Funky Cabbage pt. 2

So the first attempt at homemade sauerkraut was a SUCCESS!!!! Not only was it my first attempt at sauerkraut, it was my first attempt at canning!!

This too seemed to be a success. We had the bratwurst and potatoes with sauerkraut on Monday for lunch and we seem to be fine. Hopefully this record holds since Bran gave some to our dear friends and neighbors and I intend on giving some to my granny. Be prepared for more canning adventures. I have frozen bags of blueberries begging to be made into jam and syrup. Oooh and more fermenting! We are going to try brine pickles. 

The week in review

It has been a hectic week. Monday my sweet little cousin, Dace, came to spend the day with us, oh and it rained YAY!!!!! He helped me transplant tomatoes then we came home to cook lunch (homemade fish sticks and homemade potato chips). He practiced the xylophone and drums while I cooked. He is quiet the musician.

Unfortunately with the rain came thunder and lightning which he did not care for so this is how him and Bran spent the afternoon until Mag came to get him. They were watching cartoons... I think the big boy found them funnier than the little one.

The rest of the week was picking veggies, pulling weeds, and visiting an alleged farmers market that did not have any farmers just peddlers... But we won't talk about that now.

Funky Cabbage

So this will either be an epic failure or it will be the most amazing thing ever... We made, or started would be a better word, sauerkraut Monday. The cabbage bed became overly infested with worms so we had cabbage that looked like Swiss cheese. 

Bran picked and pulled all the icky looking leaves off while I shredded tiny heads of cabbage on a cheap mandolin. My mind wandered between thinking how cool it was that my great grandmothers had done the same thing and how creepy it was that the cabbage heads reminded me of baby heads thanks to my Cabbage Patch doll. I know, great visual. 

I felt the need to wash and spin dry the cabbage because of all the ickiness that was on it (yes, that is a technical term). We then packed it into my mom's "decorative" 10 gallon crock with the recommended amount of salt. In case you're wondering it's 5 pounds of cabbage to 3 tablespoons of pickling salt. The very nice man that lives next to the farm said the 'tamping' was the best part of the process. Bran agreed.

We weighted down the future kraut with a large plate and a Mason jar full of water and covered it with row cover secured with a rubber band. We put it in the Shack since we read it gives off an odor. They were not lying. As of today the Shack smells... we'll just go with unpleasant. In about 2 weeks we should have our first batch of homemade sauerkraut or a crock of botchulism. Whichever it is I'll let you know.

Where to start...

First, this wasn't exactly my idea. Bran thought this blog would be something I would like doing so here we go. Life at Five Acre Farms has been a transition, yep that's a good word for it. It's definitely not what I had envisioned for my life but I have grown to love it. I'm still kind of unsure of how I ended up here but I'll figure it out eventually. I used to sleep in, eat junk food, wear make-up daily, and was pretty lazy compared to what I am now. For almost two years now I have become acquainted with the 'dirty life'. It started out gradually spreading leaves on garden beds, transplanting seedlings then came getting up at 4 a.m. for the farmers market. I don't know who's cruel joke it was to start so early but that is a very unholy hour to be out of bed. For the last month I have been getting up at 6 and am at the farm by 7 a.m. picking chemical free veggies or weeding beds that are way too freaking long. I shovel compost and wash what seems like endless pounds of lettuce and greens. I have even had chickens living in the kitchen granted they were babies at the time but still. I now get to 'sleep in' until 5 for the famers market because we are more organized! So I guess that's what this is going to be about the adventures of sustainable farm living. Something to look forward to I am supposed to learn to make sauerkraut and brined pickles. I borrowed my mom's 10 gallon decorative stone crock. Her and my dad think this is hilarious.