Never Enough

The literal fruits of our labors and the inevitable trying to keep the literal spoils to a minimum.

It's hard not to love this time of year.  Warm days, cooler nights, produce and the signs of a productive season tripping you in the garden and falling from the sky... yeah it's a good time.

Of course that doesn't mean I have anything like enough time to appreciate it.  Today's accomplishments included (yeah, just Sunday), tweaking and testing a yellow summer squash pizza crust recipe (5 qts shredded squash, who knows how many pounds) which was a great success, a full oven of overloaded cookie sheets covered with roasting peppers (because even after being frozen, they're ROASTED PEPPERS mmmMMmmmm), elderberry kombucha (so good even Mrs. Farmer likes it), another 7 quarts of processed tomato sauce and another pot of chopped tomatoes in the pipeline for the next batch... and no doubt stuff I'm forgetting now.

By the time you're done accounting for all of that, the animal chores, the prep and processing for what we ate today (all fresh of course), and a little of the "ugh tomorrow is Monday" last minute catch up chores... we're done. Good night.

Oven Pickles, a Retrospective

2015's storage pickles are starting earlier this year.

Last September we talked about oven pickles but I never did some back to talk about how good they were.

The answer, of course, is they are excellent. Even now, 11 months later they have lasted well in the pantry if they have lost just a touch of their original crispness. The only reason they lasted this long at all is because we buried a few jars otherwise in this house pickles go fast. Very fast.

Which is one reason why we're meeting our early cukes with extra Ball Jars. (continued)

Homebrew

A side benefit to all that applesauce and all those apples comes in the form of home made apple cider, apple mead, apple wine, hard cider and the like. "Apple ferments" for lack of a better term. I love me some homebrewed apple ferments.

Between a general lack of (empty) brewing equipment and the rush to put up all that apple sauce right away my apple related brewing was more of an afterthought than a project. Even so, I had 7 gallons worth of beverage ready to re-rack and get into a secondary fermenter this week.

While this is certainly not enough to eliminate my hard cider purchasing over a whole year it will put a nice comfortable dent in it I think.  Planning starts now to be geared up and ready to go for much more fermenting by next fall's harvest.  I am ABSOLUTELY sure I want an annual cider tradition around here (and I'm equally sure the folks getting gifts from us would enjoy that greatly also).

Getting started is easy.  Anyone familiar with my friend Carlo Rossi probably already spotted him in my photograph.  Recycling glass gallon jugs is awesome, but food grade plastic buckets or even larger glass vessels are great too.  If all you have is a glass gallon, an air lock, a recipe, and some brewer's yeast you are ready to begin.  Some folks get really into following a recipe and prefer certain products or techniques to follow each time.  I myself find taking a relaxed approach to it with more than a little playful experimentation still yields great results and often cool surprises.

Like so much else that is worth the wait the problem lies within the waiting. I should be able to keep my hands off it until Christmas.  I hope.

Apples. Apples all the way down.

Windfall apples. Literally. 15 bushels.

You may have detected a theme, here at the homestead.  We spend the majority of our time working with, working on, and talking about things that we like.  Never forget that it is OK to surround yourself with work that you like, things that you like, food that you like, you know the IMPORTANT things, the things that make you feel good the things that make you feel the most YOU.

Like apples.  There are whole sections of the country where folks are no more than a short drive away from an apple orchard. Facebook is covered right now with people happily indulging in their fall tradition of an afternoon spent apple picking. They will spend a few hours there, pick a few apples, take a few home, pay top dollar for top quality and leave happy. I am not so easily satisfied. (continued)