This odd blending of Bluegrass and anime is, I think, evidence of the universal appeal of Bluegrass.
The right kind of rain
Now here’s the kind of rain that’s so badly needed. Nice rains on Dec. 23, Dec. 26, Dec. 28, and Dec. 30, with the rain on Dec. 28 and Dec. 30 pushing the Dan River above its median. This is the kind of rain that soaks into the acquifer and beats back drought.
Carroll County cabbage
Southwest Virginia Farmers Market
Let’s see. We’ve got Stokes County sweet potatoes and Yadkin Valley wine. From Carroll County, Virginia, just up the road from Stokes, we get apples and cabbage. Carroll County cabbage is incredibly good and amazingly cheap when the crop’s in season. At high season you can buy it in 50-pound sacks for next to nothing.
Carroll County has had so much success with its cabbage that it’s diversifying into broccoli.
What do you do with 50 pounds of cabbage? What? You don’t have a root cellar? Then I guess you’ll need to make some sauerkraut. To make sauerkraut, you need a cabbage slicer, a crock, and some good salt. Next cabbage season, I’ll make some kraut. Meanwhile, I already bought and stashed a couple of German-made Harsch fermenting crocks:
How to can
Boomers like me who grew up in the country have memories of watching our mothers and grandmothers can, but how it’s done is a mystery. This web site has some videos on how to can homegrown food. It also sells canning supplies.
We young’uns had to work at canning time, though. We were given big bowls and were sent to the front porch to break beans. When strawberries were in and Mama was making preserves, we were sent to the front porch to cap strawberries. As I recall, the young’uns pretty much got off the hook for corn and tomatos.
Beatrix Potter — conservationist
A farm in England’s Lake District
If you haven’t seen the 2006 film “Miss Potter,” I highly recommend it. The film is historically accurate in reminding us that Beatrix Potter was a conservationist. As a child she spent summers in England’s Lake District, and after she became rich and famous she bought a farm there. She was deeply concerned because developers were buying up small farms for vacation homes, and she used her wealth to buy and preserve these places. When she died she left over 4,000 acres to a trust, and that trust is now part of a national park.
Animals in the road: the toll is rising
The New York Times has a disturbing story on how accidents caused by hitting large animals increased by 50 percent between 1990 and 2004. Most of these accidents occur on two-lane rural roads, and most involve deer.
The main cause for the increase: suburbanization.
A little Christmas crooning…
Delicious in Danbury?
Winston-Salem Journal
The Winston-Salem Journal has a featurette this morning on Artist’s Way bakery and cafe in Danbury.
My vote for the best eats in Danbury, though, would have gone to the cafe across the street that had amazing hot dogs. Unfortunately that place has closed. In my opinion, Artist’s Way tries just a little too hard to be fancy. But it’s always good to see local entrepreneurs doing well.
Living off the grid in Ashe County
The Mountain Times has a nice article on a woman who lives off the grid in Ashe County and produces almost all of her own food.
“I left a career in nursing to pursue a primitive lifestyle. Since leaving public employment, I have gained my sense of humor, my health and my life,” she said. “This life is hard work, but it feels good to be physically tired at the end of the day, as opposed to being mentally tired.”
I certainly admire anyone who can reach that level of frugality and self-sufficiency. However, for myself, I’ll be looking for the sweet spot between simple living and having leisure time for things I want to do.
Cooking oil: an unsolved problem in local living
As a thought experiment, imagine what you would eat if you lived in Stokes County and could eat only foods grown within 50 miles. If you had a good garden, you could eat quite well. However, local sources of vegetable oil would be a problem. Our ancestors in these parts relied on butter and lard. However, keeping cows and pigs takes far more land (and effort) than most people can manage. Not to mention that butter and lard aren’t the healthiest fats.
A number of crops can be grown locally that produce good, healthy oil — sunflower and peanuts would be easy. Flax seed would work. Walnuts, if you can get them. But how do you get the oil out of the seeds?
A little research turns up fairly big, expensive, motor-driven units aimed at the biodiesel market, but small, hand-powered devices are almost unknown in the United States. It would be easier to buy a hand-powered oil press in India or Africa than in the United States.
Some people have tried to solve this problem. At www.journeytoforever.org, they have plans for an oil press that uses a simple jack with a piston and cylinder that could be easily and cheaply built in a machine shop. The plans originally came from Organic Gardening magazine in 1979.
www.journeytoforever.org
Hmmm. I wonder if I could barter a little computer work to get a machinist to build me one of those. Press the oil out of sunflower seeds and feed the rest to the chickens.