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.

Page 87 of 95

On the Road to Agrarianism I Got a Fat Fire

April 16, 2009 / / 5 Comments

In continuing on a path to the old ways, we are hoping to lessen our reliance upon electricity, which for us right now includes producing light. Typically in the old days light was generated by burning oil (Lev 24:2; Ex 39:37). Interestingly, one of the oils people would use was lard from animals. We have the rendered fat from our pigs that have been butchered; and so, I thought it might be interesting to see if using the lard might work for us.

I discovered that there are things that exist called “fat lamps”, and so I purchased one from over the Internet that was a double, hanging lamp. These don’t have a wick, but apparently a strings from a mop head can be used, a couple of which the neighbors gave me. I put a large tablespoon worth of lard in the little “pan” of the lamp, took a mop string and put it in the lard so that it would be completely covered (the lard needs to be melted just enough to do this), put the lard-coated wick in the spout of the lamp, and lit it. It worked!…sort of — it had a very small flame. I found that if I positioned the wick to stick up in the air a little like a candle, it worked much better. The lard melted as the wick burned; the wick became saturated; and with as much lard as we used, the flame lasted for about three hours.

Here are some pictures of it in action:


Here it is, set in its hanging partner lamp:

After the first test where all of the lard was used, I wanted to see if by just adding more lard the lamp would continue to work. And so, I took another bit of lard and put it in the lamp, trimmed the wick and repositioned it, and then lit it. It was soaked enough with the previous lard that it worked fine; and then as the new lard melted, the lamp continued to burn.

Here it is re-lit, and at night with the electric lights off:

We are thankful for the Lord showing us ways to do things that are fashioned from His direct provisions.

— David

Apple Cider Vinegar

April 11, 2009 / / 5 Comments

Once again in an attempt to learn how to store food without canning or freezing so as to further separate from our dependence on the world, I thought it would be interesting to try to make apple cider vinegar, for the preserving method, for the health benefits, and since we have several apple trees in our orchard.

The recipes on the Internet basically said squeeze the apples for the juice, add a little already-made apple cider vinegar that has “the mother” in it, and let it sit for 3 to 4 weeks. Some said to add yeast, but I was trying to use as few outside ingredients letting creation and the yeast that is naturally in the air handle it. It apparently ferments and then turns to vinegar.

And so we purchased some apples and used our lard press on them. One apple cut in half with the halves face down seemed to press the best:

Here I am pressing:

And here are the results:

This is what was left after pressing:


(On a side note, sadly, the cast iron plate of the lard press cracked in half, I guess from tightening too hard; so, using it wasn’t a great idea. I suppose we might have to try a cider press for future attempts.)

After we were done pressing, Sue poured the juice through a piece of paper towel (as a filter) into the non-metallic containers (because of the acid produced) where they would ferment, and so we used canning jars. The first time, it took about 6 pounds of apples to make two 2/3 pint jars full; the second time we got 5 pints from 9 pounds:




Sue then added a couple of table spoons of already-made apple cider vinegar to act as a “starter”. From there they sat for several weeks. Each day I would tighten the caps, shake the jars and loosen the caps again to allow for any pressure out and some more air (with yeast hopefully) in.

After 6 weeks, the alcohol didn’t seem to be dissipating very quickly, and Sue did a little more research, and she discovered we probably should have just covered the jars with cheese cloth or a towel. I had figured it didn’t really matter much as long as some air was getting in there, but apparently it needs constant air availability.

And indeed it did what it was supposed to do: the apple juice is now vinegar!

We marvel at the Lord’s workings in His creation and how He has included these things to help us in the temporal matters of sustenance, and we thank Him for these provisions.

— David

Garden 2009 – Spring

April 3, 2009 / / 6 Comments


Well, it’s that time of year again, and the Lord has granted us provisions to be able to plant a garden. This year we’ve followed Michael’s recommendations that he researched as to how to put together a good top soil, which was one part vermiculite, one part peat moss, and one part compost. While the vermiculite is rather pricey, it and the peat moss only need to be included in the first-year blend, with each year following only requiring compost.

In a hopefully further improvement, because our beds were sloped, I added raised barriers and leveled out each of them so the water wouldn’t just run off the beds:


As you can see, I also put bark all around the outside of the raised beds to allow us to walk in those areas after any rains. Plus, after starting the project last year, I finished putting two-foot chicken wire around the garden area to help keep out rabbits and other such critters.

Jumping the Gun

We had a very mild Winter this year, and so I decided to plant soon after what is technically our last freeze date of April 15 or so. Well, a week to a week and a half after our planting, a couple of cold nights with heavy winds came along, the second night being a freeze watch or warning night. We covered our plants with thick, white plastic sheets, and left them on during the day time between the two nights because of the difficulty with the winds. That between-day was sunny and in the 50s-60s Fahrenheit, I believe. I don’t know if it was the cold, the wind, the sun during the between-day, or a combination of them, but the day after the second night when we removed the plastic, just about all of the plants were wilted very badly, enough to where it looked like they all needed to be replanted. And so I went ahead and did just that; I’m just hoping now we don’t have another freezing night. Also, given this experience and that we’ve had freezing days in early April in years past, we have decided that from now on we will probably make somewhere around April 15th each year our new, personal, last freeze date.

And so, the garden is mostly planted again now, and we are looking forward to the potential of God’s provisions for us this year in the area of vegetables, according to His will.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Athos”, “Porthos”, and “Aramis”

March 29, 2009 / / 6 Comments

The Lord has granted that our doe Winnie give birth to triplets, all males. Please meet Athos, Porthos and Aramis. This is Winnie’s second litter, and our pure-bred Nubian buck Shatner is the sire:

Here’s an introduction to them:


And the next evening them getting around (I’m a little out of breath at the beginning after running to get the camera):


We are once again grateful to God for His provisions of these goats, and the health He has graciously granted them and Winnie thus far.

— David

 

Garden 2008 II Update II – Sauerkraut

March 21, 2009 / / 11 Comments

We had a drought last Summer and Fall which really affected the quantity and size of many of our garden vegetables. The time came to harvest our red cabbage from our 2008 Fall garden, and the heads were small and did not really look like cabbage heads but more like a bunch of leaves loosely wrapped around or falling away from each other. Dave said we had to at least try to do something with them. Our neighbor, Michael, mentioned you could make sauerkraut with cabbage, so we thought that might be the best way to go.

I looked up the simplest recipe I could find and hoped for the best.

Here is the cabbage in our garden waiting patiently to be harvested by its novice owner (pick me, pick me!!)

I washed all the cabbage leaves and cut them up with a knife because they were too loose to shred with a shredder or grater. I put the leaves in two 9×13″ pans, added the proportionate amount of pickling salt, and mixed well with my hands. There wasn’t much moisture to be drawn out of the leaves, so I had to add a lot more water when putting them into canning jars. After about 24 hours +/-, I prepared pint canning jars and filled them up with the cut-up cabbage leaves adding water, leaving 1″ head space, and screwed on the lids. I followed the instructions to put the jars into a pan (or lined box in my case) because as they started to ferment, there was some (not much) overflow leakage.

Then I stored the jars at room temperature for six weeks and turned them upside down several times over the course of those weeks to distribute the brine and keep everything moist.

At the end of the six weeks, I opened up all of the jars and emptied them into a large sauce pan, simmering them for about five minutes. Yep, it smelled and tasted like sauerkraut, although it was very dark green and more coarse than the kind you buy at the store. Although turning the cabbage into sauerkraut is a preservation method in itself, I proceeded to can the pints of sauerkraut and put them down in our root cellar in order to preserve them for as long as possible. Since we are not generally sauerkraut eating folks, I needed all the time I could get to figure out more ways to fix it!

Wow! I couldn’t believe that we were able to make sauerkraut and preserve it from what appeared to be pretty lifeless leaves. What a wonderful blessing! I’m very thankful to be learning these valuable lessons in food preservation and to be able to witness God’s direct provision from planting to our table.

Susan

Hi-Ho, The Derry-o, The Farmer is a Belle

March 13, 2009 / / 6 Comments


I do a lot of the outside chores around the homestead here, and there are ways of doing things that are either required by the task at hand or the implements being used for it, or that are based on good procedures I’ve discovered for performing the work. I try to teach Sue these things and especially why I do them or how the things involved work so that she understands those and can perform them herself if I am not around, not in a robotic way just following directions, but in a way where she can analyze a situation and respond properly.

One of thing things I thought would be good for her to know, and might be fun for her to do at the same time, is drive the tractor in delivering hay to our animals:


And so, here is the fun in action! (Please be careful with the volume; it’s often a little loud.)


We are thankful again to the Lord for granting us the resources to feed our animals and perform these duties around the homestead, and I am thankful for the wonderful and willing to learn help meet He has granted me.

— David

Providence’s Providential Provisions: Wild Hogs

March 7, 2009 / / 2 Comments

Again, one of the reasons we moved out here was to try to remove ourselves from dependency upon the world and its systems and place ourselves directly under God’s providence. Well, as I mentioned with water, the Lord’s faithfulness continues to be shown.

An acquaintance of one of the men on the land here informed us that he had been catching wild hogs, and quite a few of them. This being brought to Michael’s attention, he thought it would be of great benefit to the community to take advantage of this gift of meat from God. And so, he put together a plan, which involved building a pen to hold them. We built the pen, bought the wild hogs for a very nominal fee, and began to raise them. The whole community has been involved and has benefited from this provision from the Lord. We have since been able to gather several more pigs the gentleman has captured.

However, with this has brought the processing of the pigs from the very beginning to end, which for Sue and I has involved a new venture for us in the realm of farming: slaughtering and butchering. For me personally, this has been interesting, given what I said in a previous David’s Digest; however, as we continue to progress into more proper, biblical perspectives, the Lord has shown us that He has granted us dominion over these animals and has provided them as food.

And so, it had come time to do what needed to be done. Here are some pictures (for those that aren’t used to seeing this process, it may be a little discomforting).

Here are several after being shot in the head with a .22 caliber rifle (meaning they were basically instantly dead) and their throats being cut to bleed them out:

And then the butchering began:






In reality, it wasn’t too bad. And for me, once you get the skin off, it really just starts to look like meat from the store. Also, now after participating in this process several times, it is not as shocking as it was at first.

Preserving

Typically with our pigs in the past, we would simply can the meat in all of its various forms (bacon, sausage, chops, etc.) after getting it back from the meat processing place. This time though, in hoping to continue our education in the old paths, which includes reducing our dependency on the world for its canning supplies, I wanted to take one section of the meat obtained from one of the pigs, and dry cure it by hand. And so, Michael gave us a recipe, which started by rubbing the meat all over with a mixture of salt, sugar and salt petre, followed by covering it with a cloth and storing it in the root cellar for a week, after which time the container is cleaned and the rub-down step is repeated. This sits in the root cellar for 1 week per inch of meat thickness. After that, it is washed and soaked for an hour in cold water, is drip dried, and then it sits in the container for 2 weeks to “equalize” the meat, which helps permeate the curing mixture throughout it. And then technically that’s it; it’s ready to be cooked to eat, and should stay preserved in the root cellar for some time. Here is a picture of the ham with the dry cure mixture on it:

Before final storage, Sue “painted” on a flavoring mixture of brown sugar, honey, pepper and salt petre, and we hung it in the root cellar for future use:


We pray the Lord continue to teach us His ways and grant us His continued provisions, in accordance with His will. And we are most grateful to Him for both.

— David

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