Showing posts with label wool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wool. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2013

New house, old harvest Yarn and fiber for sale.

We are all moved into a nice two bedroom house in a quiet neighborhood of a large city.  It was a very long process involving lots of sorting, cleaning, moving things, and of course, lots of stress.  Hopefully this situation will be a good one, and so far, it mostly is.

There are lots of new shops and markets to discover.  A middle eastern grocery sells Halal chicken and extremely large bags of rice.

25 lbs of jasmine rice

 I might have to turn this into a tote bag.

There are two Russian grocery stores nearby.  At the smaller store, a very nice Russian lady with limited English has conversations with me about the need for each of us to practice our new languages.  She also helped us find the very best non-expensive kolbasa in the meat case.  I LOVE being able to find affordable Russian food again and hope to be able to discover new recipes while practicing my Russian.  They also have extremely large bags of flour.

How could I pass up 50 lbs of flour?

You can see a theme here.  Now that we have a whole house, why not start buying goods in bulk?  The local doughnut shop sells food-grade buckets.  We have a small chest freezer.  I am very much looking forward to a winter of plenty.

We are taking this opportunity to go out more, explore new shops, take walks...this is already becoming fun.  I don't know how long we can keep up eating 2-3 dozen doughnuts a week, though...

Because we moved again during harvest season, I have had to improvise food storage methods.


Sunflowers and onions hanging.  The sunflowers weren't ready when I cut them, so they are drying near a dehumidifier in the basement.
Carrots, green tomatoes, sugar beets, and rutabaga.
More green tomatoes, and Amish pie pumpkin, and some winter squash.
 Dried and canned goods
More dried goods and spice cabinet

Before and after the move, I have also been saucing apples, dehydrating apples, canning tomato sauce, sorting dried beans, and soon I will start making a molasses-type syrup from the sugar beets.

 I processed 60+ lbs of drops apples
 Glorious apple peeler and slicer.  I don't know what I would do without it.
 Just two batches of unsweetened applesauce.
Kidney and yin-yang dried beans.

The backyard is one giant retaining wall project, but after that is over, Jon and I will be making a small garden space.  I get to really think planting over and practice some French intensive space-saving methods.

I will also be selling yarn, fiber, and knit things on ebay.  Some are made by me, some are from a farm back home.  I am very happy to sell things outside of ebay, too.  I have lots of boxes to go though, but please comment here or send me a message if you're looking for something specific.  I can also knit custom items.  There will be niddy noddies and antique carders listed, too.  My ebay page is located here. *Page is now active and has several items listed.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Day of food #3 and the secret to the best whole wheat bread ever

Day #3 of food!

Breakfast:
Coffee with raw milk
Leftover cinnamon buns, made from a GF Bob's Red Mill Mix that time I was going gluten-free.  Not bad at all, even when I cut the butter and sugar in half!

Lunch:
Organic potatoes broiled in duck fat.
Organic spinach salad
Homemade chocolate pudding, from 85% chocolate and raw milk, free range egg

Dinner:
Turkey stew with broth made from Thanksgiving turkey skin and bones, organic potatoes and carrots, dehydrated onions and tomatoes from the garden, organic black beans, curry
Whole wheat bread, hot out of the oven
More chocolate pudding!

And the secret to the best whole wheat bread ever is...oat flour!  I got it for cheap from the bulk bins at the co-op.  Substituting 1 cup of oat flour for 1 cup of all-purpose flour in recipes that use both ap and whole wheat flours makes the bread a little lighter in texture, rise higher, and it gives a bit more fiber.  I'm not sure if it would work for every recipe, but I encourage you to try it out sometime and see how it works for you!

By the way, if you are interested in buying a fleece from my awesome friend Julie, she is selling them here.

  eBay Store .