23/03/2019 23/03/2019

tap tap tap

The sap is running! Last year we were largely robbed of the sugar season when winter ended a month early (just kidding! Catastrophic frost in June!). I completely failed to get taps in the trees on time last year. This year, the sugar season is right on time, precisely timing the sugar moon. I've got one tree tapped, the sap is flowing, and I'm even boiling it down!

22/02/2018 22/02/2018

Emotionion

21/09/2017 21/09/2017

Tomato abundance

09/09/2017 09/09/2017

Peach season

04/09/2017 04/09/2017

Canning Fail!

12/01/2017 12/01/2017

How to be a Dumpster Diving ninja

Wanna join the craze, feel the rush, get utterly depressed by the unavoidable awareness of this society’s pointless waste?Dumpster Ninja Skills 101 - A Comprehensive Guide to the Cold Hard PrecautionsThink like a ninja, dress like a ninja

11/01/2017 11/01/2017

Dumpster diving: reports from the food waste front

Once I pulled up to our usual dumpster with my partner, and another truck was already there (yes, a truck is appropriate for the quantity of food). The pig farmer it belonged to was standing atop the dumpster with a hayfork, stabbing 1-3 bags of potatoes at a time and pitching them into his pickup bed. The dumpster was too full to shut, with five pound bags of Yukon Golds.

18/12/2016 18/12/2016

So much for ceramic knives

03/12/2016 03/12/2016

Honey part two

After the honey extraction comes filtration. Have to get out all the bee wings, wax caps and bits of leaves.See my super high-tech filtration system.

02/11/2016 02/11/2016

2016 Canned food tally

02/11/2016 02/11/2016

2015 Canning inventory

21/09/2016 21/09/2016

SOLAR OVEN EGGPLANT

Eggplant sliced a 1/2 inch thick, sliced fresh tomatoes, and grated or sliced cheese. Hose down with olive oil and bake until the cheese bubbles.

30/04/2016 30/04/2016

Solar granola

13/03/2016 13/03/2016

Roasted Garlic from the Sun oven

26/09/2015 26/09/2015

Plum preserved

I put the next batch through my jelly bag (but only quickly, not a full extraction), and the result was part 1, incredible glowing pink plum juice which I drank, and part 2, plum"sauce" the consistency of applesauce, which I canned.

23/09/2015 23/09/2015

Accidental soda

My first clue was the bottle that burst. I heard it - bang- followed by an ominous dripping sound. (I'm glad I was home to hear it), and ferreted out the cause. The lid had blown off, chipping the rim of the bottle.

19/09/2015 19/09/2015

Garlic abundance

27/08/2015 27/08/2015

The apple flow is on

Every day, the first apple tree is dropping five gallons of apples. Dropping. That's a fraction of how many are staying on the tree.

20/08/2015 20/08/2015

It's Apple Time!

The apples are coming! One of the big, old, stately ancient apple trees by the old farmhouse is loaded with fruit, weighing the branches down to the ground. I picked up about 5 gallons of apples just off the ground, lobbing many of them directly into the pig compound. Oink, oink. Happy pigs.