… or “cheese harp”. It’s used to cut the coagulated curds into equally sized pieces during the cheese making process. I made one since I either didn’t like the ones you can buy at the store or they are suited for large 50 l batches of milk. I needed one for my small 4-5 l milk portions that fits my pot.
New Wooden Bench in the Driveway
When, four years ago, we visited the property for the first time, we immediately noticed that little wooden bench directly at the border.
While located on our lot, it faces the common driveway and invites neighbours to sit when returning from a walk. It made for such an idyllic scenery in the warm summer sunlight, that I pledged to replace it if it should ever be necessary. Now that time has come and I fulfilled my promise.
Flower Pot Candle Heaters… Debunked a little
Fall is here again and winter is approaching inevitably. So the annual posts on clay pot candle heaters are prospering again as they do every year. With germany’s energy crisis becoming more and more obvious, lots of untrustworthy and even mainstream voices rise recommending tealight-ovens as an alternative means of heating. In the light of a recent discussion, let me clarify things on this issue a little bit if you allow, ok?
I have one of these contraptions (home made of course) running in my greenhouse – they work fine and as long as you know what they’re really doing you can use them adequately and rely on them properly.
Roasted Cauliflower with Cheese-and-Beer-Sauce
We had a giant head of cauliflower that had to be processed before it went bad, so we made this savoury oven bake.
New Mushroom Cultivation Bags
The last self made mushroom cultivation bags I tried were such a success that I made new ones and challenged my luck again. Here’s the three new bags that I hope will thrive and prosper:
- Some “Mystery Mushrooms” (I found an old and non-specified mycelium bag in the shed. Let’s see… 🙂 )
- King Oyster Mushrooms (lat. pleurotus eryngii)
- Regular Oyster Mushrooms (lat. pleurotus ostreatus)
Read here how to make your own mushroom growing bags and here’s where I buy (de) my mycelium and accessories.
Prepping: Update on Blackout Precautions
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s about Germany, the country where I was born and raised, where I have lived all my life and that was a decent, advanced industrialized nation about just one year ago. Now, our current green-leftist government is obviously diligently working hard on passing the nation right downwards to the third world.
Effects
This includes (among much else) meanwhile even official bodies declaring large-scale blackouts well possible this winter – due to our amateurishly conducted and eventually disastrous “energy turnaround”. Not even a year ago, people articulating the exact same warnings were disparaged as “nazis” (will always work in germany), “conspiracy theorists” or simply “weirdos”. I’m proud to state that I was one of them 🙂
Another Mushroom Harvest
This is the 6. (sixth!) harvest from the do-it-yourself mushroom cultivation bags in the homemade fruiting chamber now and I’m really overwhelmed! If this is going on that way, I’ll never buy any mushrooms from the store again 🙂
Also, I’ll be trying to cultivate some additional sorts like King Oyster (pleurotus eryngii), Shiitake (lentinula edodes) , etc. in the future.
Strawberry Raised Bed
We got a new chicken-quarantine-box (a former luxury guinea pig enclosure, with large windows, better ventilation and easy access), so we were able to re-purpose the trusty old one: Now it’s a raised bed for the SO’s perennial strawberry plants.
