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.
______
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.
______
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.

We CAN Do!!!

On August 14, Master Canner, Wyatt Whiteman of 1760's Farmhouse in Fairfield, CT met in Cornwall at Local Farm to impart his wisdom to 15 canning wanna-be's. As one happy participant noted, "The 'Yes, We CAN Can' workshop was just that; a demystification of the canning process and an affirmation of our ability to go home and can whatever. Even though there was little formal instruction and we were all so busy doing various parts of the process that no one had time to step back and observe all the steps, the group accomplished SO much working in such a primitive set-up, I now feel confident that I could find and follow a recipe to can almost anything." Wyatt recommends the Ball Blue Book Guide to Home Canning and Freezing for recipes and instructions. Other informational/experiential tidbits we gained were...








Even after carefully washing and examining jars for chips and cracks, sometime you lose one.




















We learned that pre-boiling beets and scalding tomatoes and peaches made them much easier to peel with next to no loss of produce. The skins just slipped off with minimal effort. However over-scalding fruit cooked it and made a sloppy mess.













Wyatt emphasized packing the jars very tightly so that they would still be full of fruit even after it had cooked, softened, and settled into place. We used knife handles and plastic spoons to release as many air pockets as possible so that the jars would not have a large empty space at the top after processing.
To ensure a good seal, one must leave the specified space between the produce in the jar and the CLEAN top rim. Carefully wipe off any spillage before putting on the lids and rings.


One can can acidic fruits (like tomatoes or peaches) and anything pickled with vinegar (like our dilly beans and pickled beets) with the hot water bath method. Everything else must be canned with a pressure canner. Wyatt recommends heating the loaded canner until steam has been pouring out of the top for ten minutes, then put on the pressure valve and start timing according to your recipe. A big fan of pressure canning method, Wyatt says "It uses half the time, half the energy, and a great deal less worry."

We discovered the truth in the adage, "Many hands make light work."













Working with others makes the job so much more fun AND productive!





Wyatt's DVD, A Visual Guide to Canning, is available for $12 from Debra@Motherhouse.us. For other Motherhouse workshops and events, visit Motherhouse.us.

Jamming

Jamming experts Brent Prindle and Joanne Wojtusiak.
Home kitchen jam and jelly makers of the best kind.At the end of the day we would go home with four types of jam and jelly.
Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Blueberry Jam
Rhubarb Ginger Jam
Green Apple Jelly


Green Apple Jelly
3 1/3 pounds green apples
4 2/3 cups granulated sugar
6 1/3 cups water
Juice of one small lemon

Rinse the apples in cold water. Remove the stem and cat the fruit into quarters without peeling them. Put them in a pan and cover them with water. When the apple mixture comes to a boil, simmer for half an hour over on low heat.
Collect the juice by pouring the preparation into a fine chinois sieve and pressing lightly on the fruit with the back of a skimmer. Now filter it a second time though cheese cloth, which you have wet and wrung out.

Pour 4 1/4 cups of the juice into a preserving pan with the lemon juice and the sugar. Bring to a boil, skim, and continue cooking on high heat for 5 to 10 minutes. Skim again if necessary. Return to a boil. Check the set. Pour the jelly into jelly jars and seal.

This jelly is used as pectin for low pectin fruit.


Ginger Rhubarb Jam

4 cups diced fresh rhubarb
3 cups sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Combine rhubarb, sugar, ginger and lemon juice in a large saucepan. Let stand until sugar is moistened by juices, about 20 minutes. Place over medium-high heat and cook, stirring, until thick and clear.
Skim off foam. Ladle into hot sterilized canning jars and seal immediately.


Blueberry Jam

Blueberries are low in acid and equal amounts of blueberries and sugar will not set without added pectin. Pectin packages contain recipes that are really sure fire and easy to follow. The one on the Ball powdered pectin product follows:


4 cups crushed blueberries (use a potato masher)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 package of dry pectin
4 cups sugar

Combine blueberries and lemon juice and gradually add pectin. Stirring constantly, bring mixture to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Add entire measure of sugar and stir to dissolve. Return mixture to a rolling boil and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and skim off foam. Ladle into clean, warm jars taking care not to spill any jam on rim.Place hot lid on top and apply ring, but not too tightly. Turn jars upside down for 5 minutes to seal. Turn right side up and check for seal by pressing down on the lid, there should be no give.



According to Joanne there are three must have books.

It was a lovely day and much was learned by all.