Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Oh Nuts!

Here are some brief notes on our adventures with harvesting nuts at the farm and at the Styka family cabin.

Walnuts:
-Harvested a 5 gallon bucketful in the fall at the farm
-Husked them by rolling them between our hands or under our feet
-Dried them in the attic for a week
-Cracked them using Neal's "Super Duper Nut Cracker" (supposedly the best all around nut cracker from Lehman's). Pieces were flying all over the living room so we started cracking them inside a box.
-Extracted pieces of nut meat using an awl and wire cutters. (Neal voted this as the most time consuming part of all)
-Sorted all the pieces (to make sure the shells were out of there since they are quite rough on the teeth)
-Ate little walnut pieces on a variety of foods (our favorite way was toasted and sprinkled on butternut soup)





Acorns:
-Harvested during hikes at the cabin up north in early November and stuffed them in our pockets*
-Poured water over nuts in a bucket. Ones that floated weren't worth keeping
-Tried numerous options for cracking the nuts, but favored drying them in the oven and cracking them with plyers
-Poured water over nut meat in a bucket again. Rotten pieces and shells floated to the top and could be tossed
[HERE IS WHERE THERE IS HUGE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT]
-Soaked the acorns in water to remove the bitter tannins every day for over a month with a result of the insides of the acorn meat still tasting very bitter.
[HERE IS WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE DONE]
-Used a food processor to chop the acorn pieces as finely as possible (then soak on a regular basis until the tannins were gone)
-Baked the acorn flour/meal into a cornmeal bread
*(Note: We used acorns from red oaks because that is what we had available. We think white oaks would have been far less bitter, but still would have required some soaking)







Friday, January 11, 2013

Our first blizzard

We got about 15 inches of snow on December 20th at the farm. I was stoked! It was an opportunity for me to  bunker down in the house and work on craft projects. Neal braved the weather and drove to work. Catherine got a bunch of projects done both indoors and outdoors.

View from the cupola

The lodge

Another view from the cupola

The coop looks tiny here

Corn crib and garage

Love the way this tree looks


We toured the property

Neal loves our new snow shoes

The snow was so deep in the drifts

Pretty

Back by the walnut trees

View of the fields by Catherine

We created a few paths the places we use often

The ol' corn crib

Also pretty
Neal's pigpen snow angel

I made a scrap rug with all our old jean scraps. It should help warm up the place a touch. I found a similar pattern on the internet a while ago... check it out if you need more detailed directions.


Start by removing all the seams and holes and dirty spots



Cut strips about 1/2 inch thick

You could roll this into a ball,
but I just did one section at a time to save a step

Use a large crochet hook and follow the pattern of your choice


Final product... needs to have a heavy object
placed on it to flatten it out



Friday, January 4, 2013

Let's Get Jacked Up


As some of you may know, the floor in the lodge had some major dips in it. Catherine's friend, Jim, gave us some advice on how to jack up the house and sister new joists on to the old ones. David lent Neal a hand in December while he visited us during Christmas break. They report that it wasn't as gross under the lodge as you would think, but they kept running into snags (like new 2X8's being too long for the building, etc). Neal finished the next weekend. We're grateful for the help we received, the knowledge we gained, and that the project is finally over since it's getting a bit cold out!

We will probably add some insulation under the floors at a later date. Just have to work up the motivation again.

Here are some pictures that chronicle the progress.


The original sag in the floor at its worst

Not level... but that might be a bit more permanent

"X" marks the spot

Getting supplies from the barn

The entrance to the cave

The plans

More plans

Good thing Neal enjoys caving

David worked on a side project

I was "helping" by offering encouragment

We found some extra jacks

David getting involved too