Popcorn de-cobbed

Lu helped me of course. I separated the red kernels from the multi-color kernels, but they are the same variety. I guess I mix them all together at some point.

Tomatoes and Sunflower


Five varieties of tomatoes fresh from the garden today. Martino Roma, Polish Linguisa, Jersey Devil, Olpaka, and Heidi.


We are going to get lots of sunflower seeds from this huge flower. No wonder it's called Mammoth.

Test Pop


I did a test pop today. 6 out of 20 is not great. I think they need to dry out a little bit more. I'll try another test pop in a couple of days.

Cochiti Pueblo Popcorn


Some of the popcorn harvest and the seed packet I got from another Seed Saver member.


Purple, white, and yellow all on one cob.


Terra cotta colored ears. They are all the same variety, but some stalks produce the multicolored ears and others the rust colored ones. I'll dry them out and pop some of the corn. Maybe I'll put some of the homemade butter melted over it. mmmmmm

Bee Block Making


Sid decided he would make me a new bee block for the garden, yesterday.


Drilling the holes where the bees will lay their larvae.


All done. It's beautiful.


Mounting it on the garden fence.


Vacancies available. - Thanks Baby!!!

Bread

Here is the lucky homemade loaf that got slathered with the yummy butter.

Cultured Butter Making

I started making this butter on Thursday. I didn't get a photo of the first step, which is putting heavy cream in a bowl and letting it ferment at 60 degrees for hours. I added some raw whole milk to help with the fermentation.

Today I put the cream in a sterile mason jar and shook for about 8-10 minutes. The above picture was the result.


After pouring off the buttermilk, which I saved, the butter goes into a bowl. I'm going to make some buttermilk pancakes with the real buttermilk.


Now all the buttermilk needs to be washed out of the butter. It took several washing to have the water run clear.


All done. The butter is room temperature, so it's very soft.


I added a little salt, weighed it (almost 8 oz)...


... and rolled it in parchment paper and put it in the fridge. I'm going to bake some bread later today and try out the butter.

For more info about making cultured butter read How to Make Butter and Buttermilk article from Mother Earth News.