38° here this morning. More rain is moving in later. I plan to try to squeeze in some more garden chores...like pull up tomato plants off the strawberry row. I may not have any strawberries left.
I originally wrote this November 30 so I will have to check to see if all is pertinent.
I have been reading my real food book by Nina Planck again and the article about coconut oil jumped out at me again. I have been using Louana's brand from Wal Mart and knew it wouldn't be the best quality. Minor research led me no where on it. I decided to find the best alternative at the cheapest price I could. I ended up on Amazon (how did I live before Amazon?) and found Nutiva Organic Extra-Virgin on sale.
I paid $46.86 for 108 ounces or .433 per oz. It is made from fresh coconut, cold processed and unrefined. The only worrisome thing is it smells and tastes like coconut...don't know how that will be in biscuits....I will soon know. It will be delivered in 6 days.
Bread
I wasn't as happy with the second recipe for Oatmeal Bread. It tastes very good but is a heavier, denser bread. I won't post the recipe. It was in my Joy of Cooking book listed as Oat Bread Cockaigne.
My next test will be Hodgson Mills Oat Bran bread using their hot oat bran cereal...I finally remembered to buy some.
DIY Detergent
I made up a full-size batch of the laundry detergent yesterday. I used the box grater and then decided to see how fine I could get it with the food processor. Here is the result:
I was short the second bar of Fels Naptha so I used an equal amount of my homemade and very strong lye soap and it grates like very fine cornmeal....be interesting to see if it would work as well as FN.
Farm News
Usually I breed Willow back after her second heat after calving but this year I decided to give her more rest and time the calf to be born after the worst heat of summer. I hate the flies of summer.
When I milked day before yesterday, she was way down in her milk and I thought she might be coming into heat. Sure enough I heard her bellowing when I went out to plant the bulbs. DH said the young bull was running the fence next to her area. We walked down and turned him in to her. It is so funny to watch their ritual. Lots of sniffing, her wanting to mount him, him circling her.....I finally got bored and left them to what they do best without an audience.....I am hoping to see signs on her this morning. You cattle people will know what I am referring to.
Here is their first encounter, note his head in sniffing mode:
I originally wrote this November 30 so I will have to check to see if all is pertinent.
I have been reading my real food book by Nina Planck again and the article about coconut oil jumped out at me again. I have been using Louana's brand from Wal Mart and knew it wouldn't be the best quality. Minor research led me no where on it. I decided to find the best alternative at the cheapest price I could. I ended up on Amazon (how did I live before Amazon?) and found Nutiva Organic Extra-Virgin on sale.
I paid $46.86 for 108 ounces or .433 per oz. It is made from fresh coconut, cold processed and unrefined. The only worrisome thing is it smells and tastes like coconut...don't know how that will be in biscuits....I will soon know. It will be delivered in 6 days.
Bread
I wasn't as happy with the second recipe for Oatmeal Bread. It tastes very good but is a heavier, denser bread. I won't post the recipe. It was in my Joy of Cooking book listed as Oat Bread Cockaigne.
My next test will be Hodgson Mills Oat Bran bread using their hot oat bran cereal...I finally remembered to buy some.
DIY Detergent
I made up a full-size batch of the laundry detergent yesterday. I used the box grater and then decided to see how fine I could get it with the food processor. Here is the result:
I was short the second bar of Fels Naptha so I used an equal amount of my homemade and very strong lye soap and it grates like very fine cornmeal....be interesting to see if it would work as well as FN.
Farm News
Usually I breed Willow back after her second heat after calving but this year I decided to give her more rest and time the calf to be born after the worst heat of summer. I hate the flies of summer.
When I milked day before yesterday, she was way down in her milk and I thought she might be coming into heat. Sure enough I heard her bellowing when I went out to plant the bulbs. DH said the young bull was running the fence next to her area. We walked down and turned him in to her. It is so funny to watch their ritual. Lots of sniffing, her wanting to mount him, him circling her.....I finally got bored and left them to what they do best without an audience.....I am hoping to see signs on her this morning. You cattle people will know what I am referring to.
Here is their first encounter, note his head in sniffing mode:
Breeding season is upon us. Ah, the fun of livestock lov'n!
ReplyDeleteAh, see you got the datestamp figured out. :-D
ReplyDeleteI've made that detergent and found that it did not clean my husband's dirty, grimy work jeans. I went back to the regular detergent for his clothes, but the homemade works fine on my clothes (I don't do hard labor!)
ReplyDeleteI'm not a cattle person, but I can imagine what signs you are talking about. I enjoy your blog.