Denise Cares

Great tips and suggestions Matt. I have an older Excalibur dehydrator 9 tray which holds a lot so I tend not to run it unless full. It is noisy and no doubt adds to my electric bill here in california where everything is overpriced to begin with.  I have found an alternate way of drying soaked (sprouted) grains and seeds by spreading them out on cookie sheets or trays about 1/2 in thick. I set up cooling racks (which I find at thrift store) so they sit a bit high off the woostove (about 1-2 inches is ideal). Then I place the trays with seeds on them. If the temp of the stove is too hot, I sometimes move the trays to the mantle above the stove. The only downside is that some dust or ash will collect over time on the mantle, so removing the trays when I need to clean out the stove ashes is good practice.  A fireplace mantle can be useful for drying all sorts of small things - like wet socks, hats, mittens.  The fireplace is brick & masonry cement and I managed to insert small nails into tiny cracks here and there under the mantle where it meets the masonry.  From these nails I've hung string with herbs fastened and even chili peppers to dry. It's my "country bumpkin" decor but it works!  

Oh Kate, I'm looking forward to your book. Something in print form, easy to read typeset and no pale colors (too hard on weak eyes) and some pictures showing critical steps or ideal results. I'm a beginner having tried 2 times making a starter but forget to feed it or to follow the exact steps in the right order, or got busy and didn't use in time and it went to waste.
This is so exciting: Kate Downham wrote:
"I have succeeded in making a gluten free bread that is egg-free and actually tastes good - I gave some to celiac friends and they loved it, and even my husband who would not normally try gluten free bread thinks it actually tastes good! I have a couple of other ideas for GF breads that I might try too."   Big YES please Kate!!
I would love a GF sourdough starter recipe that works and gives a good rise to bread/rolls/pizza crust and other non-traditionally sourdough applications (as G.Freden requested).
Definitely want recipes using "discard" for things like pancakes, waffles, cookies, muffins, burger buns, corn bread or breadsticks.
I used to love baking regular wheat & multi-whole grain breads with bakers' yeast but developed gut/auto-immune issues nixed all that. I miss making cinnamon rolls and holiday "braids" and various shaped dinner rolls for special occasions. Giving us the basic recipes and a comment on what variations are possible to make with it is good - so the baker can springboard from there. A recipe that gives the basic idea of how the dough can be handled and worked into other forms. Show some pictures to give the idea of shapes/forms/variations would spark creativity.
I'm not keen on long intro or chatty type stories - no time and it distracts from the goal. Would rather have recipe as quickly and simply as possible. If you could include variations of what other flours or ingredients could be substitued right in the recipe line that would be very helpful for those with allergy/intolerance/preference/what's on hand.  [i.e. 1 c. wheat flour - or sorghum, rice, millet, oat]
Not interested in knowing what other foods can be served as a meal with the breads. Keep length of recipes as short as possible and the pictured steps to a minimum (only what needed for critical points/clarity).  The idea is not to overwhelm the eye but get the mind to grasp principle steps.
An intro chapter to explain important rationales/chemistry of why and what to do to avoid major failure is good and "the reader to come away understanding not just how to do the techniques, but why they are done and how to tinker with them to get different results" - big YES!. Also give ideas/options to work with "difficult" environmental conditions and minimal equipment.  
If you do an ebook, please make it possible to print it out on as few pages as possible. Thank you Kate!
Your book idea is definitely sounding like a WINNER! I'm looking forward to it!

Hi Y'all, I stumbled across this 8 hr video of a mason building a beautiful brick heater which is claimed to heat for 50 hours and half the wood. You could set the speed to 2X and slow down for the transition parts of the build. The masonry is beautifully done but I do not understand how the stove directs the air intake or the smoke via the various doors and chambers inside. There is no diagram or explanation of the design. I thought I'd share it with Permies RMH experts and would like to know what you think of it. Is it practical and efficient and might it pass building codes in most states/countries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN_gxZXzeZA

Kelly Craig wrote:

Now, I am curious about DMSO. It has been used for a lot of cases of congestion and head infections. It can have iodine, a great antibacterial in its own right and,  added, or even zinc. When used with DMSO, which, by itself, renders tiny critters unable to reproduce, has a lot of potential.

_____________________________________
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7245270/

Kelly, I would be cautious with using DMSO unless know for certain that there is no infection or yeast growing in the ear canal. Also be sure that there is no drum rupture. DMSO is a powerful solvent which means it carries with it whatever it's mixed together with deep into the tissues.  So, if there is any "impurity" it will carry and drive that deeper into the body.  The ear being inside the skull/close to the brain is not a place to mess with if you push any foreign organism deep inside. Anything that comes in contact with DMSO must be scrupulously clean, including the hands and skin when it is applied externally. I think it safer to work on balancing the normal pH of the ear canal as many others have discussed ways of doing this.  Also note that DMSO can give a sense of "heat" and that may cause severe discomfort (firery painful) to someone with ear canal abrasion or tissue disruption.  

This young man shows creative skills in building an adorable off grid cabin with what looks like a simple rocket stove and all natural materials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6T9J3JgUEU

thomas rubino wrote:Oh, I like this!
A new title, an Authentic Rusticator!
I have been this way since before I graduated high school.
I never knew that I had a clan of like-minded disappear-into-the-woods recluses!
Well, I knew there were other "mind their own business"  folks out there, but I never knew we had a title!
Perhaps, I should make a sign for our cabin, The Rusticators... it will confuse and baffle the neighbors, What happened to the Rubino's??? Did they move???
Maybe a new line of tee shirts, Authentic Rusticator I'll be a zillionaire in no time!
How cool!
Thank You Judith & Hubby for enlightening me about my clan.

Laughing so hard over these!!!  Love your sense of humor! :  )

Natalie McVander wrote:All my pictures are on an external hard drive that's elsewhere at the moment.

But I did make a visit to my old farm blog and found this picture.

It was the nearest one I had taken to the shed.

I just tried the upload attachment file, so we'll see how it comes out here.

Natalie, what are the 3 square structures made of scrap wood raw edge (?) in the foreground of the first pic?  How did you make them and what are they holding? The cross pieces at top -what are they for?

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Mike Barkley wrote:These are my choices for the bean beauty contest. Because they look like cows.

Hmm, I see Holsteins and Jerseys. But what on earth are you feeding those purple cows?

Lila, I see them as a deep reddish-purple color..Perhaps like the color of the red heifer as spoken of in Numbers 19:2 in the scriptures?
All these beans are wonderful and the colors are amazing! Thank you everyone for submitting pictures!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Denise Cares wrote:...
Thank you Denise.
I did as described. Now all I have to do is wait until it's fermented. It looks like this:

Inge, how did your purslane pickles turn out?

I haven't read the Humanure book yet that everyone is talking about so please pardon my question here if it is addressed in the book. Why couldn't one just slightly bury the collected poo in a shallow trench or hole?  Cats do that basically. When out camping one uses a shovel/trowel to do that. Why is putting it in a compost pile and covering it with something other than dirt and waiting for over a year or two the typical way to do it?  If one has enough land to rotate the areas where the poo is buried or it is buried only where there are trees and not where vegetables or food crops are being grown then wouldn't the soil microbes naturally take care of it?  In a shallow pit the sun would heat it up and kill the pathogens after a period of time anyway I would think. It might not be as practical in areas that get a lot of rainfall if the ground gets saturated it would not work well to walk over those "burial grounds".  The pit might have to be deeper. Also not sure about the effect of aerobic vs. anaerobic bacteria on all of this.  How deep of a pit would be considered ideal for proper deccomposition and "sterilization"?  Thanks for the discussion on this.