Don’t go scrambling for the newspapers – the Morrill Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862, establishing the land-grant colleges. Morrill Act Continue reading →
The Morrill Act and What It Means for You
Ding! Time to get a jump on a fall garden
OK, it’s mid-July here at Chez Siberia and it’s been horrifically hot. And dry. And the garden is not, shall we say, looking its best. We’re still harvesting but there are parts of beds that have been picked over, harvested out. There are lettuces that have bolted. (the photo above is basil – which does not look picked over or harvested out – but I’m going to start taking cuttings anyway so that I have fresh basil this winter)
In short, time to clear the decks to start things for a fall garden. Continue reading →
So, You Want a Farmers’ Market
I was reading a post on Facebook the other day with regard to farmers markets and one commenter wrote that every town needed one and that her city did not.
On the face of it, that sounds like something out of a ’say wha?” sort of experience. Doesn’t every place have a farmers market? Someplace? Continue reading →
Raising Small Livestock: The Devil’s in the Details
A lot of people would like to raise some sort of livestock – whether it’s chickens or pigs or lambs or whatever – but they are stopped by lack of experience and fear. Actually, raising animals is pretty simple (not necessarily easy – which is a whole different deal):
– Make sure they have the nourishment that works for them.
– Make sure they have protection from predators.
– Make sure they have water. All the water they can drink. There is no such thing as too much water for livestock. Trust me on that one. Continue reading →
More Brisket BBQ – Asian Pulled Beef
All pulled beef looks the same, so I’m not going to give you a photo essay on that. Go here:
Pulled BBQ
But I do have a totally “Aunt Toby Sticks Her head in the Fridge and Sees What Comes Out” sort of BBQ. We had guests coming on Friday night. I also had to go to physical therapy (it’s going very well, thank you very much; I can put my left hand in my left back pocket), so I hauled out the slow cooker, the defrosted brisket (trimmed and cut into two big pieces), and poured in the following:
1 Can of low sodium beef broth
3-4 slices of sushi ginger (I had a jar of this in the fridge – I’ve also used this on top of fish when I’ve put it in to bake – really nice). If you have fresh ginger, I’m sure a couple of slices of that would work as well.
1/3 cup of light soy sauce
1/3 cup of cider vinegar
1/4 cup of honey or dark brown sugar
Put on high for one hour; then turn down to low for 6-8 hours. Remove from slow cooker and shred with two forks.
In the slow cooker, add half a bottle of ketchup and stir. Add back the shredded beef, stir up the meat and sauce to combine. Put on high for 20 minutes to heat through
Serve with crunchy sandwich rolls and cole slaw or Claremont Salad
Enjoy.
Vintage Sewing Patterns – Thoughts
There are a lot of sewers out there who buy, collect and use vintage patterns (and no matter what the online retailers call them, I’m not sure you can consider Nolan Miller “Dynasty” sewing patterns from the 1980s to be exactly ‘vintage’ but that’s a discussion for another time). Everyone looks for something different. Some people are just looking for a particular style of dress from the 1950s or 1960s. Other people are more focused on sizing and pattern measurements (for the reason that people are just bigger and taller than they were 50-60 years ago, though for some people, it’s exactly the opposite problem). Other people have armed themselves with ‘how to redraft patterns’ skills so that they don’t care what size it is since they are going to redraft the pattern in their size in any case. Continue reading →
Sheep: From the Hooves Up
As Aunt Toby said before, there are a couple of items in terms of raising sheep that if you get them right, everything else pretty much falls into place. One of the most important is keeping hooves trimmed. Years ago, I attended a talk by a ruminant specialist from Cornell, who had done a lot of work in Scotland. She said the greatest promoter of sheep health in the Highlands was…the ATV. With an ATV, shepherds could get out to even the most remote, marshy, inhospitable areas where they sheep were holed up (sheep always look for the most remote, marshy and inhospitable places to park themselves; it’s part of their mouflon heritage) to check them, check their feet, do trimming and so on. She was a huge promoter of hoof trimming. Continue reading →
Twill, Baby, Twill
Recently, I read on another blog that I frequent the author’s question about what sort of fabric he’d gone and bought to make himself a pair of pants. Male Pattern Boldness
He thought it might be ’some sort of twill’. Several of us recognized immediately that what he had was not twill but I thought that perhaps a little bit of information on what twill is…and ain’t..might be useful.
The picture at the top is a twill Continue reading →
Red Dress Redux
For those folks who requested an actual shot of the dress from this post because it disappeared into the laundry before I could do it, here you go. Apologies for the armpit shot, though it does give you an idea of what a honkin’ broad back I have (courtesy of genetics, weight lifting et al.).
Again – to recap:
Pattern: Vogue 8241
Fabric: Bamboo and lycra jersey for the dress, nylon mesh for the lining in the bodice
No zip – one button at the back of the neck with a thread loop
(oh, yeah..the shoes are Chinese Laundry from a couple of years ago, for those folks who want to know, and the belt is Chico’s)
Want Sheep? Learn This.
So, you are thinking about raising sheep. Or, maybe it’s goats. It’s probably NOT cattle because just the thought of raising a cow or a beef animal is so daunting – we’re talking a creature that ends up weighing almost as much as a small car.
If one of those babies steps on your foot, you will NOT be wearing Manolos again. Trust me; I know.
But there are many aspects of raising sheep, goats and cattle that are the same, so … just pick one and learn to care for them really really well and you’ve got the whole class licked. Ruminants – it’s what’s for dinner. There are two areas where, if you learn to get them right, you’ve got 90% of ruminant health licked (in a good way): the digestive system and the hooves. I’ll do this in two parts, the first being the digestive system. Continue reading →
Kitchen Counter Economics is a community where we can share ideas on how to save money, live more sustainably, and gain control over the stuff of daily living for ourselves and our families in the current economic environment. This started as a series of diary postings at the 
