Early summer report

I apologize for the long absence. These long early summer days keep rather busy it would seem. We've been getting a little hassled with the slow, dial up internet and it seems as if the blogger site is not designed for those with the slower internett access.

It's been a hot week here in the midwest and we could really use some rainfall. The garden is doing well, although I have been competing with the chickens a bit. Someone was not responsible enough to get a fence erected in time! I've scaled back a bit compared to other years because I have so much shop work to do.

The chickens are still doing well. Our batch from February are doing well and are achieving young adult status. The little roosters are starting crow and they look like they will be nice looking birds to show at the fair. The egg production is down a bit - I think the hens are thinking about molting, but I am not sure. We've had a fox in the yard several times causing a bit of mayhem, but he has not been seen for a week or so.

It seems as if the deer population is really growing. Rachel hit a deer with the van a couple months ago and it seems as if each week we are having close calls with deer. I also saw a rafter of turkeys just down the road. (who makes up these names for flocks of birds...I can understand a gaggle of geese, a parliament of owls, and a paddling of ducks, but what's with a rafter of turkeys?!)

I recent read a book by Eric Brende entitled "Better Off". He and his wife spent a year and a half shutting off the power while they learned to live off the land within an Amish (or perhaps a similar group) community. The book is an enjoyable and thought provoking read as a young couple used to the amenities that electricity provides learns to do without. After the experiment, he determines that they were better off.

We have always assumed that we would have a constant supply of cheap fuel resources and we have become very dependent upon electricity and crude oil. The recent spike in gasoline supplies have forced some of us to conserve, but as one who tends to lean toward the validity of the peak oil thoery, I don't really believe we will receive any meaningful reprieve from high prices. In fact, it is my thought that within the coming decades rising oil costs will significantly impact our lives.

I have some pictures to share, but I'll wait for a later time. Hopefully I'll be more faithful to contribute to this blog in the weeks ahead.

A time to plant

It has finally warmed up to the point that I decided it was time to work up the garden and get some dirt under my fingernails. I let the boys do some of the manly work, mainly wrapping their hands around the handles of an old Montgomer Ward rototiller that does a fine job of tilling up the soil if you can handle the obnoxious thing. It weighs about a million pounds and is self propelled. Once the garden is worked up a little, it works well, but if you're working up sod or hard soil, it's debatable whether or not the actually tilling is done by the tiller or the two furrows made by your feet as you try to dig in to keep the the tiller from dragging you across the yard.

The girls helped do the planting, which thus far consisted of onions, beets, carrots, radishes, and potatoes. We'll wait a week or two before putting in the warm weather crops.

Some folks talk about the size of chicken brains and their knowledge to get in out of the rain. I couldn't help but observe that while we were laboring under the warm April sun, they managed to find a place in the shade to relax and watch.

April Update

It's been awhile since I have contributed to the blog. We are all alive and well, eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring. We've had a few nice days in April, although the nice weather was interrupted by a snow storm and about 10 days of cold weather. Warm weather has returned and with it marked the beginning of the garden and mowing season. The grass was mowed a couple days ago and the garden is now tilled. I planted a few rows of onions and hope to soon contribute radishes and potatoes to the mix.

The kids are withing a couple weeks of completing their school assignments. The boys spent the dad with their grandpa - his job was to "work the living tar out of them"! They'll be busy here as well. I have a good bit of wood to cut and a neighbor nearby asked me to clean his timber up.

Our work schedule is filling up nicely. We have a few new projects to begin this month and the woodshop seems to be as busy as ever. I'll try to post a few pictures of recent projects soon.

I recently traveled to Holland, Michigan, to visit a friend of mine who has been struggling with his health. The trip began sluggishly as the transmission went out of our old van. I've found another van to replace it. The new van has high miles and we'll hope I picked one that has some life in it yet.

It seems like these days one can hardly miss a day without a horrific new story. There is a great need in this country for revival. In the same sense that as the apostle Paul prayed that his country men would be saved, I think it is time for those among us who profess the name of Christ to earnestly plead that God might show mercy upon this land and bring about revival through the working of His Spirit.

Of course, history reveals the constant rise and fall of civilizations. It could well be that God intends to bring this nation to her knees. We as a people have grown coveteous and have erected idols of our own making. Our society seems to frown on authentic Christianity and lawmakers pass laws that call good evil and evil good. I once heard a prominent Christian educator remark that our society is now for the most part biblically illiterate.

The saints of God must not lose hope. The weapons of our warfare our powerful and the gospel of Christ is well able to melt the hearts of the most wicked men. Saul of Tarsus was heading to Damascus to pillage and plunder the church of God and on the way the Spirit of God transformed his heart and he became the apostle Paul, planting churches rather than destroying them and writing Scriptures proclaiming the gospel of Christ rather than trying to eradicate those who confess Christ openly. May God do such work across this land.

March is here!

Well, March is finally here, but really so you would notice. The first day of March held some indication of spring with a high temperature above freezing and some rainfall. Thunderstorms were near enough to hear thunder in the distance. Winter was not to be shoved aside so easily, as this first picture indicates. March 2 saw a day of snow and wind, with drifts closing some rural roads and making travel miserable. This morning, the temperature stands at only 7 degrees.




February was cold and snowy, in fact, it was the fifth coldest February on record and the third snowiest. Nearly half of the month so lows below 0. Cabin fever begins to set on because there was only so much you can tolerate to do outside when the wind chills are 40 below 0 and the snow is knee deep. The girl snuggle up on the couch to keep warm, trying to catch a little heat from the fireplace. Our woodstove does a nice job heating our house most of the time, but when it is below 10, the cold begins to creep in from the walls and the house heats rather unevenly.




The animals survive the best they can, sometimes casting a woeful glance into the house, wondering where the kids are and smelling the wholesome smells of supper cooking and bread baking. The eyes of this cat don't show up in this uploaded picture, but the little angry slits seemed to indicate an intense jealousy for those basking in the heat of the fire. I don't mind pets, but I can't tolerate them indoors. The chickens handled the cold quite well. We lost none and they continued to lay between 30-36 eggs each day.


After working the shop, I enjoy coming in and reading to the kids. Sometimes I will sit in my Amish hickory bent rocking chair, but if its chilly, I'll lay on the couch and get underneath a blanket. The kids pile on as listen as I read to them. In this case, I was reading one of the books in the Little House on the Prairie series. They are delightful stories and it had been a long time since I last read them. When I was a youngster, I was fascinated by the Old West and often dreamed that I had a nice little homestead somewhere. Maybe if I was honest, I would confess that I still do!

Given my past knowledge of March, I anticipate that one day it will warm up and the snow will begin to warm. I need to start thinking about pruning the apple trees and raspberry bushes. We have 20 new little chicks and I need to make a new pen for them when it gets a little warmer to keep them separate from the rest of the chickens. I've thought seriously about getting a hive of honey bees, but I haven't quite decided on that for sure. I love honey, but I am kind of afraid of bees - and I really hate being stung. I was reading an article on raising bees, I read that even a gentle bee keeper will "inevitably get stung." Hmmm.

Pa Ingalls went out into the big woods and loaded the buck board wagon with honey from the big honey tree. Upon cutting down the tree and scooping out the contents, he commented that "Bees never sting me." Well, Pa, if I get bees, I hope I am like you!

Brrr....

It's been kind of an odd winter. After five weeks or so of very mild weather, it has turned cold and snowy. We've had temps below 0 now for the past week or so. Yesterday about 6" of fluffy snow fell. I don't mind the cold weather at all, but it is really hard on things. Our van's brakes seem to be awry and we've had some frozen water lines.

The critters around the house seem to handling the cold rather well. The hens are still laying. One decided to lay a rather enormous egg. Speaking of eggs, we took some to be incubated, but we have yet to hear how many of the eggs are fertile. One of the boys wants to have chickens for a 4-H project, so they need some chicks that are hatched fairly early in the year.

We finished building a covered roof over a cow lot for a farmer who had issues with the EPA after a heavy rain storm washed cow manure from the lot into ditch, which ultimately emptied itself into a yard on the edge of a small town at the bottom of the hill. It was pretty cold work, but at least the lot was frozen, so it wasn't too messy for working.

This week we framed up walls in a basment for some folks who wanted to finish their basement off. That project is waiting for the electrical and plumbing to be installed.

In the shop, I am working on a two piece desk and a kitchen island. I hope to conclude both projects within a week.

Journal Entry

Winter has finally returned after about a month's absence. We received about 4" of snow last week and with it arrived colder weather. It continues to snow - there is a pretty decent snow cover now and with the deep snow cover on clear nights it has been below 0. We have a good supply of firewood and with the furnace heating the wood shop which is on the northwest of the house to 45 degrees , we haven't even had to use the house furnace yet.

The kids continue to read and do their school work, mingling in ample time to play in the snow. The boys finished reading a book on Davy Crockett and are now reading Up From Slavery. They get to pick their fictional reading, which I notice has been trending toward Louis L'Amour stories. Of course, each day they do their math assignment as well as a writing assignment.

I have been reading to them a book by Bruce Chadwick entitled "The First American Army". It is a good story on some of the men fighting under Washington. I was delighted to discover a new American hero named the Revered Ammi Robbins.

He was a Congregationalist pastor that pastored in Connecticut. I did a bit of research on him and I believe his family traveled across the ocean aboard the Mayflower. Many of the Robbins men were pastors and eventually held offices at various colleges. Rev. Robbins volunteered to serve as a chaplain, enlisting four different time in spite of the horrific things he endured as a chaplain. He was with Arnold's troops during the disastrous campaign to invade Canada. He labored among men dying of small pox and was sick several times himself. He was a very revered chaplain who went beyond the call of duty in comparison to most chaplains.

He left behind a journal which seems to no longer be in print. This book quotes the journal often and I would love to get a hold of a copy. He had a great love for the troops and at times was able to preach before crowds of thousands. He was often praised for his powerful preaching, to which he replied "May I be more concerned to please God and less to please men." He was advised to not reenlist due to his health, yet he was moved with compassion due to the plight of the men and their need for prayer. At a visit to the hospital at Ticonderoga, he remarked "Never was such a portrait of human misery as in these hospitals." He prayed with them and preach with them, urging them to "Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer."

Our hens continue to lay well. We are preparing to deliver some eggs to a neighbor that has an incubator. The neighbors 4-H projects require birds for showing at the fair this fall to be born this year. So we are going to take 3 dozen eggs and see if any birds hatch. This family has a lot of knowledge in raising birds and it sounds as if they were surprised to hear how well they were laying and how quickly they reached a nice butcher weight (for a dual purpose heavy breed.)

It's in the dead of winter, but I have started getting seed catalogues already. I love the cold and snow but I did notice that I was looking at the one of the spring catalogues the other night! Thinking of spring got me thinking about hunting for mushrooms. Mmm!

Wheat, flour, bread

For thousands of years, bread has been a staple food product for people all over the world. Scores of different grains have been harvested and ground in some form or another to create a flour with which bread can be made. With the augment of the bakery evolving into the industrial food industry, the art of grinding whole wheat flour and baking fresh bread soon was lost, first to the wealthier class and finally to all but a few.

We recently purchased some different kinds of grains and a grain mill so that we could try to make our own breads and noodles. Rachel has tried a few different recipes, using different varietes of wheat, with some working well and others not working so well. I have yet to try my hand at making a loaf, although I hope too soon.

There are a lot of steps required to turn wheat into bread. It first has to be harvested and then the kernels need to taken from the stalk. The kernels then need to be ground into a flour. Our ancestors took a handful of stalks and beat them upon ground to separate the kernels from the head. The kernels were then ground by hand, simply by beating the wheat with a stone, which was first operated by hand until the stone mill was invented.

We chose a more modern method - we bought a Bosch Grain mill that utilizes an electric current! Some of the kneading can be done by the Kithcen Aid. After the dough is ready, we put it in an electric stove and bake it until its fragrance demands that we take it out! (Now that we can fancy ourselves to be fine agrarian bakers, we have to admit that our skills are made possible by the power lines outside!)

The kernel consists of three parts, the bran, the germ, and the endosperm. All three parts have a specific nutrient function. Bread available commercially typically uses white flour, which is made specifically of the endosperm. The governments mandatory enrichment program insists in adding back some of the nutrients that are lost, but there can be no denying that a loaf of bread made out of whole wheat flour is more nutritious and more flavorful. The dawning of the of commercial food production is actually a rather interesting study. We invented so many "helpful" techniques in commercializing the production of foods that it was noticed in the 20's and 30's that people were suffering from poor nutrition. The government finally determined that they had better step in an require certain food products, like flour and milk, to be enriched.

There was a time when bread baking was a staple part of the domestic life. It's fascinating to observe that in our age of knowledge and information that most of us have no idea how to turn a kernel of wheat into a loaf of bread. Most of us don't have the time to take to make it. We load up with bread from the super market, with its plastic wrapping and 100 ingredients that are difficult to pronounce.

Last Saturday, the house smelled of fresh bread. Three of the four loaves are pictured above. I fear that they have somehow mysteriously disappeared!