Graple? Grapple? GROSS

This morning a co-worker thrust an apple at me and said, "Smell this."

"Smell this" isn't usually considered a polite greeting, but I let it slide and did, in fact, smell the proferred fruit. The aroma was sweet but perplexing.

"It's a graple! It's a cross between an apple and a grape! It's, like, genetically modified!"

I, like, almost threw it back at him. Eww eww eww EWW.

When he saw that modified genetics were not the way to impress me ("oh yeah, I forget who I was talking to...") he decided to take another tack: "Well, it's organic."

The genetically modified food item is organic? ARE YOU HIGH??

Anyway, I couldn't find much about this fruit-like substance on the internet tonight, but it appears that the apple itself may not be genetically modified, it may "just" have had some grape juice (or grape juice substitute, I wouldn't be surprised) injected under its skin.

So maybe it's not the work of the devil. But it's still freaking weird and I will never taste it.

My Lost Weekend

Omigod Lost was soooo awesome last night, they should just rename the show "Awesome" and be done with it. Did I understand it? No. Did my friends understand it? Hell to the no. But who cares, it's baaaaaaack.

Which brings me to my (possibly upcoming) Lost weekend. Son has expressed an interest in watching my Lost DVD's, so we may watch a few; heavens knows I'm pumped!

Also on the agenda for the weekend, I know Son is looking forward to feeding the worms, but that only takes two minutes at the most. I want him to go through the seed catalogue with me and pick a few things that he wants to grow. He is involved in my garden planning and maintenance every year, not to a high degree but enough that I know he is slowly learning here and there. I love it when he calls me to ask how "his" carrots are doing, and I know how much he loves to eat "his" tomatoes. (even though "I" did all the work!)

I also know he was kind of intrigued when I told him I was learning to make cheese, so I may get out all my utensils, sanitize them, and try again with his help. Don't get me wrong: he thinks I'm absolutely crazy, but he is young enough to find it amusing and want to come along for the ride. Plus then he gets to make fun of me, so we all win.

And just because...

Damn, we're good looking.

Recommended links

have been updated. There are others yet to be added, but for now, here are my favourite homesteading / self suffuciency sites....plus my FAVOURITE rock n' roll site, my brother's band at www.automan.ca

I'm telling you, that kid is going to be a rock star and pay off my mortgage....

The Cheese Chronicles, Part Three: It didn't translate well.

When last we spoke, I had turned four litres of milk in to some kind of weird yogurt thing, and I was still hopeful it would turn in to cheese.

Hmph.

"Weird yogurt" was as good as it ever got, I ended up throwing the whole thing out. Still, I am not discouraged, I will try something slightly different tomorrow with this crazy liquid rennet. (I will ALSO be getting some tablet rennet, which is what the recipes call for, within a few weeks.)

This afternoon I realized that I was out of flour, and so I asked Hubandly One to picksome up at the grocery store. He brought home whole wheat flour, which he bought by mistake but I was glad to get, I have been looking forward to "sneaking" a bit of whole wheat in to my breads. But because all I HAD was whole wheat flour, I needed a new recipe. I picked the first one I found, and am now (gasp!) using my bread machine for the first time in years.

When I was a young, stay-at-home mother, I used my bread machine almost daily....just dump stuff in and bread pops out a few hours later. Since then, though, I have discovered how much I enjoy making my bread by hand, the old fashioned way. We'll see how this loaf turns out, maybe there's still life in that machine after all...

Oh, I almost forgot....on Friday, I mentioned to Supervisor how much I would love to keep chickens, but both my zoning laws and Husbandly One are keeping me from it. (Hey, the worms were a hard sell for him, I think adding chickens to the mix would mean "divorce".) Now, by chickens I meant layers, but she told me that some years she and her husband raise meat birds on their small farm. She is willing to grow some meat birds for me! She and her husband practice organic gardening / farming, so I am pumped. She ALSO promised me some sheep manure (they don't raise sheep, they just get truckloads of it from thier neighrbour.) We also discussed trading herbs: she will give me some of her dill for some of my garlic, etc.

This just shows the power of expressing your interests to people: in the last two weeks, I have struck a deal with one friend for free apples and cherries, and struck another deal for meat chickens, manure, and herbs. Things are going well...

Cheese Chronicles, Part Two

As previously mentioned, I am not EXACTLY following the recipe I found through my beloved Internet, particularly seeing how my rennet isn't in the same form the recipe recommends.

So far ? I have some kind of weird yogurt...I hope this translates well!

The Cheese Chronicles, Episode One: This Is RIdiculous

We now interrupt the Worm Chronicles to bring you today's installment of the Cheese Chronicles.

I procurred rennet from an actual cheesemaker, someone who pays his mortgage with his cheese, as opposed to buying some anonymous powder.

I sanitized all my equipment by way of boiling water: my pot, my spoon, my thermometer, my glass bowls, my measuring sppons, my measuring cups, my knife... and lest this list of equipment convinces you that making cheese is "hard", it ISN'T. What IS hard is getting the milk to the right temperature so that you can begin. First my milk was too cold, then it was too warm, and now I'm back to cold again. I have been at this for FIVE HOURS, and all I have to show for my labour is four litres of milk at the wrong temperature....