We are in phase ii of introducing the little ones – three days shy of four months old, a month from laying? – Â to the big girls. Their little coop has been sitting right next to the big one for over a week now, so the girls know each other. Because their run has screen …
Author Archives: kaat
More Kombucha Adventures
The kombucha SCOBY started as a quarter coin (the mother) in a store-bought bottle. I put it in a pint jar with Indian Chai, where it grew a second layer (SCOBY baby) on top which soon occupied the entire surface. Then I moved it again to a large cookie jar, where a third layer (SCOBY …
Kombucha Taking Off
Literally taking off. By monopolizing the entire surface of the liquid, the SCOBY created an air-tight seal. The yeasts underneath kept on going, producing more CO2 than could stay dissolved in the ferment, so the gas started to push the SCOBY up. I pushed it down into the liquid, and it will floating on top …
Gift of Abundance
We had a full, full house this weekend, with SIL and friends visiting and dropping off their daughter for a week’s holiday at what Amie and I now lovingly call “Camp Boredom,” a.k.a. “Camp Mama.” Â The addition of one has skyrocketed the ratings of this camp for both participants and organizer. I listen in on …
Heat Wave Foods
We’re (hopefully) at the tail end of the second  heat wave of the summer. The house, after accumulating heat over the past days, hit 88 at 3 pm, with 70% humidity. Outside, in the shade, it reached 97F (36C) . But it seems I’ve acclimatized. I wouldn’t say that I was comfortable, but it was …
Ferments: Kombucha and Melomel
The Melomel – mead with raspberries – seemed ready to be bottled. There were no more bubbles coming up through the mess of bleached raspberries on top. The one gallon yielded three bottles, here posing in my darkened desk area (another heat wave is upon us). This is the mash: the color was almost completely …
This is how I know it’s Summer
A Berry Berry Day
What a GREAT day. I was up at 3 am when Amie was coughing and then had trouble falling asleep, all the things I had to do running through my mind. Then the alarm rang at 6:30 Â and at 7 am I was at the Community Garden Plots, which no longer looked pristine like they …
Kombucha
Here’s another experiment in fermenting fun: kombucha. After several unsuccessful tries to get a kombucha mother (a SCOBY – a symbiotic community of bacteria and yeasts) from friends, and the usual apathy and mistrust when eyeing mothers for sale on the internet (ha), I found myself at the refrigerated case of kombucha and other such …
Raspberry Mead – Melomel
The mead is ready. The bubbles stopped rising, the liquid is clear, and at the bottom of each 1 gallon jug is this: Graveyard of a gazillion dead yeasts DH likes the taste of it and had a whole glass while racking. I like it sweeter, so I racked one jar into a new jar …