Things Are Blooming

The Bradfords around town have been in full bloom for a while at this point: they were opening up in late February.  My blueberries are blooming now and my aronia bush has been in bloom for a while, as well.

The aronia is interesting.  I got it because the juice is commercially available--meaning at some level it's palatable--and I was swayed by nursery descriptions of it being sweet.  There is a hint of sweetness, but a lot of astringency.  The only way I've managed to make it work is to put the berries in with cranberries for sauce; I have served a mix of cranberry and aronia berry sauce at Thanksgiving a couple of times.

As can be seen, the berries from last fall are still on the bush: I didn't even pick very many of them last fall, because I think I'm pretty much done with aronia.  The birds didn't even take them.  I tried one a couple of days ago and it's about the same: slight sweetness with a barrel full of astringency.  I have never successfully eaten one raw.  I always spit them out.

However, it does sucker a little and the flowers are nice and are also pleasantly fragrant.  So it's not a total loss.

The blueberries are in full bloom, and that's not necessarily a good thing.  Another cold night looms, which might wipe out the crop (again; this happened just a couple of years ago).

For now, spring is here.  Next week, it might leave for one or two fateful days.

Sauerkraut, More

After 28 days, I opened the crock.  It was about as before:  there was a slick of something on the top of the water, but it wasn't mold (or at least it didn't look like it).  Once I got the weights out, I ended up with a little over 1.5 gallons of kraut by volume.  It's a five liter crock, but once it wasn't packed down tightly, it expanded a bit.

The flavor was fine and in keeping with what I've made before.  I don't put any other seasonings in it in addition to salt, so it's plain stuff--but good nonetheless.  I tested the pH and it was between 3 and 3.5.

It was a resounding success. As noted previously, I have never had a batch of sauerkraut fail.  Another observation: a five liter crock makes a lot of kraut.   I couldn't deal with the amount of sauerkraut a three, five, or ten-gallon crock would produce, and even ten liters would be a challenge.  I lack the cool storage space that a basement might provide, so I need to put it in the refrigerator.

I may or may not make another batch; I opened it up about two weeks ago and have gone through a half gallon so far--but there's a lot more taking up refrigerator space.  By the time I finish it, the temps will be warm again.

The Frogs Are Talking...

...and they're saying it's an early spring.  In a normal year spring peepers are making noise by now:

Spring peepers

However, I have been hearing them intermittently for a couple of weeks.  Also, last weekend I heard American toads when I was out running in the woods:


American toad

Although the link (referencing NC) indicates they can call in Februrary, around here I don't recall ever hearing them before March-April.  Yesterday I heard upland chorus frogs, too; they call about the same time as the peepers but usually start a little later.

Upland chorus frog

By mid-April all will be silent.  We are pretty likely to have more frost here in north Georgia, but the warm weather that has predominated for the last few weeks is bringing fruit trees out of dormancy.  Sometimes this works out okay; sometimes it does not end well.

The Sauerkraut Tide

I noticed this the last (and first) time I made kraut in the fermenting crock, but didn't comment on it.  This time it has been a little more dramatic.

There's a definite ebb and flow of the water level (in addition to evaporation, which is slow and steady).  One morning I noticed the moat was almost dry, so added back up to the bottom of the notch.  The liquid level had overflowed a few hours later.  I then remembered what Holly mentions on her fermenting crock how-to page.  Pressure changes can pull water up.  I think it might also be related to changes inside the vessel itself.  At any rate, I haven't tried seeing if I can jiggle the lid and liberate the water, but I am now not as disturbed if I see a sudden water level change.

It has been almost three weeks; I'm going to try to let it go another week to 28 days.  The house is still cool (65-70).

More on Sauerkraut

Last year I wrote about my experiences with sauerkraut after the first few batches.  I'm doing more now, and have learned a few things.

Another sauerkraut resource is makesauerkraut.com.  It has an extensive amount of information in the form of step-by-step instructions for crocks and jars, recipes, and reviews of various fermenting tools (including jars, weights, airlocks, crocks, and more).

I start by chopping up cabbage with a knife.  I don't use a mandolin or food processor (neither of which I have).  Impressed by the admonitions to be precise on the makesauerkraut.com, I weighed the cabbage as I cut it.

Two pounds is indeed about equal to a processed head, but I had some variance. Much of the weight is in the solid core, which I did not include, but even with that and some of the outer leaves removed, some heads were around two pounds, and some were substantially more.

I was originally going for 10 pounds, because I have a 5-liter crock and 2 pounds per liter is a general benchmark.  However, as can be seen, my cabbage is pretty coarsely cut, so eight pounds filled the crock leaving barely enough room to get the weights in.  Think of it this way:  Assuming equal density, a pound of sand occupies less space in a container than a pound of gravel.

I mixed it up in two-pound batches, because those are easy to deal with.  I'm using a bit less salt than recommended on the makesauerkraut.com pages, sticking with one tablespoon per two-pound batch.  It has worked well for me in the past.  So far, I haven't had any failures with cabbage.

After salting and squeezing a bit, followed by some gloved-fist crushing and stomping with my wood bat, I sealed it up.  I plan to let it go the full 28 days.  As previously, I added a little salt water to the mix because I didn't have good coverage from just the cabbage's liberated juice alone.  I added less than a cup of water that had salt added at the rate of 1.5 tablespoons per quart (or 1.125 teaspoons per cup).

I'm planning to let it go a bit longer because I've learned that I was indeed stopping my fermentations too soon, as mentioned in the previous post.  The gaseous phase is only one of the steps in the fermentation process, and stopping things when that concludes is too soon.  Another factor is that now that it is winter, my house is around 70 so the temperature should be favorable.  We shall see how it goes.  The quantity I'm doing this time around is the same as last time, except that it's all in the crock rather than split between crock and glass jar.  This is the first time I can't see what's going on.  It is, however, bubbling, so that is a good sign.

Rose Campion and Violets

Long ago, someone planted rose campion in the yard.  It is a biennial flowering plant; the first year it sprouts and grows close to the ground.  The second year, it sends up stalks, blooms, then dies.

I have it cropping up everywhere, including in the middle of the yard.  It's very effective at seeding itself.  From my perspective, it has some advantages:

1)  The flowers are pretty nice and it will bloom to some degree for much of the summer.  The picture was taken on May 5 last year and it bloomed into August.

2)  It thrives in conditions of utter neglect (this is its most important attribute).  It survived for years and spread with no care whatsoever, and last summer / fall in Georgia was seriously dry (almost no rain for weeks on end).  It did fine.

Another flower that is only around for a short time is the violet.  They are native to Georgia.  In early spring they bloom.  This picture was taken about March 15.   The flowers are only around for a couple of weeks, however, though the leaves persist.

I notice them mostly in areas with filtered sun or shade, though they may grow in areas that get more sun.  As natives, they also grow with no TLC and so are much appreciated.

Wood cutting

This is not an area where I can claim much expertise, but I have found a few things that work.  I have a wood-burning stove, and have wood from a variety of sources:  fallen dead trees, trees cut down because they're too close to the house or have other issues, and trees (usually dead) cut down by the power company because they are close to power lines.  The latter are usually cut into fireplace- or stove-length logs for me, but the others are very long and need to be sectioned.

 Shown above (the one on the left) is a tree that was leaning over the house last spring.  It was damaged in an ice storm, developing a crack in the main trunk, so I wanted to pull it down in a controlled way rather than risk having it break apart in a storm and fall on the house. So I asked someone to help me get it onto the ground.

Once it was down, it was as shown below.

 

It wasn't terribly large in diameter, but was pretty long and was blocking the area where I normally park, so it had to be cut up.  Below is a view from the other end.

It could be cut up with a manual saw, like a bow saw that can be bought at any hardware store.  However, it would take a lot of time and probably be pretty fatiguing to cut up that much oak by hand.  I used a chainsaw.  Since I don't use the saw very often, I have a battery-powered one (so I don't have to mess with 2-stroke engines, fuel stabilization, etc.).  Battery-powered saws are also a lot quieter.  Nice ones are made by Stihl, Husqvarna, Oregon, and others.

First I cut off most of the smaller limbs then began making cuts to the trunk, using cubits as a rough guide to length (my stove will take 20" logs).  Eventually I had just a long section of trunk and used a timber jack to lever it up off the ground for remaining cuts (I got mine at Northern Tool).

 

Timber jacks are easy to use.  Just set the hook, pull the lever toward the ground, and the trunk--even a very heavy one like this water oak--pivots up.  It starts to get harder to do as the remaining amount of trunk is reduced; eventually, some other support will be needed to do the last cut (like a saw horse or two concrete blocks).

The finished result (with some unrelated pine logs in front) is shown below.  It took less than an hour to cut the tree up (and as can be seen, the interior of the trunk was rotting).

From this point, to make firewood, the larger logs need to be split--using a gas-powered splitter, wedge and maul, axe, or other method.