Katie Dee

Gems are not polished without friction, nor men perfected without trials.

Heraclitus, 4 B.C.E.

In the interest of completeness, can you add information for electric furnaces and oil heaters?  I would be interested in comparing those two methods with all the other amazing information that is presented here.  Thanks for all the time and effort that it took to organize this chart!

If you do decide to juice your grapes and want to avoid the sugars, consider making red wine vinegar.  I like to ferment the juice with champagne yeast because it will tolerate much higher alcohol levels than regular wine yeast, so it will convert all the sugars to alcohol.  Then, I let the wine sit in a wide mouth container with muslin covering it to naturally cultivate the vinegar producing bacteria from the air, or you could buy some live vinegar with the mother and add a little to your finished wine to get the vinegar production started.  

Taste before using, as it will be a lot stronger (more acidic) than what you're used to buying.  I use distilled water to thin it out to my preferred strength.

If you want to get fancy, you can bottle it up with a sprig of organic herbs stuffed inside (dunk these in a small bowl of vinegar first to disinfect them, then dispose of that vinegar), cork it, wax the top, tie some raffia around the neck, print some fancy labels and you have a nice cottage industry or frugal but really cool homemade presents!

N.B. I don't recommend this for those who ferment juices for wine to drink.  You are seeding your environment with vinegar producing bacteria and  that will increase the chances of your drinking wines going south.

Ruth Meyers wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:
When I recently sold my floor loom I still had odds and ends of equipment...I broke down the warping frame (wooden pegs set into  one by four's and very aged) and now have part of it for towels in the kitchen and the rest as a coat rack in the back room...

I did something similar.  The side panel of an out of date baby crib is mounted on a kitchen wall with IKEA "S" hooks holding all my small necessities.

The side panel of my out of date baby crib rests on top of and spans the gap between my laundry cabinets and the top inside frame of the bifold doors.  Add a few coat hangers and it makes an incredibly convenient hanging rack for clothes just out of the dryer that I don't want wrinkled. [yes, yes, I know....dryer....but I do reuse the hot moist air from the dryer by diverting it to mix with room air during our very dry cold winters.  Why heat the outdoors when I really appreciate the warm humid air in the house?]

Wayne, I know a quite obscure use, but it might be helpful to someone (chicken house floor, maybe?).  Sour milk was used in Tudor England as a mud/lime floor additive and top-coating to increase strength and water resistance, according to the historians and archaeologists in this BBC production: Tudor Monastery Farm.  The entire thing is worth watching IMO, but the soured milk part is at 4:13:04 in the above video.

wayne fajkus wrote:Interesting. So what i made is not real cream cheese.

Here's an example for the cultured method for cream cheese: Gavin Webber's Cream Cheese.  It takes about 24 hours rather than the quick cheese you made.  

I'm a huge fan of Chimichurri Sauce, a meat-lovers' green herb sauce from Argentina.  It's a mixture of very finely minced parsley, oregano, garlic, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.  I've substituted cilantro for all or part of the parsley (I think it's divine, but I used to despise cilantro's flavor, so I understand if you think that's an awful idea), and some use red chili flakes for the pepper part of the recipe (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't).  I make it easy by using garlic powder (and onion powder, if I'm feeling it that day) instead of chopping fresh, although I've done it that way too.   I've even gone rogue and added grated parmesan to it on occasion, just for variety.

There are loads of recipes on the internet, but I just think of it as a tiny green salad, and mix to proportions that suit my taste.

Here's a pic that goes along with  Courtney's Sweets Chimichurri Recipe:  

While this reference is only from 1912, there are many many items that can be built that you might consider for your badge list.  For everybody else, it's a great "make it work" DIY homestead device list.

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

I know there are salamanders here. That's good, they are welcome to all the slugs they want. I rescue the occasional one from our little fish pond....

I always leave multi-branched small limbs over the edge of the pond so any critters trapped in there that need out have a ladder of sorts.