Standing On The Shoulders of Giants

The old saying is so true! I have very little new to say. I just want to distill down a bit of information down into easily digestable amounts. This post is going to be a n homage to my favorite resources for info about anything and everything homesteady. First and above all others is my hero, Jack Spirko, of The Survival Podcast. If you haven't listened to this show, then all I can say is "What the hell are you reading this piece of crap when you could be getting some terrific info at http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/ "
If you stiil are reading, then I guess I still have more resources to cite. My favorite magaazine is Backwoods Home Magazine, a bimonthly publication, which is available in part online. I highly recommmend subscribing: I have never been disappointed in a single issue, however newsstand circulation can be somewhat spotty. Extra goodies, such as digital anthologies and print books can also be had as parts of different subscription packages. If you're still not sold, just check out the available content at www.backwoodshome.com/
As a homebrewer, I have to say Charlie Papazian is aces. Of his three books, I have only read "The Homebrewers Companion" and "The New Complete Joy if Homebrewing". Both books have been witness to unplanned successes and fortuitous disasters, baring countless malt stains as battle scars. His liver must be classified as one of the wonders of the modern world. No online reference to homebrewing and homesteading would be complete without a tip of the hat to Johnny Max and the Queen over at http://www.sshomestead.com/ .
James Wesley, Rowles' book "How To Survive The End Of The World As We Know It" and "The Backyard Homestead" by Storey Publishing are another couple of favorites. As long as you know your place in the food chain, you may enjoy "How To Bag The Biggest Buck Of Your Life" by Larry Benoit and "The Trappers Handbook" by The national Trapper's Association. On the subject of trapping you'd be hard pressed to find a more readily digestible author than Oscar Cronk, Who has a species-specific work on just about every fur-bearer currently being harvested in the lower 48 Canadian provinces. Cronk's Scientific's Muskrat trapping was the first trapping book purchased by me, aside from all of the free stuff given to me by the Maine IFW when I took the trapper education class.
I'm a little tired now, so I'll say goodnight , Irene. I'm not really the creative sort, so that catchy sign-off catch phrase may never come. So...(awkward silence, crickets chirping, etc.)

Grammy Lindman's Mincemeat

My grandmother made mincemeat from the necks of deer taken by the cousins in my family who did hunt. Sadly, I did not hunt until I was in my 20's. My grandparents and both of my aunts were all expert hunters. My dad, however was all city boy, even though he grew up in Veazie, Maine. He had no interests outside of fast cars and girls growing up. By the time I came along Grampy was dead and Grammy was in no shape to be toting a 30-30 through the swamps in search of dinner. My dad's side of the family were not very close to me, seeing me only few times a year. We always got together on Thanksgiving. It smelled like heaven. Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, turkey, squash, all mixed to create a perfume never surpassed by anything whipped up by the cosmetic industry. The neck was usually donated by cousin Bruce. If you want to give this a try, I have to warn you, you'll wnat to clear your schedule for an entire day. you'll also want to have a pie crust prepared or some cookie dough all ready to turn into mincemeat cookies when it's done. By the way, I don't ever call it venison. If you can't say what it really is, you have no business eating it.
Makes roughly 12-14 quarts
20 Cups apples cored. peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
4 pounds raisins
1 deer neck, boiled and ground (about 5 lbs deer meat)
1-1/2 cups broth from cooking meat
1 gallon apple cider
4 pounds brown sugar
3 cups molasses
1-1/2 tablespoons powdered clove
1-1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
salt to taste
you may also throw in 1/2 pound citron, but my aunt never did, and I don't believe gram ever did either
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Cook slowly 2 hours
My aunt says that she uses oleo in hers and that gram used suet in hers but I never put either in mine

Blueberry Bliss

If you're new to this blog, or even returning, Thanks and welcome! Normally I only get an opportunity to voice my opinions to close friends and anyone else who might have the misfortune to be stuck in the room with me when my mouth shifts into gear. I do love the sound of my own voice...so much that my wife refers to me as Mister Knowitall.

I don't want folks to get the wrong idea about me, I'm not just some braying jackass. My expositions aren't always abstract philosophical tirades: I read constantly. I love the process of learning anything with a practical purpose. The world is an amazing place, full of neat stuff to do. That said, I do not know nearly as much as I would like to learn.

What I hope to share with you is the lessons that I have learned from a life of considered frugality...or as my wife calls it "being a cheap bastard". I also hope to get some feedback from anyone who may have a little better idea on how to make a better biscuit (figuratively, though I do love biscuits).

A little bit about my background. I took up home brewing about 15 years ago, just because I had a couple of friends who did it and it sounded fun. It has become a defining characteristic of my personality. I have taught friends how to do it, gone shopping for supplies with them, and supplied them with sudsy inspiration. When my wife and I bought our house four years ago (bad timing, I know), we quickly learned that we lived right in the middle of a blueberry field. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, or being "a cheap bastard", I scammed a blueberry wine recipe off my buddy, Walt, and made it my own. I have altered it some over the successive trials, improving my technique, and learning some hard lessons along the way. The latest incarnation of the blueberry hootch is smooth, fruity, and costs me about $15 to make a 5 gallon batch. The best part is I haven't had a single bottle explode in over two years. Yup, not a typo, explode. Near as I can tell, I didn't quite kill off all the yeast before I bottled. Late one night I responded to the sounds of, what I thought was an intruder trashing my kitchen. I found broken glass and a big maroon puddle across my kitchen floor. My white linoleum kitchen floor. Luckily, I learn quick (hence, Mister Knowitall). Adding finings produced a nice polish to the wine and kept my wife from burying my remains in a shallow grave in the back yard.

If you make your own wine already, and are familiar with the process, Here's my recipe:

3-one gallon Ziploc baggies of blueberries, pureed and strained

5 to 8and a half pounds of granulated sugar

23 grams (about 2 fluid oz.) DAP-diammonium phosphate for a vigorous ferment

A packet of Fermentis Pasteur Red or Montrachet wine yeast

1 and 1/4 teaspoons potassium sorbate

Fill the fermentation bucket the rest of the way with water (to the 5 gallon mark)

If you aren't a winemaker already, the little book that comes with the "Fine Wine" winemaking kit does a pretty good job of explaining the process.

True Recycling

This post may seem a bit bland compared to most blogs. I don't have a camera to take any pictures of the great stuff that members of our enlightened society discards because they don't look at their trash from the right angle. Take my word for it, trash is beautiful. I live in Maine in the middle of a blueberry field on a dead end road. The nice thing about living where I live is the possibilities afforded to me by what the good lord has blessed me with.
My appreciation for garbage goes back to watching my grandmother press aluminum foil flat and carefully open presents on Christmas morning to use the paper the next year. I have picked discarded gardening tools, gas grills, aluminum bowls, glass bottles, and countless other items. My wife periodically gets peaved at me: she calls it a compulsion. I refuse to admit that I have C.D.O. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-alphabetized to keep everything tidy.)
A lot of folks won't pick the dump out of some sort of screwed-up sense of pride. I pick with pride! My hobbies include fishing, gardening, homebrewing, winemaking and canning. I like do do all of these things with as little monetary outlay as possible. I save my seeds, compost my waste, and squeeze the nickel until the buffalo shits.
I promise that if anyone is actually reading this that my next post will be better. It's 3 A.M. in Blueberryville, which is my pumpkin time.