The Sifford Sojournal

Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.

Category: food (Page 34 of 35)

Solar Food Dehydrator

Air It Out

March 1, 2009 / / 34 Comments

In trying to continue to get away from dependency on the world, we have looked into preserving food without canning or freezing. One of the methods for doing this with fruits and vegetables is drying. There are food dehydrators available for purchase, some electric, some solar; but it seemed to me this would probably be pretty easy to construct. And so I searched for plans on the Internet and settled on these solar food dehydrator plans (originally available from North Dakota State University), partially because the design was very specifically laid out (which I need), and also because it appeared to be the most compact for the process behind the drying and still large enough to be able to dry quite a bit of food.

Here are some pictures of ours as I built it:




I decided to use 1″ wood screws and 2″ coarse drywall screws for most of it, and 1 5/8″ deck screws for the legs. I found that a 1/8″ pilot hole worked best with the 1x2s.

On the top I didn’t use a miter joint on the ends; I simply used butted joints and alternated them for the vertical vs. the horizontal frames. Also, for strength and longevity, I decided to use .93 plexiglas instead of 4-6 mil clear plastic sheeting. I tried to find a 48″ x 48″ piece but couldn’t; and so I thought I would use two 24″ x 48″ pieces with a support in the middle, but the store I was at was out of them. I went to another store, and they didn’t have 24″ x 48″ pieces; and so, I had to buy 30″ x 60″ pieces and a scoring tool. However, that was good because the distance from edge to edge of the top was for me 49 7/8″ (which means the other sizes would have been too small); and so, I was able to cut each piece to fit very nicely. Before I did that though and because of the extra plexiglas I had, I was able to practice scoring and drilling the plexiglas so as to not crack it when setting the real pieces in place. This was good because my first attempts did not work well. After practice though, I was able to get the hang of scoring and drilling, which worked pretty well on the final product:

I learned a few things with plexiglas: the scoring tool would cut into my 4′ level when using it to guide my scoring, and so I switched to a straight piece of wood; I would score only a few times with the wood guide in place and then would do it free hand as I was able to apply much more pressure causing the scoring process to be finished quicker; and I found that quick speed and light pressure was the best way to drill a hole. Also, the drilled hole should be at least the full diameter of the screw so the screw doesn’t put pressure on the hole, which I believe can cause the plexiglas to crack.

After the dryer was completed, I let it sit in the sun with the top off for a couple of days before putting food on the trays to allow the paint to bake in so the fumes would be hopefully removed.

Here is some food drying in it:

I added casters (swivel wheels) on the bottom of the legs to make it easier to move, and also added some handles which I attached to the sides where the inside food frame supports where located so that the handles would be more firmly secured and the handles’ screws wouldn’t be poking through the plywood siding:

And here are the banana and apple results. Quite tasty!

At this point they can be bagged and stored in the root cellar, and should last for some time.

We thank the Lord for His provisions in being able to make this food dryer, and for His provisions in creation to allow us to preserve in this way the food He grants us.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Donny” and “Marie”

February 21, 2009 / / 5 Comments

The Lord graciously granted Betsy, one of our nanny goats, to give birth to twins. They are pure Nubians. One is a male, the other a female; and so, please meet Donny and Marie. Here is a picture (Donny’s on the right, Marie’s on the left):

And here is a video:


They were born just before sunrise on a near freezing morning. Due to some confusion in our understanding of when new-born goats need to be up, around and suckling, we let them be for several hours. Well, for some reason Betsy didn’t clean them off, and when we checked on them again, they were still laying down, one struggling to get up stuck in the birth wetness. Needless to say, we got them up and cleaned out their little shed and put fresh hay in it. We went and looked up some new-born information in our goat books, and they indicated they needed to be up and suckling within 30 minutes. Sigh. They looked very weak, weren’t really up and about, and weren’t eating; and so, we decided to milk Betsy for her colostrum and bottle feed them. We did this a few times throughout the afternoon. Before our community meeting that night, we closed them into the shed because it was going to be a cold night again. After the meeting we checked on them, and they appeared to be walking around a bit and even latching on to Betsy’s teats a little, and so we decided to not interfere for the night. And we prayed.

Well, God was merciful, and in the morning they were up and standing when we let them out. We watched them throughout the day and saw that they indeed were suckling. Since then they’ve only gotten stronger and are now getting around quite well.

Here is another video:


We are thankful once again for the Lord’s provisions, and his mercies in allowing the new little ones to live and begin to grow healthy.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Leandro”

December 26, 2008 / / 1 Comment

The Lord most graciously allowed yet another calf to be born to one of our cows. Introducing Leandro, which means “lion-man”; of course he’s not a man though :). Rosa gave birth to him this past Monday, and he is our first bull (male) calf:

Here is another picture of him:

And here is a video (which was shot Wednesday):


God is very gracious and merciful, and we are thankful for Him granting perpetuation provisions.

–David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Sarita”

December 14, 2008 / / 3 Comments

The Lord in His graces and mercies granted a new little heifer (female) calf be born this past Sabbath (Saturday) to one of our cows, Amistosa. The calf has a little “dot” of white fur on her otherwise red (brown) head, and that reminded us of a East Indian princess, which apparently is not what the dot means and was just an improper perception we had; but we decided to go with it anyway, so please meet Sarita, which means “princess” in Spanish. She was up and about following her mother in just about 6 hours, we figure.

Her mother’s name means “friendly” (because she has been from the moment we got her), and it appears this little one picked up the gene, because she walked right up to us, which allowed us these pictures:



And this video:


We are very grateful once again to God and His many provisions.

— David

 

Summer Kitchen Update

December 11, 2008 / / 4 Comments

The Lord is gracious in allowing more homestead improvements and fellowship with the brethren, one of those for us being what we have planned to be a summer kitchen project. With me being a rookie building designer, things “ended up” being a little different than the original plan.

In including windows but desiring them to be horizontally sliding, I purchased some from the local home improvement store that were typically used as vertically sliding windows thinking I could simply spin them sideways and thus make them horizontal windows. Well, it worked ok, sort of, but not, because I discovered that, not only was there a spring line attached which is meant to help in opening the windows up against gravity, but since mine were tilted over 90 degrees, that resistance made it difficult to close them. Further, when it rained, water puddled in and leaked over the lower sliding area. Something was amiss.

I soon found out that vertically sliding windows are not designed to be installed as horizontally sliding windows, and that there were indeed windows specifically designed to be horizontally sliding.

Sigh.

So, after understanding a little more about windows, I ordered the proper, left-right sliding windows. When they had arrived, I began the replacement operation.

The biggest obstacle was that the open space I had built into the window frames was horizontally too short for the new windows. However, in thanks to God for how I originally constructed it and for the idea, I was able to just cut out with a reciprocating saw one of the side 2x4s of the window frame and replace it with a 1×4, thus allowing for the needed space and therefore resolving that, quite possibly complicated, issue.

When replacing the first window, which I had silicone-caulked originally, I thought I would sort of “work” the window loose. When I did that, I apparently twisted the window beyond capacity, and the outer pane of glass shattered. Sigh, again. Ok, so then, when installing the new window, after setting it in the window frame, as I was trying to screw it in place, the top of it fell forward, hitting my head (which took off a nickel-sized piece of skin), and the screw that I had been planning to use to secure it was now found to be buried in the screening of the new window. Sigh, again, again.

Anyway, I learned very quickly that what I had been doing was apparently not, at a minimum, the best way to proceed. I figured then that I should spend more time prying the old windows’ edges from the caulking before trying to remove them. Wonder of wonders, this worked much better. 🙂

And so with all of that, here are a couple of pictures of where we are with the summer kitchen, which includes screen doors, hopefully allowing maximum ventilation:


It has been a bit disheartening and sometimes frustrating, but during these situations hopefully the Lord is graciously granting us more meekness (Part 1, Part 2) and contentment, which are some of the graces for which we try to daily pray; and difficult times certainly offer the opportunity to examine ourselves (especially right at the moment) and then continue to seek Him for His graces.

We are ever grateful to God for His provisions, spiritual and temporal.

— David

 

Garden 2008 II Update

December 2, 2008 / / 2 Comments


With water provisions graciously granted by the Lord, and with His graciousness in allowing us to store quite a bit of it, we were able to keep the garden going. Some of it didn’t make it so well, I believe partially because of how the double-dug beds are sloped and still only have original top soil, which at this point forms a hard layer after drying. Lord willing, over the winter in preparation for next Spring, we hope to build up the soil on top of the beds with compost, vermiculite and peat moss.

Despite that, God has granted us some provisions off of the land from the current garden. Besides the one shown above, here are some pictures of the growth:


And here is a bowl of green beans and bell peppers:

And one of squash and broccoli:

And her are some carrots, which were planted in the Spring and survived the drought:

Here is some of it being prepared for long-term storage:

And then canned:

Here is a watermelon. Interestingly, we didn’t plant watermelon seeds this year at all!

There were some logistic issues to the fall garden. I did try to time our planting based on the noted harvest times of the plants with the theoretical first freeze for this area (which for us is Nov 15). The Lord has been gracious in not permitting a hard freeze to come through here as of yet, and so that has allowed us to gather from the garden even beyond the predicted harvest times.

During the last few weeks, on freezing or near-there nights, we have covered the garden with 10′ wide, 6mm thick, white plastic, so the sensitive plants wouldn’t be directly exposed to the cold; and that appears, by God’s graces and mercies, to have helped on those nights. However, it seems there is a point with some temperature-sensitive plants where, even though they are covered and temperatures don’t reach hard-freeze levels, they are still affected and essentially stop growing their “fruit.” But, the vegetables themselves were not destroyed, and we were thankfully able to still cull them.

Right now, we have collected all of the above-ground vegetables. Sue’s next job with the garden is to pull the carrots (planted in the Spring!, but which are root crops, therefore below ground, and thus more protected from colder temperature) and then process the cabbage, which we are probably going to try to store as sauerkraut, as that is a common agrarian method of long-term storage.

All thanks be to God for His graces, mercies and provisions in allowing us food off of the land.

— David

Garden 2008 II

September 5, 2008 / / 9 Comments

The Lord has graciously afforded opportunity for a Fall garden this year with the extra rain and catch-water systems He granted. And so, we planted about 10 or more days ago, and here is where things are now. Any of the plants that are sort of well-grown looking are Spring plantings that made it through the drought:

The lettuce on the left actually has re-sprouted from the Spring planting. Hopefully it and the other lettuce I planted will beat first freeze:

We are hopeful as we should have the water resources for it now. And so we pray the Lord grant provisions from this round of planting, according to His will.

— David

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