Crooked River Recyclery

We are starting a bike shop! IN the works, looking for a space to use, full repair service, bike workshops, diy workbench, new and used parts and accessories, sweet refurbished bikes.

Crooked River Recyclery - Kent, O.

crookedriverrecyclery.tumblr.com
crookedriverrecyclery@gmail.com

Hooray!
:D
:D

Renew

Kent, Ohio once again. Has been lovely lovely lovely. Friends, family, resolves to involve.

Has been:
Biking much more (not as practical in NC!)
^Working to start a bicycle co-op
Finding-searching somewhere to farm with more permanence
Tending our beautiful, big garden out on The 40
Living on wheels
Potlucking
Timebanking
Beehives
Coop jobs: food & housing
Community Garden

Trying to stay connected and productive.
Swell: http://www.localfoodcleveland.org/

:D

Friends!

Springtime springtime springtime!


Everything is looking exceptionally beautiful, and the baby plants are doing well. Here comes the cabbage. We turned some old windows and untreated lumber into cold frames. Miniature passive-solar houses for the greens! Spinach, Red Russian Kale, Asian Greens mix, Chard.


Our super-local Farm Quiche won first prize in a pie contest! All but the flour, salt, and pepper were ingredients gleaned from farm life. Try it, friends.


Crust: flour, sage, salt, butter, some milk, cider vinegar
Fill: 3 eggs, milk, chickweed, shredded sweet potatoes, bloody butcher corn turned hominy, salt + pepper
This happens in an iron skillet. 350. Bake till filling rises. About 45 minutes.

Oh yes, and Sprouts! Fenugreek, chickpeas, wheat berries, other beans or grains. Put them in a jar with something breath-able on top (wire mesh with lid, cheesecloth, etc.). Fill only about 1/8. Cover with water overnight. Rinse and drain upside down. Rinse and drain again! Again! Again! Every day! You've got sprouts come few days. That's for you Jen C. (I'll get a photo!).


Happy warm days ahead.

joinery

Little Zoe is part of the herd now! Kind of.

pickling plus shuggr'n

We've been fermenting various foods lately in our new collection of crocks, two company-made in Zanesville, OH, and the nicest of the set hand-thrown by our friend Jordan and coated in a homemade glaze made using wood ash from his woodstove. Our pickling experiments have included sauerkraut, beets, turnips, rutabagas, and now crock dill pickles!

The dill pickle recipe is really simple: place a few cloves of chopped garlic, dill, and sliced cucumbers in a crock, filling it halfway to three-fourths full. Sometimes I add some turmeric for health and color. Mix up some brine (about 5 tablespoons to a quart and a half of water for a one gallon crock) and pour it over the pile. Place some sort of weight over this, allowing the water to cover the cucumbers, cover with a lid, and wait a few days. Dill pickles!

Unfortunately, Western North Carolina doesn't have the amazing quantity of maple trees that cover the Northeast (and at least as far west as Ohio). But, we do have plenty of other deciduous trees that flow sap in the same way, though not in the same quantity, as the glorious Sugar Maple. Some examples that we do have plenty of are Tulip Poplar, Black Walnut, Beech, and the Sugar Maple's estranged brother, Box Elder, which isn't known for having much of a practical use to people as it's too light for firewood, lacks structural strength, and the grain is pretty bland to look at...but as we found out from a cut box elder that the electric company decided was in their way, the sap tastes quite maple-y.

So, since we still like our tree-based sugars, we decided to try out tapping what we do have. We started with two Tulip Poplars, plenty big for at least one tap each. I made the spouts from sumac branches since they are naturally hollow in the center once you remove the pith, a spongy orange foamy substance. They were carved to have a taper, so they would hold into the tree, and then were pounded gently into holes we drilled with a brace and bit. We then hung old (washed!) milk jugs on the spouts, and now we get to wait.


The next step, should we successfully get some sap from these trees, is to boil down the sap into syrup or sugar. It's no small process, as even with the high sugar content of maple trees it takes around 40 gallons of sap to yield one gallon of syrup! Our yields will probably be even less...but we'll see!

Hello friends,


We took a journey. It looked like this:









The advent of our homesteading endeavors, herein documented. Finding a place, beekeeping, gardening, building, learning, sharing, etc!

josh + beth