Ribbit

Lately, I've noticed TONS of tiny, baby frogs hopping all around the property.  Every now and then you'd find one in the garden, careful not to step on it ... but now, in the evenings, no matter where I am, I find numerous little frogs hopping around. Some have been as small as 1/2" long!  It's pretty cute.

 

I saved one from the shower the other day.  I'm pretty sure he could have found his way out, I mean, he found his way in.  But I decided to corner him and set him free onto the grass.  I think it was just an excuse to pick another one up.


One thing I haven't seen yet is the bull frog ... but I've definitely heard them.  You can hear their deep, loud sounds coming from the pond in the evening.  I have a feeling I wouldn't be able to corner one of them.

Barrrrtender

Look out Hopland.  There's a new bartender in town. 

The Hopland Inn

About 6 weeks ago, the Hopland Inn reopened their bar.  It's a quaint little spot, and really, the only "hotspot" in Hopland.  Think 1800's style building, all wood bar complete with wooden ladder (you know, to reach the Hpnotiq) and an adjacent library that is reminiscent of Nancy Drew and the classic board game, Clue.  ("It was the Professor, in the Library, with the candlestick!")  Needless to say, we were all pretty stoked when Brandon got a job there.

Blackberry Mojito

He met the new manager, Amy a few weeks ago by the river.  A few of the inters were hanging out on a typical scalding summer day, and Amy was there with her golden retriever, Igmor.  Igmor kept grabbing our shoes and hat, running around with them inciting us to play with him.  It was pretty adorable.  Turns out, she needed some help at the bar and next thing you know, he's mixing margaritas like whoa.  Last night, on his 4th day of work, we all decided to stop by and challenge his novice 'tending skills.  Cassie and I arrived first, with fresh spearmint and blackberries.  We had an agenda: Blackberry Mojitos.  What could be better than a mojito on a hot, 100 degree day?  Two of them.

After downing those, we let him make us one of his staples: a dirty martini.  It was the single dirtiest martini I've ever had.  You couldn't even taste the alcohol - yes, I know that's what they all say - but it was true.  It was also Cassie's first martini, making it a great introduction to the heavy hitter.  The olive juice also had pepperccinis in it at one point, so there was a hint of pepper in there - excellent.

Not too long after that, the rest of the crew arrived.  Brittany had returned from biking to and from Ukiah, so she just popped in to say hi.  Next, Rhonda, the Manager of the Real Goods store ponied up to the bar, followed soon after by Vaughn and then David.  We pretty much owned the place (no hard to do). 

"I see you Cassie ...!"

One last drink ... a margarita.  Now, Cassie works at a margarita bar/mexican restaurant in Santa Rosa and is a trained bartender - so she knows her 'ritas.  I snuck this pick while B was grabbing something behind the bar - Cassie swoops in and makes a few adjustments.  Hey, if you want something done right .... !?  ;) 

All in all, it was great time, and will definitely be back again soon. 

Making Goat Soap, Cheese, Yogurt & Kefir

One of the most recent sustainable living workshop we had was on how to make kefir, yogurt, soap and cheese using raw goats milk.  I was pretty excited about this class.

We spent the day with Jini Reynolds, expert on just about anything from herbal medicine to helicopter flying. Really.  She's got a lovely little homestead nestled in the hills of Redwood Valley overlooking Mendocino Lake.  

The first part of the day, we prepared the ingredients for making soap - you have to use lye, a chemical that essentially emulsifies the fats you add to produce glycerin, which is what suds up and is actually soap.  So, we added water to the lye and had to wait for it to cool down (adding water = chemical reaction = gets really hot) before we got started.  In the interim, we learned about cheese, yogurt and kefir.

Cheese, I discovered, is quite simple to make.  If you're using raw milk, you basically heat it up (just a bit), add some white vinegar, and let it sit over night.  The vinegar forces the curds to separate from the whey, (then along came a spider and sat down beside her...no wait, wrong post.) After letting this mixture sit overnight, you pour off the whey (liquid) and maintain the curds (cheese).  Put the curds in cheese cloth, squeeze out excess whey, and hang for a day or so.  I present to you ... cheese!  Easy, huh?

Yogurt is even easier if you can believe it. All you do is add a little bit of existing yogurt to a raw milk.  Let it sit out and it turns into yogurt!  I need to get me some raw milk to start experimenting ... Making kefir is much the same way.  You can either use the cultured kefir pearls from kefir that has sat out for a few weeks (too old to eat, but it produces some great starts), or use kefir pearls you purchased at the store.  Again, so simple.  The hardest thing is waiting for it to be ready.

After the morning session, we had a lovely lunch in her backyard, which included, of course, goat cheese!  We chopped up some garlic, chives and basil and added it to some freshly made cheese.  It was yum.  Jini also broke out a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine - quite a treat for our afternoon lunch.

Back to soap ... now that the lye/water mixture had cooled, we mixed up a few different kinds of oils - coconut, olive, palm - as well as some raw goat milk.  We then added the lye and took turns stirring - we ended up stirring for something like 45 minutes!  It was a huge batch, enough for like, 40-50 bars of soap.  But you had to keep stirring to force the emulsification else the ingredients would separate.

This is about 5 min into the mixing

We poured our mixture into soap molds and added some fresh lavender to a few of them for texture.  Because it takes a while for it to settle and harden, Jini said she'd mail our finished soaps to us.  Again, waiting is the hardest part!  I'll be sure to post a photo of once we receive them.

If We Don't Start Acting Now ....

I thought this was a pretty poignant advertisement I stumbled upon while in SF for the conference.

As such, I think it deserves it's own post.  (Apologies for the glare)

on a bus stop on California Street

Intersolar Conference

Not too long ago (ok maybe 2 weeks ... I'm a bit behind on my blogging) ... Brandon and I went down to the city by the bay to attend the Intersolar Conference.  It was a massive event filled with everything you can imagine solar-related.

Kathryn, schwag in hand

We rolled in wearing jeans ... soon to discoverer we were probably the most casually dressed folk there.  Lots of slacks, dress shirts and skirts.  But not to worry ... I did see a few other scrappers walking around.  

I wish I had more to comment on about the conference, but there wasn't a whole lot for the SLI Interns.  It was interesting to see all the different gadgets and new do-dads they're coming out with (many of which, may not be all that necessary according to my PV 200 instructor).  But, it was a great opportunity to nab some sweet schwag. That's always my highlight of conferences.

View as we escalated down

What we walked away with, in order of increasing cool-ness:

resuable tote / grocery bags

set of blank cd's for burning

key chain w bottle openers

memory stick

2  (bad a**) camouflage trucker hats 

Needless to say, it was a good conference. 

And check out the weather we had:  

Hi, Pretty

Spiral Garden 1.0

I'm going to title this "Spiral Garden 1.0" because I anticiapte a few iterations / updates of this project.

David & Solar Bob laying down seaweed

The spiral garden is the brainchild of Cassie.  In the intern village area, there's a lot of unused land with exceptionally poor soil in the middle behind the teepee in front of our kitchen yurt. Cassie wanted to convert the soil in to rich, nutritious soil that could be used to grow crops.  David had been reading up on Lasagna Gardening, so they decided to use this method to treat and repair the damaged, sun-leached soil.

Cassie sectioned off a circle ~36 feet in diameter and fenced it in.  Next, Brittany began transporting muck (aka freshwater seaweed) from our pond as the first layer of the lasagna.  She laid the seaweed out in a spiral pattern and soon after the rest of the crew began adding layer upon layer of various organic materials that would decompose and 'cook' down, creating a stew of nutrient-dense soil ready to be planted.

Brandon busted out the weed chopper to cut the weeds (mostly grass and plantain, which is actually not a weed in my book) so that it was flat and clean between the raised beds they were building.

The various layers they used, in order:

freshwater seaweed
grass clippings / weeds
fresh goat manure
cardboard
dried leaves
partially decomposed straw
fresh straw
biochar
seabird guano (aka bird droppings)
stable bedding

The raised beds should be about 14" tall by the time all of those layers have been added.

Holy S*hit!

I can't tell you how long this all took, but it was much longer than anyone anticipated.  It wasn't uncommon to see an intern or volunteer working well into dinner still wheeling goat manure and shovelling it into the bed.

They aren't done quite yet.  They're in the process of layering on the dirt.  After that comes compost then mulch and then they are done.  Well, then they'll have to plant, but that's the fun part right?  But that comes after they allow their compost cocktail to marinate for just the right amount of time.

I'll keep you posted.

{Potatoes}

As I mentioned previously, we kinda have a lot of potatoes.

So pretty

Cassie went through the garden on Sunday and harvested them all.  We now put some of our excess produce on the garden cart to sell, but still have a bunch that we must strategically prepare and consume on our own.

The obvious:  Potato Salad

But not your typical potato salad ... this one had a dressing of mayo, mustard and olive juice.  And most of the ingredients came from the garden.  This was a Cassie & David creation:  potatoes, broccoli, onion, hard boiled eggs, parsley, carrots, ... they did a great job.  I went back for seconds.  

We also made scalloped potatoes.  These turned out incredibly decadent ... sharp cheddar cheese, whole milk, butter ... essentially mac N' cheese but with potatoes.  Now you know that can't taste bad.

Dirty

{Zucchini}

With the abundance that is bursting from our garden, we've been faced with the following challenge: how many different ways can one prepare {insert vegetable here}?

If you've ever managed a garden, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Currently, the "insert vegetable here" is zucchini.  (And potatoes.)

We didn't plan too well with our planting - but who can blame us?  Most of the interns that were here right at the beginning had little to no knowledge about gardening.  We did damn well considering, if you ask me.  Or David.  Or Brandon.  Or Vaughn.

So ... how many possible ways can you cook, prepare, eat .... zucchini?  I didn't think there were many.  I was afraid we'd watch them slowly wilt as we dreaded another sauteed zucchini + veggie dish.  But no. We're much too creative for that here. Observe:

David started it.  He unknowingly set the bar for new, creative and delicious recipes.  (I blame the banana, blueberry, almond pancakes w/ wheat flour he made ages ago.)  This time, he decided to make zucchini cakes.  Think crab cakes, but with zucchini ("z").  And feta cheese, green onion, & red peppers (I think) held together with some egg and flour.  Fried to perfection.  

Inspired by this idea, Brandon and I decided to make our own batch.  We saw his feta z-cakes and raised him:
z-cakes with garlic, lemon, spring onion, bell pepper, cayenne, paprika, breadcrumbs, egg, flour, mayo. WHAT.

Meanwhile ... everyone is dicing up zucchini and putting it into scrambles, salads, hot pastas, cold pastas - you name it. 

Yesterday, David hit back.  He whipped up z-bread w/ walnuts and carob chips.  I had a sample of the batter and it was divine. The finished product was even better.  To die for!  Hard to top that. 

Next up?  Battered zucchini, stuffed squash blossoms or .... zucchini "pasta"?  D. All of the above.

Now, I don't have a photo of the z-bread, but here's an example of the kind of magic David can make with his bread; this is homemade wheat he whipped up (4 loaves, I might add) last week.  Perhaps he missed his calling as a baker?  And no, I didn't steal this shot from Google images "perfect loaf of bread"

Farmageddon

Last Thursday, SLI hosted an event onsite: dinner and a movie.

Everyone gathered around 5:30 for a potluck by the pond.  We had some homemade pasta, veggie stirfry, fresh salad, chips, salsa, fruit, and of course, a few brewskies.  It was very warm that night, but much cooler sitting under the canopy of weeping willows on the dock.  After grubbing, we headed to the classroom yurt above the organic garden to watch Farmageddon.

I think I can speak for all the interns when I say that we're fairly well informed about our food industry - from the benefits of local, organic food and farming (earth friendly, sustainable, more nutritious, happy cows,  ...) to the downsides of agribusiness (how much time do you have?).  But, we were all surprised to learn what we did from the documentary.

The gist:  USDA trying to make all food "safe" to the public by applying the same rules and regulations to Foster Farms as it does to Betty Sue's Family Farms.  Not possible, fair or practical.  It went further to show how small farmers all across the country are being put out of business and even persecuted for not adhering to such standards and even so when they are adhering.  That was the scariest part.  I was simultaneously surprised and not surprised.  Big business in cahoots w/ the government = doing lots of shady ish to good people who do not fit their paradigm.  I wont get all political on you ... (too late?) but it's definitely eye opening and worth watching.  The focus was largely on raw milk and raw milk products, so if that's an interest of yours, do not miss this film.

Thanks to Bob Banner for sharing this movie with us.  Also ... if you think this is something that happens elsewhere and not to your local farmer .... check out this blog that shows this kind of prosecution is going on right in our backyard - in Willits, CA.