Frugal Homesteads...

Silent Sunday

2012-01-29T09:21:00.003-05:00

growing quinoa

2012-01-27T17:19:00.005-05:00

This is an old post I did on growing quinoa a few years back and never put up. (pic is not mine)

The quinoa growing experiment
This past spring we decided we were going to attempt to grow some of our own grains in our attempt to become as self sustaining as possible. One of the grains we chose to grow is called QUINOA or the mother of all grains.For ease in explanation here is a pretty good link describing it. It sone of the best grains available and is super high in protein content (20% or there abouts). It also has all your amino acids in it and very little is needed to be a very nutritious grain for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa

My own observations
It was very simple to grow, simply plant and let it go. It withstood both heavy rains as well as dry to drought conditions very well until just before it should have been harvested. The weight on the seed heads did cause it to snap off just before harvest time. I am assuming that part of the breakage was because we planted in rows and it wasn't dense enough to keep it standing .

The plant itself it beautiful, when it is nearing maturity it changes color much like hardwood trees do. There are shades of yellow, reds and oranges in the leaves then they begin to fall off. The quinoa we planted had seed heads that were rainbow colored as well, making the plants even more pretty.

Plants were ready to harvest here in about 4 months time. I direct seeded just after the last frost and harvested the second or third week of august. I simply went out and cut the stalks off then laid them out to dry or hung them to finish drying. Then I rubbed the seed heads between my hands onto a large sheet. Once this was done i harrowed it in front of a fan to get the chaff and junk from the actual seed. This is a bit tedious and boring... OK, it is a lot tedious and boring, but a good job for a useless eater. I then let them finish drying and tossed them into a storage container.

The biggest problem I have had with the quinoa is removing the saponins from the outside of the seeds themselves. The saponins are also what make it a good plant since birds and other animals will not touch the seeds. Removing the saponins is very important before cooking , they can make you very ill or kill you if you ingest too much of them. To remove the outer coating, books will tell you to soak for 12 hours before cooking. I did this and it didn't work . I since have figured out that in order to eat the final product, you need to think about it 3 days in advance of when you plan on eating it and soak them in water for all three days. Change the water out several times a day and mix the grains around in it while doing this. The water may bubble some , much like soap does and it will be a greyish color when you change out the water. When the water runs clear and no more bubbles it should be ready for cooking. A different approach is to soak it for a day or two before cooking, Place it in water boil for one minute, change the water boil another minute and then cook.

It is a rather odd little grain, has a different consistency to it and takes a bit of getting used to . There are a few ways to cook it other than boiling like rice. Some roast it and "pop" it and make something resembling popcorn balls. It has a slightly nutty flavor to it when done this way. It is often seen in vegan and veggie dishes and there are a few cold salads that it can be used in... It can also be sprouted and used as a sprout.

Overall, it is not bad to grow, harvest, or cook. Its pretty and can be grown in some pretty rotten soil and conditions. As a survival food it would be good to grow in a garden or in a guerrilla fashion. It will reseed itself and grow again the next year. One other thing I did notice was that it will begin to sprout in the field when the seed heads are ready and a big rain comes so it is important to get it out of the weather when it is ready for harvest. I lost a few plants of it this season by not realizing just how easy it goes to reproducing..

PS...
I forgot to mention that we planted only one small pack of seeds this spring in ground that had only been tilled in order to plant grains. In total i had about an 80 row of quinoa (was actually four 20 foot rows). No fertilizers or nutrients of any kind were used so the soil base is hard chunky clay for the most part . When all was said and done i got about 4 pounds of quinoa for cooking purposes or two quart jars which for us would be about 8 meals as a side dish. All total time spent between harvesting n harrowing was about 3 hours in addition to the time spent tilling, planting and weeding once.

We are thinking next year of just scattering some seed in an area using the broadcast method and seeing how this turns out rather than using tilled garden space for this grain...

PPS...
We have since been growing quinoa in non garden areas and it seems to do quite well that way. I just leave a few plants to do the reseeding for me and it comes back year after year.

the singin bowl

2012-01-26T15:22:00.003-05:00

A couple months back Granny passed away and in proper new age fashion many of her belongings were posted in a private group on face book through photo albums. Family got to go through them and choose what they would like to have. I, of course, was drawn to this cute little 'mortar and pestle'. Once it arrived, it was quickly realized that it was not a mortar and pestle at all but a Tibetan singing bowl.

To make her sing you take the little stick and run it around the outside of the bowl where the ridges are. It is something you either like or really dislike listening to. I happen to like it while the manthing finds it quite annoying. The video is of when I took her to the woods yesterday on my walk about.

around the homestead-the cistern saga continues

2012-01-18T14:11:00.004-05:00

Ahhh, we should have known better than to think the cistern project was going to go well the first time around.
After coating the cistern with the sealant, the weather took a turn for the worse. It continued to rain for an entire week and nothing was drying out even with a fan and a heater running in the room. The biggest issue, however, was the seepage from the blocks themselves. It is amazing how much water a cinder block will hold. The water seeping from the blocks made the sealant slide down and puddle and we were again left with bare cinder walls. There were also a couple spots that we decided could use a bit of hydraulic cement too, just in case.Those minor patches were made and then it became a waiting game. MothEr always wins so after a couple of days we realized that time was the only cure for the mess we had created. We decided it was best to just shut the door and forget it.

Finally, on Saturday the cistern was dry and we could fix the messes and give it another good coat of sealant. With warmer temperatures we were sure it would dry before the next round of rains came in. It did, so we gave it one more coat for good measure. By Monday morning everything was dry so the gutters were hooked back in. By last evening the cistern was full and we could turn the water back on to the shack.
We would like to think the cistern project is now a done deal but we can't be entirely sure of it.

silent sunday

2012-01-08T17:05:00.002-05:00

around the homestead-refurbishing the cistern

2012-01-07T12:12:00.006-05:00

For the last few weeks we had been noticing puddling water around the cistern room but because we have also had decent amounts of rain it was hard to tell if something was amiss. On Wednesday manthing had to go into the cistern room and he decided to look at how much water was in there and we only had 2 blocks of 7. With just the two of us here and knowing how much rain had recently fallen we knew the cistern had sprung a leak. After looking around we believe we found the source but then a decision had to be made. Would we simply patch the hole and be done or would we finish emptying it, clean it out, scrape it down, make any repairs, and reseal the entire thing.
We decided that since the cistern was well over 20 years old and had never had any maintenance that it would be wise to completely go through it and hopefully be done with it until we are too old to be doing such things. We also had a fairly decent window to get the work done before the weather turned, a big bonus in January. The bad part was that our window was a fairly small one for the work that needed to be done so it meant bustin our butts a little bit to getter done.
We had to start by finishing emptying the cistern, so we brought the 325 gallon tank up and filled it. We knew we would be without any water for at least four days and perhaps more depending on the weather. This left about 3 inches of water and a big layer of nastiness that had collected on the bottom for twenty odd years. The only way to get it out was by climbing in and bailing the water out by the bucket full, lifting it over the edge and having the second person hauling it out to dump. It then had to be completely dried and scraped down to remove the old sealant and expose as much block as possible. After getting as much out as we could , it was decided the kitty litter soaker upper stuff would work best to dry it then we could scoop it out.
Once it was all dry we made any repairs that needed to be done and could then begin applying the sealant. After applying each coat of sealant it needed to dry for several hours before the next layer could be done. Last night, we were able to get the second coating on and decided that the rain was not going to come in until late this evening so we would do a third and final coat this morning We also neglected to pull the gutters from the pipe going into the cistern since there was only a 10% chance of rain. At 3:30 this morning we had a middle of the night trip to pull the gutters out and protect our masterpiece.
The final coat went on this morning and we are now hoping that the heavy rains that are forecast do not come until tomorrow so that we can put the gutters back in, fill the cistern and see how the pretty cement pond works.

monday's mountain musings- break is over

2012-01-02T11:46:00.004-05:00

busy bees on New Year's Day

Happy New Year! It has been a little while since my last post but all is well around the homestead. I decided that I needed a little break from life with the exception of my darn math class for a few weeks (translated to, math moron trying to keep an A) and then decided that my winter break was going to be a break from everything except the essentials of homestead life. It was a much needed break after having such a busy spell of folks coming through over the last couple months.

Our first big dose of winter has finally arrived. Yesterday it was in the 60's and today it is 34 and VERY windy. Tonight will be the first night we get into the teens or single digits. I am going to either be really brave or really stupid and not cover any of the outdoor veggies that are growing. An old local farmer last summer told us to just leavum and they will be ok. In reality, I don't have much choice as row covers would not stay on the beds with this wind. The green house stuff will all be covered with an inside layer to keep things alive. I have about a 100 cabbage and broccoli plants in there that I thought bugs killed last fall as seedlings that have all come back to life as well as peas that are just starting to produce, greens, lettuce and asparagus seedlings.

Not much has been going on around the place in the way of improvements or changes. Manthing has been working steadily this winter (not complaining) so project time is limited for him. I have been a lazy slacker with most everything but school. Wood for next year is being cut when time permits and a clearing is being made for an eventual raised bed, hoop house. Seed catalogs are arriving so soon I will be sorting and deciding what and where stuff will be planted. Seeds will be started in a week or two for the early crops and before ya know it spring will have arrived.

the BIG table

2011-11-21T07:27:00.004-05:00

We now have a super BIG work table in the project/living room. It measures about 4 foot wide by 8 foot long and is about 4 foot in height. This will give me plenty of room to sort seeds for saving, plenty of room for making stuff, and a great place for collecting clutter. It also fits in quite well with our other decor and was very budget friendly to build.

Manthing ran across a couple of large things (wall sections perhaps) at the warehouse that were being tossed out. We do not know exactly what they originally were but when he saw them he saw tabletops. He also snagged up a few wood pallets that were being tossed out as he saw legs! Yes, yes, our table is completely made of someone elses garbage and cost nothing but a couple hours of time, mostly spent rearranging the room, and moving the pieces and parts in since it had to be assembled inside. The only monetary cost was for the screws and nails holding it together and to make hangers on one side for pots and pans. To assemble, all he did was cut a few inches off of each of the pallets so that it wouldn't be quite so tall then attached a piece of plywood on the underside of the table top where the 2x8's stuck out to make hidey holes on the underside. We then brought it all in, stood the pallets up and slid the top over the pallet tops and attached. He then added a couple braces for support.

There is plenty of storage area underneath the table and the legs (between pallet slats) can hold small things like cookie sheets. A few hooks will be added to hang pans from and chop blocks will be set atop for butchering and such. It will be sooooo much nicer than the teeny tiny 3x2 foot table that I have had to work on!

silent sunday

2011-11-20T21:50:00.001-05:00

fur friends

2011-11-12T15:49:00.000-05:00

Utana has found himself a new fur friend. Apa is a 4 month old red tick hound staying here with his human. He is plum full of energy and Utana adores him.

mushroom logs-first harvest

2011-11-08T20:23:00.004-05:00

Just as I was beginning to wonder if the mushroom logs were going to do anything before winter set in, low and behold I checked them yesterday and noticed we had some beauties ready for harvesting. We got about 4 pounds of the oysters and I do believe I saw a few shitakes growing under there. Hopefully the rains coming in will get a few more grown out before the cold weather sets in.

every once in a while...

2011-11-05T21:17:00.003-04:00

some talented folks roll through here! After a long day filled with all sorts of craziness: some good and some not so good we ended it with a jam around the campfire. The sound isn't the greatest and doesn't do them justice.

Betty the bunny

2011-11-02T07:18:00.004-04:00

Meet Betty, a new to us and new to us breed of bunny. She is a 7 week old Silver Fox. The Silver Fox is a rare breed of domestic rabbit native to the United States. They were developed by Walter B. Garland of North Canton, Ohio, and bred for meat and fur. The breed is recognized by the American Rabbit Breeders Association and was originally registered under the name American Heavyweight Silver in 1925. In 1929 the name was changed to the American Silver Fox and later to Silver Fox. The Silver Fox is a part of Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste, the catalog of US foods in danger of extinction.

Silver Fox are a large, docile breed weighing 11-12 pounds for an adult female, and is named for its thick blue-gray or silver fur. The Silver Fox is one of the rarest rabbit breeds in America, and is considered critically endangered by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

Babies are born either solid black or blue and begin to show silvering of their fur at about 6 weeks. The silvering process takes 4 months to complete. The fur of a Silver Fox is extremely dense and 1-1/2 to 2 inches in length. When the fur is stroked from tail to head, it will stand straight up until stroked in the opposite direction. This trait is found in no other breed and greatly resembles the pelt of the silver fox of the Arctic.

Even though they are a large breed, they are very gentle, easy to handle, and love attention. They have been dubbed the Teddy Bear of the rabbit family. Does are easy breeders, high milk-producers, are excellent mothers and make great foster mothers. They adapt well to any climate and sudden changes in temperature do not appear to bother them. Direct, long term sunlight will, however, burn their fur to a rust color.

The Silver Fox make a good pet or meat animal. They have a deep loin that provides good meat proportions on the carcass. They are known for their very high meat percentage, dressing out at 65% of live weight. The taste of its meat is considered high quality with fine texture and taste. For a much more detailed history on the Silver Fox, check out the link below.

http://riverwindrabbitry.webs.com/aboutsilverfoxrabbits.htm

fall in the mountains

2011-11-01T21:06:00.000-04:00

North Georgia in the fall is like a circus for the senses. These photos have been taken over the last month around town and home. The colors were somewhat muted because it has been so dry.

fall garden walk about

2011-10-15T10:53:00.000-04:00

bits of color

2011-10-05T16:46:00.003-04:00

easy coffee cake

2011-10-04T11:58:00.005-04:00

After looking around for an easy, won't break the bank, coffee cake that I would be able to cook on the wood stove or on top of the wood cook top, I ended up just making my own recipe using bits and pieces of other recipes and then tweaking it to my liking. Although I was a bit weary of how it would taste, it came out quite lovely.

‎1 cup butter

1 ½ cups sugar

4 eggs

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups flour

1 quart peaches or other fruit

Cinnamon

½ cup brown sugar

Topping

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons butter

Soften butter, mix with eggs n sugar. Then throw flour, sugar, salt and powder in and mix it up nice. Spread about half the mixture into a greased pan (9x13 or whatever). Drain peaches and chuck over the top of the mixture in pan, shake cinnamon around to your liking. Sprinkle the brown sugar around and spread the other half of the mixture on top. Bake at 350 until tooth pick comes out clean.

for the topping

Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter, until it makes coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the topping over the cake and bake

Since I cook over wood, I typically use a large cast iron skillet rather than a baking pan although a dutch oven would also work well. If I was actually baking in an oven I would make a crumble topping but, since I don't, I make a confectionery sugar drool for the top and shake a bit of cinnamon around. Nutmeg is good in place of or with cinnamon.

drool

½ cup confectionery or brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla

1-2 tbsp water

chicken of the woods

2011-10-03T17:20:00.005-04:00

It is the fall mushroom season and this is one of the finest that can be found. Commonly called chicken mushroom or chicken of the woods, Laetipous sulfureus can be used in any recipe that calls for chicken or in traditional mushroom dishes. Rather than rewrite what has been written many times before here is a link to read more on it. When we had a chicken the other night, I made an Argentinian recipe called pollo el verdeo with it. It was quite tasty and very easy to make.

3 cups sliced mushroom or chicken
1/2 cup cream (plain yogurt works well)
6 green onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 cup vegetable stock or chicken stock
1.2 cup white wine
2 tablespoons cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp butter

Cook "chicken" and garlic in skillet with butter til done. Add wine and green onion to skillet. In a bowl, mix cornstarch with cold broth and stir until completely dissolved and no lumps then add broth to prepared chicken. Reduce heat and cook 5 minutes. Add cream and mix thoroughly and cook until desired consistency. Serve over rice or pasta.

the weather is a changin

2011-09-30T18:17:00.004-04:00

Fall is officially here in the South! Tonight and tomorrow we are going to be very close to frost temperatures and we will be lucky to get to 60 during the day. The last couple of days, I have been harvesting and pulling the tomatoes. To be honest, I was entirely sick of the tiny toms but was sad to see the regular ones come out of the ground. I now have a couple few gallons of tinies to do something with, two five gallon buckets of green tomatoes, and a nice pile of ripe ones to work our way through or preserve.
The only plants left in the summer gardens are a zucchini, two peppers, one big tomato, herbs, zinnias, and some tobacco that I will fetch and hang tomorrow. The fall plantings are doing rather well although very slow to grow due to the extreme weather we have had until now. Things are starting to look pretty naked and drab around the place, at least until the leaves start changing, and then, that color too will be gone. I still have a few more things I would like to get in the ground soon and we are trying cover crops on some of the beds for the first time this year. When we went to town last week one of the stores had Australian (I think it is supposed to be Austrian) snow peas at a very affordable price so we grabbed a few pounds.
The greenhouse is nice and rather full of plants and I will be adding more as I get time and space. There are peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, ginger, herbs, cabbage, broccoli, collards and other greens as well as a couple flowers and trees. It looks so very green compared to outside now. I must find a place for a chair in there so on the soon to come dreary days, I can go n get my green on.

angry turtles and jelly fungi

2011-09-27T18:14:00.002-04:00

silent sunday

2011-09-25T10:19:00.000-04:00

tobacco-storing and cutting

2011-09-23T06:47:00.008-04:00

I realize there are 2700 ways and everyone says their way is what works when it comes to the storage and curing of tobacco. This is how we do it on a very small budget and while I will not say it is the best way, it does give us a nice smooth tobacco that didn't cost 500 bucks to set up. We have tried it a few different ways over the last few years and we finally think we got it figured out. Again, this is just our way, our experience and our story. What works for you may be a little different or a lot different depending on your situation.
Sure, hanging tobacco for a year or two is a good idea in theory. Unfortunately, for most of us, hanging anything for two years would create all sorts of issues with space, cob webs, wildlife and other nastiness that I would prefer not to have on my tobacco. For us, the issue is room, mold and critters. A good pack rat will hoard away a months worth of tobacco in a single night. And, quite frankly, I am not going to continue buying tobacco for a year or two while waiting for what I worked so hard to grow to cure and smoke.

Anywho, once the tobacco is hung to dry it will require a couple of months to turn to a uniform brown color. This is where some folks think it should sit for a couple years. We don't! Once it is dry we pick a morning where the humidity is high and the leaves are flexible and strip the veins from the leaves. We are not overly picky in this process and only work on the center vein, the others will chop up later on in the process. Once the veins are removed we just throw it in a box, any box, so long as the top can be closed to keep the dust off. That's it! It can be just that simple.
We have played with this method the last couple of years in an attempt to get a better flavor out of the tobacco. We have figured out that it cures and develops a nice flavor once it has been cut and then stored. For storage we like to recycle coffee cans as they seal in the flavors and aroma while keeping yucky stuff out. It makes storage much easier since they do not take up near the space and we also know exactly how much tobacco we have.

Since most of us do not have the money to spend a few hundred dollars on fancy schmancy tobacco choppers and I know we didn't and still don't, we also experiment with different ways of cutting the tobacco. The first year we simply threw it into the food processor. It works but is very difficult to get the shredded tobacco a uniform size. A couple seconds too long and you end up with a powder and a couple seconds too short and you have tobacco that's three inches long that is difficult to roll and near impossible to smoke.

What we have begun to do is make a roll of leaves and place it between two blocks of wood, then take a C clamp and close it down to make a small brick. Once compacted, release from the clamp, take a sharp knife and slice it thinly. I have not tried it but have read of people using old school paper cutters to cut it after making the bricks. From there, a quick whirl in the food processor or a small herb/ tobacco grinder will bring the tobacco to a usable size. There are a couple advantages to using the food processor. Larger amounts can be chopped at once and it is easy to add any flavorings(honey in a bit of everclear or vodka). It is a good way to evenly distribute it through the tobacco without making a mess of things.

Once the tobacco is cut and chopped to the size you wish, stuff it into coffee cans or other container and let it cure and develop the flavors. The longer it cures the better the flavor that develops. I would like to say that we have let some of our tobacco age a couple of years and then tried it, but we have not. We always need to use it within a few months time. Maybe one day we will get to the point that we have tobacco enough to store some for a year or two before trying.

tobacco harvest

2011-09-18T09:13:00.004-04:00

Though much of the tobacco is still very healthy and green, we came to the realization the other day that we realistically have 3-6 weeks until our first frost. Tobacco quits curing when the temperatures are under 55 degrees and since tobacco cures best outside, it was time to start cutting it down and hauling it up to hang.Many who grow tobacco hang the entire plant to dry. Because of space issues and humidity issues here, we tend to hang the big leaves by stringing them up in small bundles and then putting the smaller leaves on racks in the sun. We actually prefer sun drying all the tobacco but this requires a lot of extra time and effort in the process and I can't be fussed over the time or the effort.
The tobacco has had a really good growing season this year and we were only able to get about half of it harvested and hung yesterday. Next weekend we will cut the rest. This week I will make a couple more posts on de-veining, storage and chopping.

silent sunday

2011-09-18T08:48:00.004-04:00

tobacco seed

2011-09-15T18:26:00.004-04:00

It is the time of year to harvest the tobacco seed pods. We typically leave just one or two plants to flower and make seed for the next year. It is said that the seed from one tobacco plant is enough to plant about an acre worth of land. I like to always have plenty so we save two plants. This year, however, I saved three so that I can try and naturalize some next season.

Once the tobacco flowers the plant will develop seed pods up where the flowers were. Some people like to bag the seed pods so that they will not break open and sow themselves but we have never had that problem so I don't. Once the pods turn brown they are ready to harvest. I put the seed in a bowl so that I don't lose them all over the place and just break each pod apart and then sift the seed though a small sieve. Make sure they are dry and package them up for next year. It's as simple as that. The photo of the seeds above is just one plant and is about a tablespoon of seed. Though it does not seem like much, tobacco seed is about the size of a toothpick head.