More Fall Prep

Our shed needs some TLC. The bottoms of the plywood have rotted and need to be replaced. We were planning to expand and redo the shed this summer, and as always, time flies. But seriously, something needs to be done before winter. 

G has a carpenter friend who agreed to help. He came out to go over the plan and they detached the fence from the north corner of the shed. 

All our animals are enjoying this small change. 

The chickens have been congregating in the north corner of the pasture now (probably because they don't have to go around Jip). The goats too have been in that corner more. Maybe they like using the north door to get to that spot instead of going all the way around. 

We had to move Jip's tether further away from the shed because with the fence down he could get inside. Everyone normally gets along, but the chickens do get riled up when he gets in the shed. 

His new tether spot lets him snooze in piles of leaves, which I think he loves. One of the modifications we plan to make with the shed is to give Jip a corner kennel he can come inside but still be kept away from the other animals. Just too much puppy in him still for free reign! 

Jaron and I have been trying to organize the basement. We took a reading break and out of the blue he said, "Gerda!" 

 Actually Senka, but good eye buddy! 

Potato Harvest

We are trying to clean out our garage to make room for our vehicles for winter. G likes to park the cars outside in the spring/summer/fall because of the convenience, and then the garage gets filled up with stuff so they couldn't park inside even if we wanted to. So this is kind of an annual thing. 😂 

We had moved all the potato containers in the garage to keep them from getting rained on before we could harvest. The potatoes were keeping just fine in their little dirt beds, but we needed the garage space. 

G hauled them down to the garden one at a time and Jaron and I dug through the dirt to find the potatoes. 

Sweet potato harvest was a little disappointing after those gigantic ones I pulled off the top: 

Our other potato varieties had decent sized potatoes, but not as many as I hoped. 

And yes, those are small rocks mixed among the potatoes. Last year I was silly and added small rocks to the bottom of the bins to help with drainage (even though I drilled drain holes). I wasn't thinking of them getting mixed in the soil when I dumped them out for harvest. I reused the soil this year, but we'll do new soil next year. I definitely don't want all the little rocks landing in the garden! 

So as Jaron and I harvested, we picked out as many of the little rocks as we could. Definitely didn't get them all! 

High Energy Cookies with Sucanat

The NICU always had these cookies around, meant for lactation but labeled high energy so the dad's wouldn't feel weird about eating them too. 😜 

I like to make them as dessert for meal train meals, but there is a lot of sugar in them... How about using an alternative sweetener? 

So I used chat gpt to help me adjust the ratio. This first batch used 1/2c white sugar and 1/2c sucanat. 

Very mild sweetness to the cookies. 

After I had everything mixed together, I remembered that using sucanat is not a straight 1:1 volume replacement for regular sugar. Using a weight is much more accurate. 

So I went back to chat to ask for a weight replacement... This time it said to do all sucanat, 200g (or 100g sucanat, 100g coconut sugar). 

So I did. If you look closely at the picture of finished cookies, you might be able to tell the difference in batches. The sucanat cookies are on the right and they are just a titch darker. 

These taste sweeter than the first batch and have a good texture too. Success! 

Sucanat

One of the cookbooks I read this summer was about using alternative sugars in baking. I bought a gigantic bag of sucanat, which is essentially less processed sugar cane (leaving all the minerals in) or a solid form of molasses. 

It comes in a more granulated form than sugar, so you do need to process it before you are able to use it. If you don't, the sugar won't dissolve in whatever you're baking and the texture will be gritty. 

I first tried to grind it in the food processor. It did okay, but there were still lots of chunks. 

Then I tried the blender (another recommended option by the cookbook). 

Better, but still not great. 

You can see the layers of when I switched between the food processor and the blender. 

I finally switched to the tiny spice and nut grinder we have. Very putzy to do all the loads, but it ground it the finest of the three appliances. 

 Now it's ready to use!

Goat Feeder Modification

The goats continue to waste hay. Likely a neverending problem, but I'm not ready to give up yet. The tray underneath is doing its job, but it piles up so quickly! 

I screwed in three more cross pieces to make it harder for them to pull the hay through. They can still easily get food, but hopefully now more will stay in the feeder with each mouthful. 

I also added a few more cross pieces on the side. 

 Not pretty, but it'll get the job done! 

Fire Cider

I still have a little fire cider left from last year, but it's time to make another batch. This time, I'll follow the recipe more closely. 😅 

It says everything should fit in a quart jar. And all the solid ingredients did, but there's no way four cups of apple cider vinegar will fit in there too. 

I cleaned out a half gallon jar for the two week fermenting period. Once I strain it, it can go in a smaller jar. 

G brought fresh horseradish root home from the garden center. I used up my frozen fresh ginger. Dried turmeric. Two spicy peppers from the garden, can't remember the specific variety. Not cayenne though. The rosemary came from our garden, but it already dried out, so not fresh. 😅 We had some fresh parsley on hand, so I added that to the mix. The only thing I didn't add was whole cloves. 

Ugh, I'm so irritated with myself. I ran out of ground cloves when I last made gingersnaps, so I ground up my whole cloves to be able to finish the recipe. A few days later, I discovered a half full bag of ground cloves meant to restock my baking container. At the time I thought, oh well. But now that I need whole cloves for a recipe, I'm annoyed. 🤪

The fire cider needs to be shaken every day, so I left it on the counter so I remember to do it. 

Garlic

Normally people try to plant garlic in mid-October. We didn't get to it until November, but the weather has been so mild I don't think it matters we're a little later than typical. 

G dug three rows under our trellis. We sprinkled in bone meal and compost. I spaced out the garlic cloves, and G covered them up. 

We have three varieties: German porcelain, Armenian, and Music. Maybe when we harvest next year I'll actually remember to check my notes so we can differentiate the kinds. 😅 

In other news, our neighbors gave Jaron an old trike their grandkids have outgrown. It's his new favorite thing to do in the driveway. 

We also chopped open one of the garden watermelons... It was ripe! 

A certain two year old has definitely enjoyed the sweet treat.