Thekla McDaniels

Mk’s idea is pretty much what I thought.  I have run onions in a food processor, and they have been pretty liquid.  I would caramelize the onions after the food processor to evaporate the liquid and concentrate the flavor.  I like mayonnaise but it isn’t what I like in onion dip or dressing!

I think it is quite telling that the bouillon cube rescued the flavorless dip.  An umami something or other might be what’s needed.  Soy sauce?  MSG?  (Interesting note, when I was a child MSG became a bad guy.  Recently I read that it had been exonerated, is really only a problem to people with a specific allergy.  Kind of reminds me about the vilification of butter and eggs which has not yet been officially renounced.

As always, do your own research.

An umami element is brewers yeast.  The caramelized onions with salt in sourcream might have more flavor with small amounts of soy sauce and or brewers yeast.

Alan Burnett wrote:

L. Johnson wrote:
   9. Tie bundles of twigs to dry for kindling

Please acknowledge my craft in this spirit, a jig sized to my boot to put forest waste and waste sticks into, stomp down, and twine twice to create firewood kindling bundles. Made of 2x4s and screws, I should be able to fill with sticks, stomp down, twine up, and dry overyear to make wood stove fuel

Good idea!  I have some long unruly sticks, lilac prunings.  I have been trying to figure out how to process them into something.  This might inspire me.

I used to have a chipper.  I miss it now.

Sourdough without fail includes  sourdough from whole grain flours not failing.

Is there a place on the KS page where that information can be included?  Or an FAQ place?

You have probably made it known that instructions for whole grain flours are included.  

Some folks just want some reassurance for any number of reasons.🤷🏻‍♀️

You’ll have to decide in the end.  Sourdough without fail does roll easily off the tongue.

If the majority of questions have been about whether a person can bake with whole grain flour then absolutely!  Change the title!


It’s hard for me to even remember what bread was like before I got my first flour mill ( at a thrift store)!  And I don’t know how to grind any kind of flour but whole grain.

Then I learned we should ferment grain….  What a looong healthy, happy road it’s been.

I haven’t got mine yet.  Credit card got broken into.  When I get the new one, you’ll have one more backer.

Which reminds me I will have to update KS because that’s the card I used for Kate’s sourdough book!

Thank you Donna!  Maybe your dog had this same condition.

I don’t usually do extreme treatment on animals.  The vet recognized it immediately, said Great Pyrenees were prone to it.  I hadn’t known that when I got her.  I probably won’t get another Pyrenees.  Mine has some Anatolian shepherd mixed in, and I had thought it might be enough to bring in hybrid vigor.

I was thinking I would have to put her down, but the prednisone worked so well so fast.  And then my sister got recurrence of her very aggressive cancer, died in 6 weeks.

It’s no time for me to make a life death decision to the death side when Sharkie has  quality of life:  pasture to own and sheep to tend, a mixed species flock to own and tend….

But I know the ultimate outcome, we always do.  Just don’t know when.  I was going to get a replacement and helper dog, but right this minute, the logistics are too much for me!  

Ok, sorry OP.😊.  I believe the topic is itching canines.

Thanks for all the reminders of things I haven’t done for my dog.

Great Pyrenees.  A big girl!  About 16 months at this point.  She started getting something on the tip of her nose.  I just thought it was the mud at first, or high elevation sun.

The funny patch spread up the top of her nose towards her eyes.  Then she had some funny spots around her eyes.  The rate of spread accelerated.  By the time I got her to the vet the insides of her ears were inflamed and weeping, and she had patches all over, and between her toes….

It’s a condition called pemphigus.  It’s an autoimmune condition.  It’s subsided quite a bit, mostly because of the cortisone pills.   Prednisone.  I hate giving her prednisone, it has dire and extensive side effects.  My opinion on prednisone is that it’s only appropriate in life or death situations, but that’s what this is!  Without the prednisone I think she would have no hair, no skin, probably be dead by now. I am very gradually decreasing the daily dose.  And using quality of life as a guide.  

Remarkably she doesn’t appear uncomfortable nor to be suffering a decreased quality of life, has only a small patch on her nose, we’re back to the starting place.

But all these reminders  about calendula, plantain probably comfrey, all the skin supporting herbs might feel good and help the skin and hair maintain themselves.

And yes, I give her a “quality” diet but I am sure I could improve it by studying this whole thread intensively!

Thanks so much !

For the curious, it is not advisable to give varying amounts of prednisone, or other corticosteroids.  It’s a powerful hormone and tied to our circadian rhythm rhythms.  The best possible strategy is a constant dose at a specific time.  Our (mammals) cortisone levels are naturally highest in the morning on arising.  That’s the time of day I give her dose.  In autoimmune conditions you start off with a large enough dose to suppress what ever you want to suppress.  Stay at that level to see an improvement, then very carefully, begin to taper off.

I had a friend who years ago had some inexplicable painful skin thing.  On prednisone for more than a year .  She wanted to get off it.  Had to convince the doctor who liked the results of it.  But she described to me what the internal experience was to just taper the daily dose by a small percentage…..

My mental picture is that there’s an equilibrium which allows the healing, and the idea is to decrease the dose without upsetting the equilibrium.  Then stay at that dose until the body has adjusted to the lower levels of the drug before again reducing it.

The vet said “ sometimes they get over it”. So wish my darling Sharkie all the luck in the world.  She’s a YOUNG dog.

Something is not working right in the tech world

I keep getting notifications about a new post, but there isn’t a new post.

I don’t have any idea what is going on but it’s happened multiple times in the last few days.  I’m going to “stop watching”.  

Great going guys, getting this far!

Plenty of great information here.  I especially love the bike thresher and Joseph’s party.

Years ago I worked the farmers’ market for some friends who grew dried beans.  Their method:

Put the dried bushes including beans on a tarp in the driveway.  Cover with another tarp and drive the jeep over it, back and forth a few times.  Roll the tarp a few times.  Like tarp mixing cob.  Two people each take a corner of one end and walk towards the other end.  Then repeat in the opposite direction.  The rolling begins separating the beans from the every thing else.

I think they used a large sieve at some point.

They finished by hand picking.  They had some broken beans from being driven on to remove, but all the dirt clods got pulverized.

The thing about threshing is some ways work better than others, but at any given time you just need something that will work right now.