Month: September 2019

Step-by-step: making sauerkraut

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It’s been cold, wet and raining for the past while (with snow, in some areas!!), which meant it was the perfect time to stay indoors and finally make sauerkraut.

While I remember my mother making sauerkraut when I was a child, and I know I helped at least a little, I have never made it myself before. In fact, it was my mother’s sauerkraut that had me believing I didn’t like the stuff at all. She made incredibly strong kraut, and it was many, many years before I tasted any other and found it… okay. LOL Then one evening, while we were hosting a home schooling historical pot luck set in a pioneer theme, one of the families brought a fresh jar of sauerkraut. Fresh as in, just made that day and no fermentation. I was surprised by how good it tasted.

Cabbage, however, was one of those things I just didn’t tend to buy. In fact, it wasn’t until we moved here that we started to pick it up regularly.

I have an old friend from high school that has shared on social media about the sauerkraut she has been making, and with all the food preservation stuff I’ve been getting more and more into, I found myself wanting to try my hand at it. I did some research and found that it is incredibly basic – but it didn’t sound like what she was making. So I messaged her and got her recipe. It’s more like fermented vegetables, with added probiotics, than sauerkraut.

I decided to do both.

This post will be on the basic sauerkraut I made first.

Here are the ingredients.

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Critter of the day, plus apples for my mother

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Yesterday I was finally able to grab the step ladder and pick some of the last apples that are pick-able for my mother.

The cats were VERY interesting in the bag! Especially Cheddar! :-D

I was able to pick all the crabapples from the one tree, where the apples were the biggest and they had finally gotten sweet. Previously, they had almost no taste at all; not even the usual sour taste of crabapples, but now they have that delightful sweet/sour taste crabapples are the best for. There weren’t very many, so I picked some from the tree next to it. You can really tell which apples came from which tree! This tree had quite a lot of little apples that are more sour, but still quite edible.

Since I was there, anyhow, I took advantage of the ladder and cut away dead branches. The one tree with the bigger apples has a main trunk that is basically dead, but I did see some leaves on some of the branches at the top, so I just cut away the ones I knew for sure were dead. I pruned dead branches off a couple other trees, too, but I will save a major pruning for the spring.

I was able to bring the crabapples to my mother pretty much right away, and even get a little visit in. She was very happy to see them. Usually, there is someone who leaves their extra apples in the lobby where she lives, free to whomever wants them, but there were none this year. So now she will be able to make herself some apple sauce and compote that she likes. I also brought one each of the different flavoured jellies I’d made. I even remembered to bring an extra knife sharpener we has, as she was looking for one while we were out before. She was looking for a file, actually, so I brought her what I thought would be much easier for her to use.

I didn’t realize she wanted it for the hoes provided for the little community gardens where she lives. LOL I have, however, discovered that she has a knife sharpener with an antler handle, that matches the meat fork we found here. She tells me there used to be a knife as part of the set, but it’s one of the things that disappeared over the years.

I’m glad I was able to bring the sharpener I have, though. In the process, I discovered my mother has no good knives. At all!

Something to take care of for her, soon!

The cold, meanwhile, is already starting to show.

For the past while, I’ve been doing my rounds in grass sopping wet from dew, but this morning, it was all frost! The furnace has even been turning on regularly during the night.

We still have lots to do before winter!

The Re-Farmer

People actually enjoy this?

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Today the girls and I headed into the city for our monthly shop.

I know that there are people out there who actually enjoy shopping. I don’t get it. I really don’t!

Okay, so today turned out to be a more complex shop than usual, but still… Ugh. It’s just so draining!

So here is a picture of a fungus. Because it cheers me up!

With all the rain we’ve been having lately, mushrooms are showing up everywhere!
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Clean up: west fence line and maple grove

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Today turned out to be too cold and damp to do the mowing between the trees I cleared last year, that I hoped to do today. I thought I might be able to at least use my reciprocating saw to cut some of the smaller stumps of trees I took down last year to ground level, so I could mow over them. In the end, I decided it was just too damp to drag out the extension cords and use electric tools.

Instead, I worked on an area I left partly unfinished last year; a double row of elms leading to the garden gate at the west fence line.

Here is how it looked before I started.

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Clean Up: mowing the big garden

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Today started early for me, as I had to drive to my mother’s to take her for an appointment to get her CT scan. She had a requirement to drink a litre of water an hour before her appointment, then restrictions on going to the bathroom shortly before, so I wanted to make sure she got there early enough to not have to worry about the restriction. Given how long it takes to drive from her town to the city where her appointment was, that meant she had to start drinking her water while we were driving.

She also had to fast 4 hours before the scan, but my mother went a bit overboard and, aside from eating some crackers with her morning medications, she had fasted since the supper! So as soon as we were done, I made sure to take her to lunch somewhere fast.

By the time I got home, it was mid afternoon. The weather was holding, so I decided to break out the push mower and get as much done as I could. (I only got rained on a tiny bit! :-D ) I was going to start working in the trees, but then decided to do the old, overgrown garden, instead.

When my brother brought the mower back, he walked me through what he had done. It started fine when we tested it, but he mentioned that he felt the prime pump wasn’t doing its job. So, just in case it wouldn’t start, he showed me where to open up the side of the engine, where there is a filter and an opening behind it, and told me I could basically just splash some fuel into it, and that should be enough to start it.

I’m very glad he told me that, because it wouldn’t start. I ended up having to do it twice! The second time was after I ran out of gas, but I found that if I filled the tank before it was completely empty, I didn’t have to do it again. Except I didn’t just splash it. I tipped the mower onto its side and poured a tiny bit, using the cap of the jerry can spout to hold the tiny bit of fuel I needed. After that, it started just fine.

Mowing the old garden ended up taking about 4 hours.

It is not a small garden.

It was also incredibly rough. Plus, I had to look out for stuff like this.

Thankfully, it wasn’t sticking too far out of the ground, but that’s something we’re going to have to dig up at some point. Maybe. Depends on how big it is, underground!

Here are the before photos.

Right now, the garden area is split by the section we covered with straw to mulch it, used some RoundUp when things started to grow through the mulch, then covered with tarps, that I worked around. That is where we are hoping to be able to start planting something next year. I also tried to get into those trees my mother left growing when she transplanted her raspberry bushes, as much as I could.

Here is what it looks like now.

Did I mention it was rough in there?

This picture barely begins to show how rough it was! It’s hard to grasp from the photo, just how big that hill in the foreground is. When this area was last plowed, this is where the tractor turned, so there are huge ridges all over.

If the weather continues to hold tomorrow, I want to work on mowing between the trees in the maple grove, plus the area leading from the big garden to the gate. My mother said she planted elms in there, so the area had not been mowed, but I see no signs of them.

And now I have to try and get the burrs out of my pant legs.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: ditch view

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Despite a very foggy, moist start to the day, it dried up enough that I got to use my new toy; the push mower my awesome brother fixed for me.

I love his work-around for the seized throttle cable.

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Critter(s) of the Day: on the beach

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Insects count as critters, right?

While walking the beach not long ago, there were a surprising number of lady beetles all over.

So many, in fact, in some places, it was impossible not to step on any.

I also saw a couple of these guys…

At first, I thought this one was dead. Especially when a wave reached its wings and it didn’t move. It wasn’t dead, though, and I was able to move it a short distance, where the waves could no longer reach it.

Headlight fixed

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Have I mentioned before, that I have the most awesome brother?

Maybe just a few times.

Because it’s true!

After spending about 6 or 7 hours working on the garage door, while packing up his tools, he remembered he also wanted to fit the headlight on my van.

We burn lights out on the van rather quickly; there seems to be an electrical problem in the system. My driver’s side low beam bulb was burnt out again, but the passenger side low beam light would sometimes be on, sometimes be off.

When I bought a new bulb, I got a pair of them to replace both bulbs. While changing the bulb on the passenger side, I discovered why it was doing the flicky thing.

A wire was breaking. While changing the bulb, it finally broke completely.

20190919.broken.wire

There was not a lot of wire to work with there, but when I sent a photo to my brother, he said he thought he could fix it.

And he did.

After stripping, cleaning and tinning the wires, he slipped a piece of shrink wrap over one wire, then soldered the exposed ends together. There wasn’t enough wire available to twist them together, as I would normally have thought to do. I couldn’t even help him, other than to hold a light for him, because there was just no room for more fingers in there! He managed to hold the wires together, while also holding the hot soldering iron in one hand, soldering wire in the other.

20190921.fixing.headlight.wire

The shrink material has adhesive on the inside, so after using a heat gun on it to shrink it, it formed a permanent, water tight seal.

Which didn’t stop him from also adding some electric tape around it, too!

There used to be a both soldering irons and soldering guns here, and while packing things up and looking around, I have found soldering wire, but that’s it. I do have my own soldering iron; just a tiny thing that’s part of a wood burning kit. This is one thing I might have been able to do on my own, and now that I’ve seen it done, I know I can. I don’t have the shrink wrap or a heat gun, so I couldn’t do that part, though.

The main thing is, I now have two working headlights again! :-)

The Re-Farmer

The things I’ve been finding

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I’ll start with the things I found today. :-)

The first thing I found this morning was a Pump Shack kitten! After opening up the sun room to let the other kittens out and get some cat kibble, I turned to find him at the door, waiting to see if he could sneak past me for some food!

20190922.morning.cats

He never did come in while I was there, but after I put food out by the junk pile and pump shack, I came back to find him, with Junk Pile kitten and Rosencrantz (his mom), sharing food with Doom Guy and Keith.

We rarely see Rosencrantz these days, and we haven’t seen Guildenstern in ages. Same with Jim, Bobby and Rolando Moon. I hope they are okay, wherever they are.

While checking the yard for any fallen branches or damage, I found…

20190922.fallen.tree.shroom

One of the tree mushrooms had fallen.

That thing is really big!

I looked around for the others I’d spotted a few days back; they are not only still there, but bigger than ever. All this rain is definitely mushroom weather!

The final find of the day was something my daughter had to point out to me, or I would have missed it entirely.

During the night, I kept hearing the kittens getting onto the dining table, where they are not allowed to be. In coming out to chase them off, they were usually already down, but I could see the cords from our ceiling fan swinging. They were getting on the table to try and play with them!

A friend of mine has had success with using aluminum foil to get her cats from doing where they are not supposed to, so I figured I’d give it a try, leaving sheets of them in front of each chair that they are using to get onto the table.

20190922.fail.prints

As you can see by the paw prints, it didn’t work!

Another find I made was a few days ago, during my rare times to the basement. I needed a washer of a particular size and hoped I could find one among the various drawers and cabinets down there.

I found this.

20190919.things.we.find.syringe

The old syringe my dad used to use to treat cattle. I remember it used to be stored in a case, together with needles of various sizes, but there is only the syringe, now. Check out the inner chamber, that would be sterilized and reused, again and again – as did the needles! They certainly don’t make them like this, anymore!

Interestingly, we found these just the next day.

20190919.things.we.find.medicine.bottles

I found them with my feet. These are the sorts of medicine bottles that would have been used with that syringe.

Knowing my brother was coming with some wheels to try on the old trailer frame in the hay yard by the barn, my daughter and I went to pull it out of the grass. It’s really heavy, so we were not going to be able to drag it out of the old hay yard, through the barn, and into the outer yard, as I’d hope we might be able to, but we didn’t want to just leave it in the grass again, either. Leaning against the barn were some old tires, so I dragged several out to put under the frame. While pulling out the first tire, I stepped on something that my foot slipped on, and found an old medicine bottle, half buried in the dirt. I moved it aside but when I came back for the next tire, I stepped on another one!

We took them into the barn. I don’t know what we’ll do with them, but I want to keep these! :-D

The Re-Farmer