Best. Salsa. Ever.
That stuff that I fermented last week? We tore into the jar today. 1 quart jar lasts 7 people all of about 5 minutes. It has a strong vinegar flavor but it is very, very good. And very, very gone. I'll have to make more.
The recipe is in "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fermenting Foods". It's not hard to make fermented salsa, it has huge health benefits, and it keeps for a very long time. I can't wait to try more recipes out of that book.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Exhausted
I've overdone it a bit this week. The sun come up this morning and found me just bone tired. A good night's sleep helped some last night but I'm still not moving very fast or hard this morning. Just sort of putting around.
Still, the root cellar has a roof on it and didn't collapse. I don't think I'll put a whole lot more dirt on there though as the beams are already stressed. I don't know how it will perform when the existing dirt gets soaked with water. Corky (my dirt expert) says that one cubic yard of that type of earth weighs approximately 1 ton. We've got 3 cubic yards spread semi-evenly across the roof. More would keep it cooler in there, but I think with the slapdash construction job I did on the roof I should probably call it a win and leave it alone. If the roof holds up for another month then I'll trust it for this winter's food storage. There's still plenty to do on the root cellar, but none of it needs to be done today.
The bees are establishing their colonies but it looks like one package either took off for parts unknown or merged with one of the others. There's a low population in there. I'm not sure they'll make it. We'll see though. Bees can surprise you. The insides of those hives are really not set up right. I've got to put frames back in and I have some of the short frames inside deep boxes, which is just stupid. I don't know how that happened. I must have slapped it together without paying attention and didn't inspect closely before I put the bees in there. Today would have been a good day to fix all that but of course I went to get my bee suit out of storage and couldn't find it.
I tried to just go deal with them sans suit but they're very aggressive right now, partly due to the weather but partly due to their just getting established. I was forced to retreat in shame. I've ordered a new suit (which I needed anyway) and it should be here on Tuesday. Hopefully that won't be too late.
So I'm just taking it easy for the rest of the day. I collected some type of nettles that are trying to take over my garden. They're clearly a nettle but they have a different shaped leaf than the normal stinging nettles, so I don't know which species. I hung some up to dry and in a week I'll wash them and prepare a small sample to serve myself with a fried egg. If I don't die and they taste good then I'll have identified at least one wild edible in my new home.
It's a good day. Not too hot and really nothing pressing that has to be done. I'm going to lounge around some and enjoy it.
Still, the root cellar has a roof on it and didn't collapse. I don't think I'll put a whole lot more dirt on there though as the beams are already stressed. I don't know how it will perform when the existing dirt gets soaked with water. Corky (my dirt expert) says that one cubic yard of that type of earth weighs approximately 1 ton. We've got 3 cubic yards spread semi-evenly across the roof. More would keep it cooler in there, but I think with the slapdash construction job I did on the roof I should probably call it a win and leave it alone. If the roof holds up for another month then I'll trust it for this winter's food storage. There's still plenty to do on the root cellar, but none of it needs to be done today.
The bees are establishing their colonies but it looks like one package either took off for parts unknown or merged with one of the others. There's a low population in there. I'm not sure they'll make it. We'll see though. Bees can surprise you. The insides of those hives are really not set up right. I've got to put frames back in and I have some of the short frames inside deep boxes, which is just stupid. I don't know how that happened. I must have slapped it together without paying attention and didn't inspect closely before I put the bees in there. Today would have been a good day to fix all that but of course I went to get my bee suit out of storage and couldn't find it.
I tried to just go deal with them sans suit but they're very aggressive right now, partly due to the weather but partly due to their just getting established. I was forced to retreat in shame. I've ordered a new suit (which I needed anyway) and it should be here on Tuesday. Hopefully that won't be too late.
So I'm just taking it easy for the rest of the day. I collected some type of nettles that are trying to take over my garden. They're clearly a nettle but they have a different shaped leaf than the normal stinging nettles, so I don't know which species. I hung some up to dry and in a week I'll wash them and prepare a small sample to serve myself with a fried egg. If I don't die and they taste good then I'll have identified at least one wild edible in my new home.
It's a good day. Not too hot and really nothing pressing that has to be done. I'm going to lounge around some and enjoy it.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Meanwhile Corky is digging out the area for the main house. More on that later.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Photos of Root Cellar (and more)
Ok, at InvalidID's request here are a few photos of the root cellar. I'll take some more as the work progresses and post those as well. It's hotter than blazes out here and soaring up into triple digits so I'm not sure how much I'll get done today. I need it all done by tomorrow though so I might be working by lantern light tonight. If I get finished by tomorrow then Corky will use his backhoe to put the dirt back on the top and I won't have to shovel it all into place by hand.
Looks like there's a whole mess of photos on my wife's camera so there will be some non-cellar related material in here.
Not a dead cat. This is Nemesis, our house kitty. She spends about half the day loafing under and around the cabin and then the nights inside. She used to like to roam at night and then she heard the yip-yip of the hungry coyotes and now prefers inside.
Those two above photos are from when we had some friends staying the week in their bus. It was a good time. Bluegrass and gospel under the desert skies at night and great fellowship all week. I hope that the Lord brings them back to us soon.
Little River Lily is walking now and we can't keep her out of anything. She's got a cute little farmer's tan going from being out in the desert sun.
It was so desolate when we first got here, but now the desert has bloomed and is very beautiful. As far as I can see on almost every day there is something different blooming. One day the fields are all purple with clover, then the next week they are all yellow with wildflowers. Such a wonderful place.
Every day we are treated to a unique and beautiful sunset over the ridge. About this time we gather to eat dinner and fellowship as a family on the porch where we can watch this sight.
And now for the main show. The root cellar has an entrance on the downslope of the hill. It's not much of a hill and only a slight slope, but we'll berm all the sides and water should stay out.
The main support beam. All of the side braces will come off of this one. I got a great deal on some identical logs that had been cut in half. It's a little stronger than a 4" X 4" post would be and I've got enough of them to place one every 6 inches.
There's some spillage inside the hole and some loose dirt I'll have to haul out by hand, but that's no big trick. It will have bare earthen walls and a bare floor for now. I might put something up later if the mood suits me and neccessity illustrates. It's such a dense clay though that it may not ever be needful.
Joshua thinks the root cellar would be a great place to fill with rattlesnakes and scorpions to toss in unwanted guests. The boy has a seriously twisted bent, but I think that's a fine idea. Maybe we need a separate hole for that.
Looks like there's a whole mess of photos on my wife's camera so there will be some non-cellar related material in here.
Some days are more productive than others.
Not a dead cat. This is Nemesis, our house kitty. She spends about half the day loafing under and around the cabin and then the nights inside. She used to like to roam at night and then she heard the yip-yip of the hungry coyotes and now prefers inside.
Those two above photos are from when we had some friends staying the week in their bus. It was a good time. Bluegrass and gospel under the desert skies at night and great fellowship all week. I hope that the Lord brings them back to us soon.
Little River Lily is walking now and we can't keep her out of anything. She's got a cute little farmer's tan going from being out in the desert sun.
It was so desolate when we first got here, but now the desert has bloomed and is very beautiful. As far as I can see on almost every day there is something different blooming. One day the fields are all purple with clover, then the next week they are all yellow with wildflowers. Such a wonderful place.
Every day we are treated to a unique and beautiful sunset over the ridge. About this time we gather to eat dinner and fellowship as a family on the porch where we can watch this sight.
And now for the main show. The root cellar has an entrance on the downslope of the hill. It's not much of a hill and only a slight slope, but we'll berm all the sides and water should stay out.
The main support beam. All of the side braces will come off of this one. I got a great deal on some identical logs that had been cut in half. It's a little stronger than a 4" X 4" post would be and I've got enough of them to place one every 6 inches.
There's some spillage inside the hole and some loose dirt I'll have to haul out by hand, but that's no big trick. It will have bare earthen walls and a bare floor for now. I might put something up later if the mood suits me and neccessity illustrates. It's such a dense clay though that it may not ever be needful.
Joshua thinks the root cellar would be a great place to fill with rattlesnakes and scorpions to toss in unwanted guests. The boy has a seriously twisted bent, but I think that's a fine idea. Maybe we need a separate hole for that.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Root Cellar
The guy we have digging the pond is a stellar champion of homesteaders. He hit gravel while digging the pond, so he put in a gravel road to the cabin for us. Previously we've only had a dirt track and when it rains real hard (seldom) we've had to park down at the main road or we get the vehicles stuck. That's about a third of a mile to hike back in the rain, often carrying groceries. No fun. Now we have a beautiful white gravel road that leads right up to our cabin. No extra cost. As he said, "I have to do SOMETHING with this stuff" so he put it to good use.
At the 8 foot mark while digging we've run into what appears to be a layer of quartzite. He's bringing out a tractor with a jackhammer on it tomorrow and he thinks he'll be able to go through that rock and lift it straight out in slabs with the dozer. He can use those slabs to help shore up the dam.
But we had to stop digging on the pond a bit early today because of the rock layer. He's not one to sit idle so he took his backhoe and dug us out a root cellar as well. It's up by the cabin with the closest thing to a hill that we have on the property. It's 10' X 10' and about 6' deep. When I put a roof on it then that will add about another foot of height to the inside. And about 4' of dirt on top.
The walls are clay and just as smooth as you could wish for. There's no water seeping in and it doesn't feel damp to the touch, though it smells a little wet if you're familiar with the smell of wet clay. I could put up some sort of cinder blocks or wall material, but it doesn't appear to need them. You want it a little earthy and humid down there. The only problem is that I don't really know how to put a roof on that thing yet. I'm thinking I'll just put down some vertical 2" x 12" boards about a foot apart. That ought to be plenty strong enough to hold the roof up, even with a lot of soil on top. The owner down at the hardware store has some thick timbers that he says he'll make me a heckuva deal on though. I'll go down and look at them in the morning.
Things are progressing along at a rate much better than normal. I don't think we've gotten this much accomplished on the homestead since we built the cabin. And even with all that's going on this week I still managed to finish up a nice looking knife.
God is great!
At the 8 foot mark while digging we've run into what appears to be a layer of quartzite. He's bringing out a tractor with a jackhammer on it tomorrow and he thinks he'll be able to go through that rock and lift it straight out in slabs with the dozer. He can use those slabs to help shore up the dam.
But we had to stop digging on the pond a bit early today because of the rock layer. He's not one to sit idle so he took his backhoe and dug us out a root cellar as well. It's up by the cabin with the closest thing to a hill that we have on the property. It's 10' X 10' and about 6' deep. When I put a roof on it then that will add about another foot of height to the inside. And about 4' of dirt on top.
The walls are clay and just as smooth as you could wish for. There's no water seeping in and it doesn't feel damp to the touch, though it smells a little wet if you're familiar with the smell of wet clay. I could put up some sort of cinder blocks or wall material, but it doesn't appear to need them. You want it a little earthy and humid down there. The only problem is that I don't really know how to put a roof on that thing yet. I'm thinking I'll just put down some vertical 2" x 12" boards about a foot apart. That ought to be plenty strong enough to hold the roof up, even with a lot of soil on top. The owner down at the hardware store has some thick timbers that he says he'll make me a heckuva deal on though. I'll go down and look at them in the morning.
Things are progressing along at a rate much better than normal. I don't think we've gotten this much accomplished on the homestead since we built the cabin. And even with all that's going on this week I still managed to finish up a nice looking knife.
God is great!
Bees! Ouch!
My four packages of bees arrived today, with queens. That's four hives installed in about an hour and a half. I was worried about them after one of the boxes came out of the UPS truck slightly crushed, but the queens and workers all look fine. I set up the queen's candy boxes and shook out the workers (and some drones) into the hives. We're all set now.
I managed to do all of that without suiting up (can't find my suit ... it must be in storage). They were pretty gentle. However when I put the tops on and walked away one of the workers got stuck in my ear and she stung me there. Not really her fault. I wouldn't want to be stuck in my dirty ol' ear either and it didn't help none when I stuck my finger in there to get her out.
Four hives installed and one sting. Not a bad ratio! I've certainly done worse. Now the bee yard is all buzzing with activity. I'm a beekeeper again. Woohoo!
I managed to do all of that without suiting up (can't find my suit ... it must be in storage). They were pretty gentle. However when I put the tops on and walked away one of the workers got stuck in my ear and she stung me there. Not really her fault. I wouldn't want to be stuck in my dirty ol' ear either and it didn't help none when I stuck my finger in there to get her out.
Four hives installed and one sting. Not a bad ratio! I've certainly done worse. Now the bee yard is all buzzing with activity. I'm a beekeeper again. Woohoo!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)