Nippa, the milk machine, generally produces almost exactly the amount of milk we tend to drink every day as a family. However, when one or more of us aren’t here, the milk can begin to pile up in the fridge. Recently I spent several days out of town for work, and Sydney had spent a week at summer church camp. That translated into a couple gallons that were threatening to go bad if we didn’t do something useful with them. To add to the problem, Liz had bought a half-gallon of cream from the dairy down the street, but had … Read the rest
All posts by Peter
A Doghouse for Mr Thornton
Liz has never really liked the idea of an “inside dog,” coyotes were wreaking havoc on our chickens, and we were planning on going on a family vacation for two weeks and leaving the Dog outside to “protect” the other animals and to make it much easier on the family who was going to be feeding and watering the animals. The dog would need somewhere to get out of the weather. Because the barn is behind the back pasture fence and I don’t like the idea of the dog hanging out in the chicken coop I decided the best option … Read the rest
Whole-Wheat Sourdough Kefir Bread
I love bread. However, with the nutrition approach Liz has adopted you’re supposed to soak all grains overnight in an acidic liquid before consuming/cooking them to break down phytic acid. The conventional (if you can call it that) method is to add a few tablespoons of cultured whey to act as a starter and get lacto-fermentation going to generate the acid. However, I don’t like the flavor the whey adds. To make it worse, most of my recipes for homemade bread don’t include an overnight soak/rise.
Sourdough, on the other hand, essentially is an overnight soak because it can take … Read the rest
When is Enough Enough?
I thought things were getting pretty bad a while ago when our collection of animals grew from ONE dog and three children to a gaggle of chickens, the dog, and a series of feral cats (never more than two at a time). One thing I’m learning though is that if you are willing to accept responsibility for an animal, someone will be willing to give one to you. Thanks to the wiles of the coyotes we were down to one cat and had cut our chicken flock substantially, so of course we needed to fill the void with something… Enter … Read the rest
Liz the Coyote Killer
It never fails… the best fun always happens when I’m not around. I happened to be out of town this last week for work. Were Liz and I to trade places, I’m pretty sure I’d go crazy with her on the road from time to time and me left at home to manage all the affairs. This week though, she gave me even more evidence of her outstanding ability and my unworthiness in comparison.
As I was boarding my plane early Friday AM to come home I noticed a voice-mail that must have come in while my phone was going … Read the rest
A new definition for Boy
Liz came home the other day with a new definition. I doubt it would show up in Webster’s or any other authoritative dictionary, but anyone who has ever had boys will almost certainly recognize it.
BOY: A noise with dirt on it!
Enjoy!
Gloves are Good and Wow, That’s Red
One of the blessings of this life is that every day presents some form of opportunity to learn. This week, among other things, I got a somewhat painful lesson about the wisdom of wearing gloves when trying to wrangle sheep, and a reminder that you shouldn’t wear your good sunglasses when painting a barn.
We have a good friend a few miles from here who is single and somewhat elderly. When her husband died of cancer a little over a year ago, she was left to run the 10-acre homestead on her own. She’s quite capable, but when it comes … Read the rest
Food Faces
I’m not sure why, but Liz and the Kids keep seeing faces in our food. Just for fun, I’ve decided to share a few that they’ve taken pictures of…
Happy hens make happy eggs apparently. I don’t honestly know if these eggs were from our flock of backyard chickens or if they were from one of the last dozen or so we purchased at the local meat market before our buzzards started laying. I think this is just before we started getting our own eggs. The ones we’ve been getting have yolks so orange it would look unnatural if you … Read the rest
Free Cats are Hard to Keep
Ever since we moved in here I’ve been saying we needed to get a barn cat to help keep the mice in check. Even before the house was built, I was certain we would have problems because as I was clearing the land and cutting the brush and undergrowth the path in front of my tractor would almost look like the ground was boiling with all the mice and other vermin scattering in fear of death by power shredder. Since I cleared off most of their cover and food supplies I wasn’t all that surprised when they moved into the … Read the rest
How to Talk Yourself Into Buying a New Car
UPDATE: Apparently someone who loves us read this and assumed the accident happened the day I posted the story. For clarification purposes, and to avoid any more panicked phone calls, this is the accident we were in back in early November 2013. I know I’m bad about telling y’all about stuff that happens, but you can be sure that if I end up riding in an ambulance again, you won’t hear about it first through a blog I keep mostly to please myself and write things in a format not dictated by my employer.
Liz and I don’t really care … Read the rest