Hannah Johnson

Tereza Okava wrote:(I don't think it's normal, just what I do here at the Depths of Laziness Ranch)

Hoots with laughter. I just never thought about it as an option, but it makes sense that, if I'm going to use a press, I might as well use it for all it's worth.

Me three on the pampered chef model tbough I have no other experience to compare it to. The leverage is great and the tool works well. I use the flat edge on the end of the little "brush" to scrape off the extruded garlic, then it's easier to scoop out whatever mash wouldn't squeeze through, from the inside.

I'm moody and sometimes want to mince the garlic, but other times in a hurry I grab that press, drop the peeled cloves one or two at a time (which I peel first with the knife crushing technique) and 20 seconds later I rinse the thing and throw it back in the tool drawer.

So quick question, do people normally crush the cloves unpeeled? I always peel them regardless. Then the mash that won't go through the holes goes in the food too.

hey look, I found someone using flax for a mattress!  

I don't know if the OP to the homemade mattresses thread is still looking for homemade and natural mattress solutions.  For my part, after deciding memory foam is my lower back's nemesis (and I don't feel too much better on spring mattresses) I've been racking my brain for a homemade mattress plan.  Traditional foam mattresses, firm, are my favorite storebought mattresses, but I like the idea of natural materials.

My goal is to plant a patch of flax as soon as the rains begin later this year.  I'll try and come back to this thread and post [if] any progress I make on this.  

I'm curious whether flax tow might be a good mattress ticking filler?  I see that it is rather expensive to buy for any bulk use, but if I grew my own flax and then after retting did a sort of low-fi version of breaking, scutching, hackling, I wonder if I could produce a good pile of fibers?  I'm just rather ignorant as to how uncomfortable the bits of plant stem might be if I do a "quick and dirty" version of this to make it a viable source of bulk mattress filler or, possibly, quilt batting.  I know a few people on here do work with flax, so I'd love to hear some knowledgeable thoughts and suggestions to (or warnings away from) this idea.

I never yet buckled down and learned necessary steps to post pictures here. Once I get back to my village in a couple months I'll take pictures and figure out how to post them.

The dibble bar looks like it would work for breaking up small sections of hard packed ground.

Ironically, now I know what tool I'll want to take along anytime the village has a major tree-planting event.

Mercy Pergande wrote:

Hannah Johnson wrote:
P.S.
There is a strange rumor going around my overseas community-- that the producers of fresh market cheese (large but not industrial businesses, I believe) are somehow using fertilizer as an ingredient in their cheeses.  Rumors can blossom in interesting ways and I don't know enough about cheesemaking to know how to chalk up the rumor.  Any thoughts or info on what might be behind such an idea?  Total nonsense? distorted understanding of a normal process? or actually whistleblowing on something that could be done nefariously for convenience?  I think it could be a case of the wrong person witnessing and greatly misunderstanding something normal in cheesemaking, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts/insights here.

That doesn't make sense to me. The only thing I can imagine, which I think is a stretch, is that an emulsifier was used in something and the "sodium phosphate" or"potassium phosphate" was thought to be an agricultural version. But there aren't a lot of additives that would make sense to cheat by using something "off book" that I can think of.

I guess it depends how likely they are to use an emulsifier.  If they do, then that's exactly the type of explanation that works where I'm at.  All it takes is for a semi-literate farmer to be hired with his cattle truck to drive some supplies out to one of the deeply isolated cities renowned for its cheese (hiring random guys with trucks is super typical).  Say the supplies include a sack of potassium phosphate.  The driver thinks he recognizes the chemical name on the sacks.  Casually asks the person he's delivering it to what they use fertilizer for at a cheese plant?  The person who responds is like, "Oh, this isn't fertilizer, it's an ingredient for the cheese." But the truck driver hears what he wants to hear, knows what he saw written on the sack, and goes away to spread the rumor.

[speculation alert!] Another version is that riding in the cab with the truck owner is the owner/operator of the cheese company who 1) wants to keep that ingredient "secret" and lies about it, thus starting the rumor, 2) is actually attempting to use an industrial fertilizer as a shortcut and brags about how it's technically safe because his brother in law heard it from a student at an agricultural university.  [speculation alert!]

This looks like a resource I won't want to pass up.

A post by Paul Fookes earlier mentioned something along these lines, but I'll put it in my own words:  When I am tiptoeing into new area of DIY, especially with foods I intend to eat, I feel so much more confident when there is additional information about how things can go wrong and what are the consequences/severity of different outcomes.

Is it too soon to tell when the book will be ready?  It sounds like an excellent addition to my DIY toolkit.  I will have access to fresh milk soon.

P.S.
There is a strange rumor going around my overseas community-- that the producers of fresh market cheese (large but not industrial businesses, I believe) are somehow using fertilizer as an ingredient in their cheeses.  Rumors can blossom in interesting ways and I don't know enough about cheesemaking to know how to chalk up the rumor.  Any thoughts or info on what might be behind such an idea?  Total nonsense? distorted understanding of a normal process? or actually whistleblowing on something that could be done nefariously for convenience?  I think it could be a case of the wrong person witnessing and greatly misunderstanding something normal in cheesemaking, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts/insights here.

In the Andes we have a couple tools for field work that seem a bit unique to the region.  Least unique among these would be the grass hook or hand scythe.  Not as common nowadays in the States, but still around.  I just watched the first episode of The Beverly Hillbillies with my kids, and noticed somebody holding a hand scythe somewhere in there.

Then there are two similar hoe/pick/shovel specimens that I cannot find very well online at all.  One of these two tools isn't sure if it's more like a hoe or a pick.  It's used for harvesting potatoes.  The blade is maybe 8- 12 inches long and 3 inches or less wide.  A sort of golf stroke, sends the blade deep into the soil under the root ball.  One good upward tug on the handle, and the whole ball comes up, you flip it to the side and scatter it (conveniently downhill in the mountains).  I haven't used other potato harvesting tools such as forks to compare results. (Conclusion: it really is equivalent to a smaller pick, but only has the blade end, no pick. I imagine that makes it a somewhat safer tool than a typical pick when working in tight clusters of three or four people.

The other of those two specimens isn't sure if it's a hoe or an edging spade.  It's great for mounding rows.  They call it a lampa.  It's probably the most similar in function to a field hoe, but looks like an edging spade that got bent way over.    This seems to be a decent example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/204138640396?hash=item2f879c740c:g:AUsAAOSwPple~Txe&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0H%2Br17KV4Z2BdRiS2qGuAvIGyVSkAgjCu5MFCL7%2BVp8DEmI97A2rfhqFVYEORnPhnJb24qbnLx0havfMbm%2BY%2B5%2FIQl9Rcn3FEezb6KysubUQ%2BhGq5zOKE33MccRwftqMxMEcY6QRmvdNucdhqYJTKRkHs%2BhAtl%2BuXG1Q0Ns6l%2B807ORH4slwl1BHuubDcRP9gYxb9bNESyfjWPZKS18C8rqV3yV8FCt8M9SF0NHnezS7vDMoAs2DZmyinneITJJqPWLS0JiacG7UCHtHyRuEoEQ%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMhvim_vVh (minus a handle) but they're still made and used today all the time.

Lastly there's a tool called the Chaquitaclla ("Chahkee tak-leah") and I did find a little video showing it off.  https://www.facebook.com/midagriperu/videos/la-chaquitaclla/849506989248696/. We haven't used it ourselves.

I could be missing something obvious because I don't have a farming background in the States, and I'm a foreigner in SA-- but I think these tools are generally distinct to Andean field work.  But if I moved back north, I'd want to imitate them.

No way, I was just trying to research flax and linen processes in the last couple days, and lo! behold, Permies boosts this thread in its dailyish.  

I so love to keep lengths of wire around.  8, 12, sometimes 16 gauge can serve so many purposes (most often for rigging things in place of a broken or missing piece of hardware).