UnCANny!

Once again, Can-Do Wyatt Whiteman has demystified home canning, while orchestrating an opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of working as a group to put food by. New this year, was making salsa. We learned not to touch our lips or eyes while cutting peppers and that one person's cool may be an other's hot. Click Can Can and scroll down to see more detailed canning reports of the past.

Our Eggs-Perience

Some of us came because our parents brought us.
Some of us came because we felt that as meat eaters, we should be able to take a life for our food.
Some of us came in support of our partners.
Some of us came to share our homesteading skills.
Some of us came to learn about housing options for, and care of laying hens.
Some of us came because we want to raise meat birds and wanted to see how our children would handle their harvest.
Some of us came because we raise laying hens and want to be prepared for the day they get old or injured.
Some of us came to bridge our suburban childhood to our partner's farm background.
Some of us came because as vegetarians we feel we must be fully responsible for any meat we eat.
ALL of us came to a deeper appreciation of our own lives, forged close bonds with each other, and went home richer in many ways besides the delicious bird we had prepared for a future meal.

TEAMWORK with Oxen

Local Farm team Jigger and Jolly and their devoted teamster Chuck met with participants to share the basics of training and driving oxen. Highlights included working in the woods, and hauling hay.
Click this link for a video of Jigger and Jolly in action: jigger & jolly. The first part is of their April Earth Day community service project, cleaning the roadsides of Popple Swamp Road. That's followed by the May 14 Old Style Life Skills Series Day of "Teamwork with Oxen" held at Local Farm by Chuck Duncan.

Beeginning With Bees

Are you interested in bee keeping? Wondering about getting your first bees?
We have a class to help.

Heidi Lindburg of Windsor Connecticut is the Motherhouse contact in the bee keeping world.

Heidi lectured on all things bee related. She broght books, posters, hive bodies, frames and other bee equipment.

After Heidi's talk we put together a super and frames.

At the end we dipped candles.
For more info see last years report here.

Family Cow Forum

Motherhouse Presents The Second Annual Family Cow Forum!!
On February 19 at 9:30 attendees started trickling in the door at the UCC parish house in Cornwall, CT. By 10:00 we had a good sized gathering.

First on the agenda was a talk on backyard cow nourishment by Al Earnhart of Lightning Tree Farm.
Al grows, harvests, mixes and sells organic grain for pigs, cows, goats, chickens and more.

Next a panel of back yard cow keepers and one goat keeper answered questions such as How many cows do you have? What is your milking setup? What was your biggest challenge and how did you solve it?
From left to right Dominic Palumbo, Garrick Dinneen, Rachel Gall(goats), Terry Bell, Brigitte Ruthman and Jean Ilsley.

After the panel was done we went outside to see Garrick work with his ox Buck.


Buck works as a single ox, Garrick has been training him since he was a calf.

And then we had lunch. When we were almost done eating we got to hear about Brigitte receiving a cease and desist order to stop farming and how she is dealing with it.

After lunch cow breeder extraordinaire Bob Kennedy talked on how to recognise when your cow is in heat. Also how to pick a bull that will improve on your cow's physical traits.

Good time was had by all.

Serious Dough

Do you know where your spoons are??? If these look familiar, please contact Debra@Motherhouse.us.

Caring for your sourdough starter:
In a quart jar, mix 1/2 cup water (if it is chlorinated "city" water let stand in an open container for at least 24 hours before use), 1 cup flour, and all of the starter you brought home today.

Loosely put lid on jar and store in refrigerator until ready to feed it again and/or bake bread. It must be fed weekly by mixing 1/2 cup starter, 1/2 cup water, and 1 cup flour in a clean qt jar and returning to refrig. What's left after you take out 1/2 cup for replenishing is what you use for making bread or flatties.
Here's Angelina's rendition of how we made flatties at the workshop:

You start with what is left of the sourdough mixture when you remove 1/2 cup for the starter.

Add a dash of sugar

1Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp salt

a handful of caraway seeds
enough flour to make it handle like bread dough

The mixture is very yeasty. And you should knead this dough a fair bit unlike the quick bread. Let it set for 10 mins to 2 hours.

Pinch the dough into balls and flatten or roll them into discs. Grill them on a cast iron skillet.

Here is a recipe for white sandwich bread adapted from Sara Pitzer's leaflet Baking with Sourdough published by Storey Publ.

In a large bowl mix:
1 cup sourdough starter
1 1/4 cup white flour
1 cup warm water
Let stand in a warm place for 10-24 hours til bubbly.
Heat 1 1/2 cups milk and melt in:
2 Tbsp. honey
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. butter
Let 2nd mixture cool to lukewarm then stir into bubbly starter mix.
Beat in approximately 6 cups white flour to make kneadable dough.
Turn out on floured counter, cover with damp dish towel and let rest 10-15 minutes.
Knead until dough is smooth and elastic.
Place dough in clean greased bowl, cover with damp towel and let rise until double in bulk (probably 2 or more hours).
Punch down and let rise until doubled a second time.
Knead it down and shape into 2 or 3 loaves (depending on pan size),
place in loaf pans, cover, and let rise til double.
Brush tops with melted butter. Bake in 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes
until loaves are nicely browned, pull away from sides of pan, and sound hollow when tapped.
Wrap in towel to cool.

Mature wheat plants.

Round Irish Soda Bread and rectangular Basic Bread from today's workshop.
Salt available from Selina Naturally or from Debra for $5/pound.
Wheat berries from Lightning Tree Farm in Millbrook, NY available through Debra for $0.50/#.
For cheesemaking workshops see New England Cheesemaking Supply Co.

Pi = ?

A Standard Pumpkin Pie Recipe:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix in a blender:
1 large can pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. flour
2 Tbsp. water
4 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp. vanilla.
Pour into two 9" pie shells and bake 45-50 minutes until firm.
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On Oct. 9, 26 pioneers learned to make a pie from scratch:
picking butternut squash and milling it,
boiling down maple sap to syrup,
grinding and grating whole spices,
gathering eggs,
milking a cow,
grinding flour,
rendering lard,
skimming cream and making butter.
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Visit this link for the recipe of a full and exciting day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOFEtzZZ_Gg

See www.Motherhouse.us for future Old Style Life-Skills Series workshops and other potential adventures.