessed to have lots of rain filling the streams and making our gardens and pastures grow. At the same time, we look forward to having some fine days to keep working on outside jobs — especially the big projects of earthworks and shed construction that have to be finished by July when the calves are due.