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The Fermentation Prelude: How to Extract Whey from Raw Milk
An entry in The Household Economy My full whey station set up, spread out on the kitchen table. The glass in front has beer in it. Not sure how that snuck into the picture. My earliest homesteading...
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Revisiting Old Fermentation Projects
Today marked my first day off from working since I returned to the farm. As such, today has been more relaxed. I’ve been puttering around the farm, having a decadent and leisurely breakfast of french...
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A New Year’s Plan: Death, Poverty and the Household Economy
Predicting the Future As we move into 2012, my plans both for my life and this blog are beginning to take better form. As I wrote in my post on returning home, I am settling into this area—Nehalem, on...
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The Household Economy: A Return to Normal
An introduction to The Household Economy As I write this, the smell of fresh, baking bread is wafting from the wood stove here in the farm’s main, communal house. The bread is one step in my attempt to...
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The Cult of the Expert
An entry in The Household Economy — ∞ — “A system of specialization requires the abdication to specialists of various competences and responsibilities that were once personal and universal. Thus, the...
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Considering Butter: A Philosophy of Homesteading
An entry in The Household Economy A few months back, I read a Sharon Astyk post in which she wrote about a new cookbook of sorts, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. In the book, Reese...
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How To Make Raw Butter
An entry in The Household Economy I love butter. I grew up eating margarine, but those were dark days indeed and I try not to think about them now. Instead, I think about butter, and I eat it. I...
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A New Year’s Plan: Worshipping the Earth
I’ve always enjoyed New Year’s Eve and the ensuing New Year’s Day. The midnight celebrations of the new year strike me as somewhat magical moments, with a fresh year stretched out before me and all its...
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Work Made a Farmer
— ∞ — And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer. God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day...
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The Long Game
An entry in The Household Economy Last year, I started on the garden late. Aside from sneaking in a small potato patch in April, I didn’t really get going until late May and early June. I had some...
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The Long Game Continues
An entry in The Household Economy I wrote in March about The Long Game—the slow assimilation of knowledge and experience and the increased making of my own living each year. I wrote of my hopes for the...
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