The tomato cages that you can buy in the store are either too small, too shoddy, or too expensive for nice ones. So we decided to make our own tomato cages after seeing similar ones at my sister-in-law’s. We got a roll of rebar mesh at Home Depot along with rebar tie wire.

Lee cut the rebar with his angle grinder into the measurements that we wanted. We overlapped one square of the rebar mesh and wire tied it together at two places in the top, bottom, and one place in the middle.

Then Lee angle grinded off the bottom wire so we would have the spikes to put in the ground. Lee made two of them for me. Only 15 more or so to go.

Two days after the previous steps, our Dandelion petal must was dark yellow and ready to be fermented. In the interim, we stopped at Valley Vintners & Brewer in Eugene. I described what I was doing, and they picked out what I needed for the next few steps (gallon jug, bung, air lock, funnel, yeast). I’ll definitely be going back.

Step 4: Bring the “Dandelion tea” back to a boil. While it’s heating, take 4 oranges (preferably organic) and thinly peel the skins. The objective is to get all the bright orange skin, and very little of the white pith (which will add bitterness). As gremlins stole our peeler, I had to do this with a pairing knife.

Step 5: Add the peelings from the 4 oranges and boil for 10 minutes.

Step 6: Strain the mixture through a few layers of cheese cloth to remove all the petals and peelings. I don’t have a large primary fermentation vessel (aka “food safe bucket”) so I had to juggle a few pots to make this work.

Step 7: Add 3 pounds of white sugar to a pot and combine with the strained liquid. This is the food supply for the yeast. Sugar level now determines alcohol level later (sort of).

Step 8: Add the juice from squeezing the 4 oranges .

Step 9: The recipe called for a “yeast nutrient”, so I added 1/4 cup of Earl Grey tea to provide other compounds for the yeast metabolism. I saw this suggested on the web somewhere. Perhaps this was a bad idea. Perhaps not.

Step 10: Re-hydrate your yeast following the manufacturer’s directions and add it to the mixture (assuming it has sufficiently cooled). The Lalvin yeast suggested by Valley Vintners seems to be intended for this sort of wine. I looked up their data sheet online.

Step 11: Pour into a 1 gallon jug. Fit the bung (rubber stopper) and airlock.

Update (05/13/2009): 24 hours after fitting the airlock I was observing one bubble every 5 seconds. Yay! I didn’t kill the yeast. Within 48 hours this had increased to one bubble every 3.5 seconds. Presently the rate is about one every 6 seconds, although the weather has been colder too and this might be affecting the yeast (our house is basically unheated right now).

The Dandelion is an amazingly useful plant.  Young leaves can be picked for the salad.  Older ones can be stewed.  The roots can be baked and ground into a coffee substitute.  And the flowers can be fermented to produce a light refreshing summer wine sometimes described as “sunshine in a glass”.

Looking at all the dandelions blooming around our house, it was this last usage that has piqued my interest of late.  I’ve never tested it, but why not? A little weeding, a little drinking–better than spraying poisons everywhere in a misguided quest for uniformity.

I decided to follow the second recipe on this page. I really wanted to following the instructions I once read in an issue of Back Home magazine, but my copy is in storage. If someone has the recipe, please post it to the comments! Anyway, what follows over the next few posts are photo-narrated instructions for making your own dandelion wine.

Step 1: Pick a bag full of dandelion blossoms (at midday if possible). Select larger ones, as the smaller ones take longer to clean. I picked all that were available on our property (there’d be more if we were more diligent about mowing) and then I picked a bunch on my neighbor’s property too. (Thanks for not using lawn chemicals Drew — if it turns out decent I’ll bring you a bottle.)

Step 2: Separate the petals of each flower from the green parts. Do this without staining your hands. Just kidding! The stems and green parts of the flower add a bitter resinous off-flavor to the wine. Or … so I read. The fastest way to separate each flower is to squeeze the back of the flower tightly, and then pinch into the face of the flower. The petals should mostly separate like pulling the choke out of an artichoke. You need at least 2 quarts of flower petals.

Step 3: Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil and mix with the flower petals (the “must”–material to be fermented). Remove from heat. The intent is to create a sort of dandelion tea, and the initially heat helps accelerate that process. Cover and allow to stand for 48 hours, stirring occasionally.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll post an update in two days with the next few steps.

The first cord of firewood we purchased arrived cut and split.  Unfortunately, a “cord” on craigslist is really about 3/4 of a cord if that.  A dry cord of softwood weights 2000 pounds, and hardwood weighs about 4000 pounds.  If your cord of madrone arrives in the bed of a half-ton pickup, send it back.  So … for our second batch, I bought a trailer load of cut pole pines.  The trailer’s volume would hold 2.5 cords, and the length of the wood ensured that it was neatly stacked.  A good deal, with only one small problem: we needed to cut and split it ourselves.

Cutting is a rather straight-forward enterprise requiring only a bow saw and lots of energy.  Bahco is a good brand of Swedish-made saws and blades.  I picked up a 21″ bow saw at Wilco, and some 30″ Bahco blades for a frame saw I intend to build.  However, given the size of the above woodpile, a chainsaw is sadly a much more efficient means of cutting.  I don’t much like chainsaws.  They are noisy, dirty, and extremely dangerous.  They are the ultimate anti-green tool. Also, the average chainsaw injury requires 110 stitches. In their defense, they turn a tree into a pile of logs much faster that any hand tool.

I’d like to issue a big thanks to our neighbor Drew for stopping by with his Husqvarna a couple days after our woodpile was delivered and helping cut some of it.  Robin’s dad, Steve, stopped by subsequently with his chainsaw, and cut more.  I then used Steve’s saw to cut more.  And then the first pile was complete.  The picture above shows the slightly smaller second pile I have yet to cut up.  (The pines, by the way, were runaway Christmas trees, so no old growth trees were hurt in the making of this woodpile.)

Big logs cut up fine on the ground.  You saw most of the way through for all the cuts, then roll the log 180 degrees and finish the cuts. Small logs cut more safely in a sawbuck.  There’s lots of plans available online for these.  I looked through a few, and then built this one using all scrap lumber:

It folds flat for storage, and is set up for cutting 16″ logs on the marked lines.  The pivot bolts are recessed out of the way of stray chainsaw blades.  For small logs (5″ or so), I lift them into the sawbuck, and then cut them by walking from end to end and sheering off 16″ pieces.  When it gets down to the width of the sawbuck, I cut on the lines marked.  Also very handy for hand-cutting with a bow saw.

When the sawing is done, you end up with a pile of logs, many of which will require splitting.  Some people opt for a powered log splitter, but I find it impossible to justify the cost and environmental impact unless you have a firewood business.  Otherwise, your easiest solution is to buy a true splitting maul.  A splitting maul has a wider head than an ax, so it forces the log apart as it enters, but a flat end so you can treat it like a wedge and hit it with a hammer to motivate knotty pieces of wood.

My “buy from small businesses” rule led me astray here, as I don’t really much like the tool I ended up with and I’ve spent about $50 bucks on it counting a new handle (after breaking the first one in 20 minutes … oops) and the stupid rubber thing to save future handles (which causes it’s own set of problems).  My recommendation: if you are cheap, buy the basic 6 lb or 8 lb version at a hardware or farm store.  It looks exactly like a sledgehammer with one face ground into a blade.  It should run about $22.  If you want splitting bliss, buy the fancy 6lb model with flared sides and a double-curve fiberglass handle at Jerry’s.  It is $40.  If I could do it over, I’d get that one.  Oh, and be very careful not to over swing or you will very easily break the handle.  I speak from personal experience.

Anyway, find a maul, get a large log to use as a splitting base to save your back (I need a much wider one), find safety glasses, and swing …

Let me emphasize the safety glasses.  They are obnoxious, especially if you don’t have anti-fog ones, but splitting will often require striking your maul with a sledgehammer.  Last night I broke a small chip of metal off my sledge which shot across the back yard and hit the wood shed with considerable force.  You don’t want to end up a homesteader with an eye patch!

Anyway, a couple hours of splitting made a definite improvement to the state of our woodshed.  I read in a wood heating book that a person can split a cord in two hours.  I’ll need to be in better shape to do that … or perhaps have the deluxe splitting maul at Jerry’s … but it did go much faster than I expected.

Update (01/21/2010): This page describes our early usage of the wood stove. A more recent post provides wood stove cooking tips.

Since our wood stove got installed I have been doing all our cooking on it. Cookies, cake and topping, soups, gravy, grilled cheese sandwiches, eggs, bacon, sausages, biscuits, fried potatoes, popcorn, and ham. It’s been fun experimenting along the way how to get everything cooked best. I have only burned one thing and that was the first batch of cookies. We did just pick up a Lodge cooking trivet so that should make some of my cooking easier.

The most exciting thing we have been doing on the stove cook wise is making popcorn. Yup, you read right. My mom gave us a popcorn maker as a surprise present. It’s all metal and you crank the handle which turns some things (Lee groaning here at my lack of explanation) and moves the kernels around. Then up pops the most wonderful popcorn you could wish for that tastes so much better than that bagged stuff. Not to mention that it has none of the chemicals or bad stuff in it. Then dash salt on it and pour melted butter…..oh its great I tell you. My mom got it from Territorial Seed Company for us if you are wanting one.

This of course is Edgar watching over me as the popcorn is getting made. He has an INTENSE weakness for popcorn and has to supervise the cooking of it always.