Fall work

Getting the turkey gravy ready today, I use the NYT recipe from last year to get a head start on it: use 6 pounds of dark turkey meat (legs and thighs), brown in oven to create a nice fond (deglazed with sherry), then boil for 6 hours with carrots onions and celery. This makes a great flavorful broth to create gravy. I used to do the Cook's illustrated method, probably only a 3 or 4 hour task, but you need the bird thawed out for that and I don't want to work that hard on Thanksgiving.

Aliceon and I also worked on the woodshed. Our cut and split wood from two years ago is about 2 inches too long so we end up cutting it all in half. Al worked on that and I kept her supplied with long wood while moving this years pile into the shed. We sawed and moved about a firepalce cord into the house and about 1-1/2 full cords into the wood shed. I might mention that we added another chain saw to the arsenal, a Stihl 180 with easy start to our older 025. The easy start was a must for Aliceon and I have to say it's great. Just a slow steady pull and it kind of builds up and then spins. It's a little wierd at first as you are used to that jerk/pull of a regular saw.

Then I added 2 inches of foam to the roof of my root cellar. The cellar was already part of the house, about a 8 by 6 space next to the basement, but I've have it sealed off until this year. A bit too exposed to the ourdoors I think with freezing just about assured, so the foam shold help with that. I suppose I should have added a thermal barrier, but it is it's own little blockhouse.

Vegatable canning

I really didn't blog the canning and food preservation through the fall, but I can report on a number of the successes.

The frozen vegetables are great, we did cabbage, carrots, peppers, corn, broccoli, cauliflower, some home grown, some not.

The Ball Zesty Salsa made with Cherry Bomb peppers is wonderful, could have used a double batch as we are down 3 pints already (of 10).

The dill relish is good, but we aren't using it so fast. Probably true of all the pickled cucs.

The chow chow and Singaphore chili sauce are fine, the chili sure could have been hotter. I suppose it's the whole northern pepper growing thing. I had thought perhaps the cherry bombs were not hot enough, but they are rated quite hot on Johnny's heat scale. Searching for

Haven't tried the Cherry bombs in oil, tomatoes.

We did start canning the saurkraut today, it's been fermenting since the begining of September in the basement, I thought it was done , but when I removed the lid I could still see bubbles.

Cooking Apples

It's been a couple of days of work, but we've turned about 20 pounds of Haralson apples we got from Nancy Mount into Apple Jelly and Apple Butter. A few oops along the way, we added too much water to the jelly and then had to cook it a bit longer to reduce the water, and I slightly charred the apple butter (also I don't think I reduced it enough). Next time we'll do better. a few firsts, first time with liquid pectin, first time using a jelly bag, first time making both products.

Right now making good 'ol chicken and dumplin's using a 1997 recipe from Cooks Illustrated. We are having the kids come over for dinner so we are getting some of it ahead.

Gardening stuff in zone 4

I been colder than usual for us. Last week in the 50's, but finally today some heat. In some ways it's sad, we've had a great crop of lettuce and spinach on the deck - but maybe the other stuff will get going. I try and keep a journal of gardening ideas and progress, but I'm thinking about doing this on line along with the engineering work. We are working on a few of the 200 hours above 78 degrees that we get in our climate.

MN 2030

I was done to the Twin Cities today for a meeting discussing how Minnesota might impliment the 2030 challenge. At this point I think we are looking at a energy model based benchmark so that more building type can be benchmarked. More on this later.

Joining the HighTunnelers

I got tired of the cool growing weather. It happens and you and grin and bear it, quit or use technology to help. There are those that call the whole system plasticulture, plactic greenhouse, plastic mulches, and plastic irrigation systems, but as long as they work who cares? I put up the hoops last fall and filmed it in April.









First plants late in late April, most in May, 30 days eariler than usual. So far no heat needed. I think if I had put the film on eariler, I could have started even eariler. The plants look good and in 40 degree weather I have had 75 degrees under the plastic. I am using red plastic under the tomatoes, green under the cucumbers, and brown under the peppers. All are supposed to be matched to the preferences of the plants. Since this photo Aliceon and I have installed more weed control fabric and shredded pine bark mulch to control weeds between the raised beds.

With plastic over the beds, irrrigation becomes important. I 've installed a 500 gallon rain barrel up by the house to collect the roof water. The elevation is enough to operate a drip tape irrigation system, which I run 2 hours per day. I'm going through about 250 gallons a week this way, so I'll have to use some well water too.













Here is photo of last weeks tomatoes, when my outside plants may have well stayed in their 3 inch cell pot - (virtually no growth as of yet for my outside plants).

Windowless Building Don't Make Sense except to Bomb

This is an award winner in southern Minnesota that I drove by, yikkes! It won an ASHRAE award due to it's low energy consumption. That kind of thinking, where a building is valued without considering it's occupants, makes me crazy. I suppose we'll be seeing this in low budget Sci-fi movies. In the same area of the state, just south of Rochester, there is a large, 67 turbine wind farm. Really cool to see so many and you can see them from this school (or could if there were windows).