BLACKHAMMER ACRES

Even though we do not have a cow (or sheep, or goats), I have been reading up on cheesemaking lately as something to potentially try. This week while Maggie was taking one of her Amish friends shopping, she mentioned cheesemaking. Her friend's family has cows, and gave Maggie a couple of gallons of milk. This created a little stress, as we don't really have any cheesemaking supplies, and now had perishable milk. Maggie did have some rennet she bought for some past project, an

This week, we cleaned up our seed starting shelves and re-installed all the outlets, timers, and heat mats. We then kicked off the 2026 garden season by planting two flats of onions and shallots. We usually grow onions from starts, but since we were successful in growing shallots from seed last season, we decided to try our hand at onions. We are trialing four day-long onions from Johnny's Seed: Red Carpet (red onion), Frontier (white onion), Patterson (yellow onion), and Ail

It has been a relaxing winter season. The beehives are ready for spring, I remodeled my closet, and we have been doing a lot of baking. Although it has been cold, and snowy, we have been able to take projects on at a slower pace. That ends this weekend. With the recent warm spell and the end of February, it is time to tap some trees and kick off maple syrup season. I am washing out jars, ordering new lids, and getting equipment ready. Yesterday, I cleaned our reverse osmosis

Maggie and I are gearing up to go to the Madison Garden and Green Living Expo next weekend, February 13-15, 2026. It is held every year at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. Information on the Expo can be found here . The best part of the Expo (other than seeing green plants), is that a series of volunteer presentations are given. The slate of presenters and topics change each year, so there is always something new to learn. This year I am looking forward to learning about

February continues our winter baking efforts. We just finished eating another loaf of sourdough bread and a batch of raspberry scones, which Maggie made from frozen garden raspberries. Maggie and I both love magazines and have over a dozen bookmarked on our Libby library app. One recent additional was Bake from Scratch magazine. I noticed the magazine appeared to kick off a 'cookie of the month' series with the first issue of the year. Because magazines now seem to be issued

This weekend was my first attempt at making a loaf of sourdough bread, using my newly created starter. I do not have a photo of the result, as anyone who has produced a failed loaf of bread would recognize it. It was flat on the outside and gummy on the inside. We still ate it, but I was dogged by the failure. I did learn a few things, such as how to use a dutch oven and how to get a thick, dark crust. Determined to succeed, I decided to try again midweek. Making sourdough br

In keeping with our winter baking run, I am attempting to make sourdough bread. This is not new for us; Maggie has been successfully making sourdough bread for years. I have limited myself to using store-bought yeast, so I thought I would give sourdough a try. The first step has been to make a starter, which is just an equal mixture of flour and water. I am following a routine from America's Test Kitchen, which creates a small volume of starter that then gets scaled up when n

Winter brings a different style of cooking. We use frozen and preserved fruits and vegetables to make casseroles and pastas, replacing the lighter fare from the summer garden. Because it is cooler, it is also more pleasant to spend time in a warm kitchen. We have been baking a lot of breads and desserts, and today we made fresh pasta. It is a good way to use eggs, and the noodles are tasty. It is a little bit of a process. The first step is making the dough, which then chills

Since we always have a surplus of eggs, we are forever on the hunt for egg-based recipes. We decided to make creme brulee for a New Year's Eve treat. The recipe called for a dozen egg yolks, which raised the question of what to do with a dozen egg whites. As it turns out, angle food cake requires a dozen egg whites. We paired them with some raspberry mead. Happy New Year!

Saturday was a nice day, so we took a break from housework to travel to Sparta for their annual Christmas market. These markets have been popping up everywhere over the years, but Sparta is an older one, with this being their 11th annual Kriskindlmarkt. We viewed the booths, ate a Bockwurst and two raclettes (my favorite), and stopped at Ginny's Cupboard for homemade soup. We were quite full by the end.

We are, technically, in the dead of winter. Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. We celebrated by building a fire in the morning to add to the light and warmth of the sun. We also spent a big part of the day in the kitchen making meatloaf and lamb stock. We also added a loaf of bread to the mix. Usually the house is so cold in the winter, bread takes a long time to rise, but the woodstove and oven added a boost to the indoor temperature. It turned out t

We have a few acres of questionably fenced pasture, that our neighbor had used to run beef cattle on an irregular basis. Because the grass can get quite long if it is not grazed, we occasionally consider additional animals to help manage that pasture. Cows are a little large for us, goats are a challenge to fence, and pigs generally do not graze. That leaves sheep. Last year had a little bit of a sheep theme to it. We traveled to Lafarge to attend the Ewetopia woolen mill's o

Yesterday, November 8, brought the first snow of the upcoming winter season, putting a bow on the 2025 garden. There is still work to be done, but the garden will largely stay untouched until next year. Our weather station reported snow had fallen The snow brings an opportunity to reflect on the hits and misses in the garden this year. Hits Landscape Fabric . We have tried several approaches to controlling weeds over the years, including no-till, mulch, and nonwoven landscape

We have two large black walnut yard trees, and every year they drop dozens of walnuts onto our lawn. Last year, one broke a windshield on our car. On a bit of a lark, I thought I would try harvesting walnuts this year. They literally fall out of the tree, so how hard can it be? As it turns out, it is a process. The walnut, which is what we are probably all familiar with from holiday nutcrackers, starts out encased in a green sticky hull. This hull turns black over time, creat

Looking at the calendar recently, and our to-do list, it struck me how little time we have until winter arrives. There is one week left in October; how did that happen? We have been making progress on our end-of-season projects, but there is still a lot to be done. Part of the work is preparing for spring and next year's garden season. With the garlic bed filled with chicken manure and the last of the bean succession crop gone, the end of October is time for planting garlic c