Here comes the Sun

This little collection of pictures shows the what the sun is doing for us these days. It is cooking our compost, growing the plants in the greenhouse, and saving CO2. Now we are going around and checking to see how we can conserve more energy, turning off  the computers from 7 pm to 7 am, for example, turning off things that don't need to run, etc. This is a miracle for us, a dream that came true. The monitoring system is in a small room in the barn where we can connect a laptop and download the energy data to a laptop and take a look at what is going on. BTW, the hurricane only came up with 3.5 in of rain and a 35 mph gust. We are far above flowing rivers or brooks so we did not see the damage they have south of here. One bridge in our town is majorly damaged, a detour to live with for months. We were so lucky.

John's Birthday - Update

The solar project is coming along nicely today. The wood oven is being lighted today to prepare for canning, baking, drying veggies,and sterilizing jars. The greenhouse veggies are starting to turn the right colors and we have found  a good number of berries around the edge of the field that we can cook with the abundant apples for jellies and syrups. Tonight we will treat ourselves to a dinner at   Claire's   in Hardwick, where they serve what we like to eat, but cook it better...! Unfortunately, John got stuck with a tractor repair today, but that will not keep us from having a great day.

Baking In a Wood Fired Oven Class at King Arthur, Norwich, VT

Ciril Hitz led a class in Cooking in a Cooling Wood Fired Oven on Aug 5-6 at King Arthur Baking Education Center. From bagels, to pizza, to cinnamon  rolls, Linzer tart, granola and rustic tarts, we worked with 12 other people to master the art of cooking in a cooling oven. Most of the products we don't normally eat, so have given away most of it. We hope to find a class on baking artisanal whole grain breads someday, more to our liking. However, never having taken a class together like this, we came away thinking that it was fun and necessary if we are going to cook the foods we like. We recommend the classes at KA to everyone.

The Solar Power Project Begins

As we watch the wind towers go up on the mountains in our view, we are starting our own alternative energy project for the summer. Materials were delivered that will be installed in mid August. We expect to be using solar power in Sept.  This is Forest Palombo of Hyde Park, VT helping John off-load the materials. He is the son of Dave Palombo, the owner of the company, Indepent Power, (see truck). BTW, nothing was broken.

Baking Day

 

 When the oven is hot, ya gotta bake! Whereas the June weather is taking a vacation and we have rain, rain, rain..... we fired up the oven and over two days have baked up a number of things. We are working hard to become proficient with this, but there are so many unknowns. What a different experience in life from traditional  baking where everything is more controlled and exact, more or less. Timing is a big, big factor with the temperature of the cooling over descending at some unknown pace. Pizzas are best in a very hot oven, we made each in about 4 minutes. Later we baked a corn bread (a bit too much), a fruit crisp that is definitely very crisp, and the Lasagna which came out really well. So baking day is official: when the weather is crumby and we need to stock up on meals.

First baking... pizza and bread

 The first baking was a bit slow. The fire was not hot enough, but in time the pizza came out to be quite edible. The bread cooked in just under 20 min, to an internal temp of 190. However, (long story) the dough was not the greatest. So there is room for much improvement. We enjoyed the pizza and will try the bread for breakfast. It's a start and with luck and patience, we will figure this out. One thing for sure, this way does not heat up the kitchen!