The Academic Inn

What is this? Well, I'm glad you asked. It's an idea that has lead to the formation of several groups in intellectual circles, based on the writings of Leopold Kohr. You can find it at the following address:

http://www.williamfranklin.com/4thworld/academicinn/academicinn.html

There's lots there to think about and ponder. Yes, it was written a little while ago, and yes the world was different then, but not so significantly that it makes and fundamental difference. I encourage you to read it, and comment on what you found interesting.

As you know, I hold a man named John Seymour as the grandfather of Self-Sufficiency, as do many others. He is very highly respected in many circles for his honesty and integrity to the things he believed in. Now there may or may not have been incidences involving him, a field near his farm containing GMO sugar beet grown by Monsanto, and it's unfortunate digging up by the faeries. I believe that when he was asked about it in court and told by the prosecutor that "Faeries do not wear rubber boots" he replied that they must have been in disguise. Gotta love the man!

He gave 2 addresses at the inaugural meeting, arranged by his good friend John Papworth, of the Academic Inn, London. Here's a grainy and a little choppy sounding recording of his speech. His passion for the African people, traditional farming and his concerns over the sustainability of first world agri-business, mechanization and chemicalization make this a must see speech. It's 23 minutes and very relevant to today, though this speech was given by him in 1983 when he was about 80 years old. Probably the quote that stood out as being the most relevant to me was this...

"What the devil is the good of inventing a kind of agriculture that is entirely dependant on soluble nitrogen when you know perfectly well that your sources of it will have dried up in 40 years time, when you can grow perfectly good food, and enough of it, with good old muck that comes out of cows and sheep and things like that? And us for that matter. What's the good of that?"-John Seymour

The speech is a YouTube video at :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5485958120797215219&hl=en

That's my recommendation for viewing this week.

In the Kitchen today was cereal for breakfast, a mixed up casserole made of tuna, one package of stove top stuffing and 1 cup frozen corn, topped off with home made macaroni and cheese made with wholemeal flour. Sounds weird I know but it went over well and even the kids came from school and finished off the last of it for a snack. Dinner was breaded fish, beans and baby carrots, and buttered rice.

In the coop, all are healthy and happy. The chicks in the basement are eating drinking and digging around in their new home so apparently they are happy. Apparently our local health authority VIHA has deemed it acceptable for us local producers to sell our eggs to restaurants now. That's quite a change and good for many a local farmer. I missed the first swap of the year though I think there was a variety of older hens and chicks for the offering. I'll be sure to attend the next one, hopefully with some chicks to sell. Egg production was 5 eggs today. One silkie egg. Eggs in the incubator are due to hatch starting in a week.


In the garden we had a huge windstorm in the wee hours of the morning that knocked out power to 3000 people locally (but not us) and threatened to take our poly tunnel greenhouse and deposit it the neighbours yard. Luckily it stayed put. I will be going out tomorrow to finish pruning the grapes and kiwi, and sort out what I want to take for cuttings. I will go through the seeds bought and saved from last year to decide what I want to grow, what I want to plant where, and which seeds still need to be purchased. It's March, so time to get things started ready for planting out in May. Peas can go in soon so the garden needs to get turned over this week too. Maybe Steve will help me tomorrow if I'm nice to him. :)

Time to get housework done and then off to bed to plan and dream of the coming spring.

The Landlord Cometh

Our Landlady Shiela has decided to come and do yet another inspection of our place. Consequently now we're all stressed trying to clean up. We've got to re-sort the kids room, move the chicks into the basement while she is here, scrub and clean the whole house, get all the laundry caught up and do the yard. Yikes! So, she's coming Sunday so tomorrow is going to be family cleaning day.

Weather is 0 c. Partly cloudy at 10:21pm. Was a lovely sliver of moon hanging tonight very close to Venus. Very pretty!


In the Kitchen

Breakfast was steel cut oats cooked on top of the woodstove. I put them and water in a pot and left them to do their thing for a couple of hours and then we served them with brown sugar and a little milk. Filling, easy and yummy. $1.

Lunch was another cheap one. Ground deer meat (thanks Hans!) fried up until no longer pink, served with red kidney beans I cooked overnight on the woodstove (with lots of extra water and 2 chopped onions) rice, and Naan Bread. Oh, I tossed in the rest of the salsa in the fridge and a large can of chopped tomatoes along with salt, pepper, and some hot and spicy thai sauce that was left. Oh, and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese. Went over well with the kids who said they liked it.

Dinner, same as lunch. Yes, they liked it enough to eat 2 meals in a row. Total cost $3 for both meals, mostly because the beans and rice were bulk purchases dried, and the meat was free. 12 hearty servings.



In the Garden

Nothing new. Snow is mostly gone again. Time for a good cleanup and sweep of the driveway I think but other than that it's quiet.



In the Coop.

All are happy and snuggled up together. They are currently eating about 2 scoops (our scoop is a 2 litre jug) per day. I suspect this is mostly going into Big Bird, our turkey. Same with the 2 gallons of water. Layed 4 eggs. Suspect Silkies may be hiding theirs. Coop is dry and clean. Needs cobwebs removed from ceiling though as they are taking on a life of their own.


Well, goodnight. I'm off to bed early to get some rest before the big panic of cleaning tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Spring Has Sprung (A Leak!)

Yes, it's raining on the 'wet coast' . +7 celcius. This morning was so gloriously sunny though that I have no complaints. I got my visiting teaching done in record time, found out there was a lien on Steve's van from somebody several years ago and about 4 owners previously (advice to everyone...do a lien search before buying any car!!) Fortunately the people in question are in good standing with their bank and so the lien can be removed with nothing more than some paperwork being faxed back and forth. Phew! That's a relief, I had visions of the bank coming and just taking the van which of course they could do legally. Spent all afternoon on the phone getting it all worked out. Glad that's nearly over though.

My sister Alex is expecting her baby 'Emily Moira Jessie Roberts' any time now, well in the next couple of weeks anyway. She's going to be a big one by the looks of it. My sister and I spoke about cloth diapers. I'm a big fan and she's going to try them out. It'll save her lots of money even if she uses them part time and uses disposables when they are going out. You can see more information in an article I wrote several years ago at www.gabbys.net/zencart/clothdiapers_disposable.php Let me know what you think. I've got lots of experience with cloth diapers of all sorts and am always interested to know others thoughts and advice. Personally I love motherease diapers and found them to be practical and durable. I like Gabby's too. Both are Canadian companies but sell worldwide.

In The Garden

Life at the ol' homestead rolls on as usual. I'm critically eyeing the weather and deciding if it's too early to start seedlings indoors yet. My bare root apple trees are here and will be planted in their boxes in the next week. They are all looking good and many thanks to Harry Burton of Applelucious Orchards. Also in the plans now are soft fruit bushes. Berries. We're going to get blueberries, gooseberries, thornless blackberry (yes we have 3 types of wild ones here but I want to see what a difference cultivated berries make) raspberries and some strawberries. All of these will grace the beds and planters on the deck due to predation from our free ranging chickens. I'm going to try for 2-3 varieties of each plant to see what really works for me. Ones I love can always be duplicated by taking cuttings and since I know I have to move in a year or so, that's more practical. Oh, I also ordered a male kiwi vine to compliment our 2 girls. I still have a lot of trimming to do but I'm going to wait for a cold day so that the sap will drip less. If you cut a kiwi vine in spring or summer it can bleed ie. drip sap for quite a while. It won't hurt the plant and it can usually heal itself in a few minutes but I have had mine go for hours in the spring before. Don't panic. You can use a styptic or wait for nature to heal it. My roses and other perennial bushes are trimmed and I'm just waiting for a chance to get out and trim my grape vines. I'll try to root some of the cuttings again to add to last year's compliment. If I end up with too many I guess I could always sell them.

Chicks.

We had 3 healthy chicks hatch 10 days ago and one who wasn't healthy so she was put to sleep. I think some of the other eggs we put in may have been frozen or over chilled so I was much more vigilant about collecting eggs right away this time. There are eggs in the incubator again and we'll hopefully get more chicks to keep their friends company. The current batch is in a shaving lined box with a waterer, feeder, and heat lamp. They're starting to get out now and explore the bathroom floor so I have to watch out for little mini-poops. Ick! Thank goodness it's tile and easy to clean!

Our Wheat Mill Arrives

I got my Family Grain Mill this past weekend and tried it out as soon as I got home. It is a hand mill that clamps on to the counter top and it makes lovely flour the first time so you don't have to run it through twice like with some other hand mills. And the bread tastes wonderful. To top it all of I'm getting my flabby arms in shape by turning the handle everyday to grind fresh wheat. Yum! For anyone interested, here's my recipe for

60% whole wheat honey bread.

Ingredients

• 2 envelopes yeast
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 6 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 cups white flour

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in water.
2. In a large bowl, combine butter, molasses, honey and salt and mix well.
3. Add yeast mixture and then gradually add flours.
4. Turn onto floured surface and knead until smooth. Or alternately place in your bread maker and run it through the first kneading cycle twice.
5. Place in buttered bowl and let rise until double.
6. Punch down and let rest for a few minutes.
7. Divide dough into 4 parts and shape into loaves.
8. Place in greased pans and let rise for about an hour.
9. Bake at 375* for 35 to 40 minutes.
   
10. My oven cooks hot so I do the following: Place loaf pans on the lowest rack for 30 minutes at 325* Your best bet it to experiment with your oven. A loaf is done when you tap it on the bottom and it sounds hollow. If you can control your oven to have just bottom heat it will prevent the top crust from over browning.
    

There you have it! It makes 4 loaves by the way so enough for most people for a week. Enough for our family for 2 days at most. This is a good easy recipe to make and for getting your family used to whole wheat. Tomorrow I'll post my 100% Whole wheat bread. Guaranteed to keep you regular so start out slowly eating this if you're not used to it. Oh, thanks to recipezaar for this recipe. :) Oh, one thing I get asked is about consistency of dough, too wet, too dry etc. Lots of things affect that like the season, moisture in the air gets picked up by your flour and if it's a dry winter flour loses moisture. Start out with the freshest flour you can, use good fresh or dried active yeast at room temperature, and judge the dough by feel. It should feel smooth and silky once kneaded. In a bread maker it should feel a little softer than you'd have if you were kneading it by hand. I'll confess that I only use my bread maker for kneading the dough if I'm busy. I'm not sure I've ever used it for baking as I don't like the results I've eaten before. Maybe it's just me though.

All this talk of bread is making me hungry so I'm off to start a new batch. Bye!

5 hours later.....

Well, didn't get bread made yet due to other pressing family matters but did enjoy a nice evening out with my hubby as we had to move date night this week due to our grand-daughters birthday dinner being on Friday which is our traditional date night. We went to the Rod N' Gun Cafe again for dinner. A favourite haunt of ours. Their 4 course meals are $18 per person during the week and the food is scrumptious. Had Antipasto, Tuscan Caesar salad, grilled lamb shops in a fig and balsamic reduction with yellow beets, yellow and orange carrots, red peppers and cheddar chipotle mashed potatoes, with chocolate souffle for dessert. Yum! The kids ate at home (obviously) and had baked burritos (the bean and cheese frozen kind) topped with cheese and salsa plus onion rings. They said it was delicious. It's a good cheap meal if you can buy a large packet of burritos or make some and then just put them in a pan and cover with toppings and bake. We can usually make this meal for $8. Today the cost was $5 and we used up some cheese that was getting a little dry around the edges. Sometimes we top with peppers and onions or crumbled bacon..anything that'll work that's leftover in the fridge. I'm thinking of writing a book including recipes to make on a budget. What do you think? Well, now I've blown my dating budget for the month, I'm off to bed. Got up WAY TOO EARLY this morning so an early night is in order. Just got to turn he eggs in the incubator and check the temperature. Goodnight!

The Grape Experiment

We are taking cuttings from our resident grape vines and are going to try 3 different methods and document the success of each. Partly out of curiosity, and partly because we are practical and want to guarantee success. We are renting our current home so we want to take some of this vine with us. We currently have 2 other cultivars of table grape (as opposed to the tart wine grapes) and will possibly have fruit off our 3 year old specimen this year. I'll pinch out any flowers that develop on my younger vines so the vine will put it's energy into developing it's root system which is in my opinion better for the vine. Our cuttings right now are in a glass jar of water, and in between the tomato plants in the planters on my deck. I cut green cuttings and left one leaf on each. I cut the leaf in half if it was large to reduce the amount of water lost while the cutting develops roots to support itself. I keep them moist, and we'll see what happens. They don't appear to be wilting but I will leave them until after I dig out the tomatoes unless there is obvious growth and then I may carefully prick them out and pot them individually. Our lease is up in March so we may have to move in the winter and it's easy to move pots with dormant vines in them. I may take some stem cuttings this winter too and heel them into moist sand. The next cuttings I am going to try are green cuttings with rooting hormone. I'll let you know how they turn out. If they all work, I could end up having several hundred vines so guess what you're getting for Christmas!

Today another batch of beans is going in the garden. Royal Burgundy and also yellow wax. I was thinking of another row or 2 of peas but the weather may be too warm. The corn is growing but not amazingly well. I think it's not getting enough heat and water maybe as it is a little sheltered by the kiwi vine. Same for some of the squash. I watered them separately to make sure the soil moisture in the garden is constant and we'll see if it makes a difference. It should be obvious in a week. I'm going to put down another drip hose and see if that helps. Drip hoses placed along the rows of plants are good because they waste less water than an overhead sprinkler that loses so much due to evaporation. They also put the water where you want it, at the roots, and so the leaves stay dry thereby having less fungus problems, and the weeds don't get watered. When we had our big prairie garden in Alberta, we spaced the rows further apart and ran drip hoses on our low pressure well. Very few weeds grew between rows which saved on a lot of raking and hoeing. In fact we just drove the rototiller up and down a couple of times and that was it. It soon got too hot and dry for the weeds to germinate. We still had to weed between the individual plants but it was minimal due to the shading of the veggies not allowing weeds to get started much. Another method is intensive planting (like the french intensive method) which uses soil preparation and shading to control weed growth and allows more harvest per area than traditional methods. As for watering your row garden, you can leave drip hoses on a maturing garden over night and give the roots the benefit of a good deep soaking. I used to water only once a week, but for 12-24 hours. When germinating seed I found it best to plant during expected wet weather or to overhead sprinkle to keep moisture around the level of the seeds to aid germination and make sure they don't dry out.

I am going to turn the chicken compost today and should be able to use it in the garden in another week or two. It's earmarked for the potatoes. I started brussels sprout seed yesterday as well as watermelons and beans. They're on the deck. I need to finish planting tomatoes out today and then think about what I'm going to put in my winter garden. I figure the watermelons will mature on the deck (hot and south facing) even in September and I planted an early maturing variety. That's a good tip for end of season planting, plant varieties that mature quickly, the ones you'd normally plant early in the spring before your main season crops. They have a better chance of maturing in the shorter growing period in the fall. Peas, spinach and lettuce all do better in cooler weather so I plant them in spring and fall. And if the peas get nipped too badly by the frost before I get all the peas picked, I just dig them under as green manure. Anyways, I'm off outside in my straw hat and sunscreen while it's cool and the house is calm.

Happy Gardening!