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Why You Should Be Making Homemade Ginger Ale This Summer

If you are like me and you struggle to stay hydrated.  I have no problem drinking about 32 ounces of  coffee every single morning without fail.  But after I drink both large mugs of coffee with both cream and sugar I'm left feeling like my tongue is swollen and I'm dying of thirst.  And then I'm thinking what should I be drinking.  Water is what is recommended but other than hydrate it really doesn't do much to else. And it's BORING!

In the past I was a heavy drinker.  I come from a long line of "functional alcoholics".  During my career as an over the road truck driver I'd not drank regularly at all.  But after having retired in 2005 I'd made up for lost time. I regularly drank at least a 12 pack of beer per day by myself. 
That in itself is another blog post but what I did learn in those years of heavy drinking is I needed to start supplementing some type of probiotic to replenish the stomach "bugs".
I'd known my bad habits were killing them off on a daily basis. 

I'd started brewing my own Kombucha on the recommendation of other bloggers and friends.  It's not only healthy it's fun to see it growing like a science experiment on my counter.  But drinking it in large doses is probably not the ideal way to quench your thirst.  The probiotics in Kombucha are very good for you but there is more acid in it then your body needs. I have no medical information saying one way or another I just know there were some side effects to drinking it in larger quantities. I didn't need to tax my body anymore than I was already doing with my drinking and partying.

The second probiotic I started to incorporate into my daily "hydration routine" is Ginger Ale.  I'd buy it because I'd known the ginger was good for my stomach anyway. But most of the bottle varieties had high fuctose corn syrup and they also were processed with some types of preservatives to make them shelf stable in the stores.

I'd started having stomach issues as a side affect of my heavy drinking.  Then in my internet research I'd found a great recipe for home made ginger ale.  It was so easy and I had everything I'd needed to make it here in the house already.  I'm going to share the recipe with you now.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.



Fair Weather Farm Girl REAL Home Made Ginger Ale

Equipment:
clean 2 liter plastic soft drink bottle with cap (not glass: explosions are dangerous.)
funnel
Grater (preferably with fine "cutting" teeth
1 cup measuring cup
1/4 tsp and 1 Tbl measuring spoons

Supplies:

cane (table) sugar [sucrose] (1 cup)
Freshly grated ginger root (1 1/2-2 tablespoons)
Juice of one lemon
fresh granular baker's yeast (1/4 teaspoon)
cold fresh pure water

Instructions:

1)  Lay it out all the listed ingredients and equipment.

2) Use fresh ginger root (purchasable at most large supermarkets, or Asian food shops).


3)  Add 1 cup sugar to the 2 liter bottle with a dry funnel.  (Leave the funnel in place until you are ready to cap the bottle.)

NOTE: Many have asked about bottling ginger ale in glass bottles. I do not recommend it because ginger ale is a very aggressive fermenter, producing high pressure fairly rapidly. Plastic bottles can be felt to judge pressure. Glass cannot. Tardy refrigeration can lead to explosions. Exploding plastic bottles are messy. Exploding glass botles are dangerous…

4) Measure out 1/4th teaspoon fresh granular active baker's yeast.  (Fleishman's etc.  We buy ours in bulk from the health food store.)

5)  Add yeast through funnel into the bottle, shake to disperse the yeast grains into the sugar granules.









6)  Grate the ginger root on a fine "cutting" grater to produce 1 1/2 Tablespoon of grated root.    


7) Place grated ginger in the cup measure










8)  Juice a whole lemon.  (Lemon is optional, giving a little tartness to the ginger ale.  Try it both ways to see which you prefer.  I like them both.)

9)  Add the juice of a whole lemon to the grated ginger.

10)  Stir the lemon juice and grated ginger to form a slurry.

11)  Add the slurry of lemon juice and grated ginger to the bottle.  (It may stick in the funnel.  Don't worry, the next step will wash it into the bottle.)

12)  Rinse containers with fresh clean water.

13)  Add the rinsings to the bottle, cap and shake to distribute.

13)  Fill the bottle to the neck with fresh cool clean water, leaving about an inch of head space,  securely screw cap down to seal. Invert repeatedly to thoroughly dissolve sugar.  (The ginger root will not dissolve, of course.)

14)  Place in a warm location for 24 to 48 hours.  (Do not leave at room temperature longer than necessary to feel "hard."  The excess pressure may cause an eruption when you open it, or even explode the bottle!)

15)  Test to see if carbonation is complete by squeezing the bottle forcefully with your thumb.  If it dents in it is not ready.

16)  Once the bottle feels hard to a forceful squeeze, usually only 24-48 hours, place in the refrigerator. Before opening, refrigerate at least overnight to thoroughly chill. Crack the lid of the thoroughly chilled ginger ale just a little to release the pressure slowly. You do not want a ginger ale fountain!

NOTE: Do not leave the finished ginger ale in a warm place any longer than the time it takes for the bottle to feel hard. Leaving it at room temperature longer than two days, especially in the summer when the temperature is high, can generate enough pressure to explode the bottle! (Speaking from experience here...) Once it is thoroughly chilled, there is little danger of explosion.


17)  Filter the ginger ale through a strainer if you find floating pieces of ginger objectionable.  These are found in the first glass or two poured, and, since most of the ginger sinks to the bottom, the last glass or so may require filtering too.  Rinse the bottle out immediately after serving the last of the batch.


NOTE: There will be a sediment of grated ginger and yeast at the bottom of the bottle, so that the last bit of ginger ale will be carry ginger fibers. Decant carefully if you wish to avoid this sediment.
Note that the gas will develop faster in ginger ale than in home made rootbeer, presumably because there are more nutrients in it than in root beer extract.




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Week from Hell

I won't bother with any of the sordid details of my week. To be totally honest it was probably the most stressful week since my retirement.

I'd did meet a new friend that loves my place as much as I do. It was nice find someone else that values their peace and privacy.  She is so like my Mother it was amazing.  I felt like I'd had a chance to have a little closure with my Mom. As the week progressed I'd realized she really wasn't like my Mom and I was projecting a little. She really was more like my Mom's crazy sister.  We did some pretty fun things, we spent quite a bit of time together.  She'd slept over a couple of nights and it was like a slumber party from my childhood.  "the neat freak" had to sleep on the floor.  He is such a trooper, we didn't have any extra bedding so his mattress was towel and his arm was his pillow. He did have the luxury of a sleeping bag. My new friend and I hogged the futon. It was a lot more fun because we got to drink beer and smoke. Couldn't do that when I was a kid EVER.  I'd spent a couple of very long days helping her do some work organizing and selling some of her beautiful antique collection.  When the work was done so was my relationship with my "crazy Aunt".  I'd decided that "the neat freak" and I are really all that sociable.

The week wasn't totally a wash because I did finally got my drivers license.And I'd only missed 3 questions on the written test. I also had to take the actual driving test. I'd not done that since I went to truck driving school. My new friend had gone with me and it was exciting to share my joy with "Crazy Aunt".

Ever since it expired after I retired I stopped driving and paying the state of Illinois for the privilege of driving on unkempt roadways.  I'd replaced my nice car with a "hooptie"and had "the neat freak" do all of the driving.  In the last 7 years I bet I've only driven a hand full of times and yes most of those times did end with a nice police officer telling me I really should get my license as he hands me the ticket and I watch our vehicle being towed away".  I have had to spring my car from the impound lot a couple of times.  So now I am totally legal for the road. One other wonderful thing did happen. I discovered that I do not need glasses to drive anymore. My eyes are 100% perfect.

It's hard to believe that everything we experienced(and I'm only telling you the "not crazy" parts happened in just 5 days.  It was a fast and crazy trip to hell.

With that I shall wrap up my blog.  Hope you all enjoy sharing in my adventure.


Yours Truly,

The Fair Weather Farm Girl a.k.a  "The Shit Tornado" ask "The Neat Freak".

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Herbal Worming and its use around the homestead

Having decided on French Alpine Goats I did the natural thing.  I found a dairy that was using them exclusively and I began a conversation with another amazing homesteader.  Nancy Knigga of Russiaville Indiana. At her farm Sycamore Acres she raises the most beautiful French Alpine goats I'd ever seen.
She was lucky enough to be in a state that doesn't frown on small farm owners making and selling goat milk cheese.  She also practice natural goat keeping. Due to some of the restrictions of having an actual dairy she couldn't fully go "All Natural" but the goats I was getting from her were as close to perfect as I could find.

Having been bitten by the homesteading bug big time I'd jumped in with both feet.  I bought 3 amazing girls. All of them had just given birth to beautiful kids so they were in milk(the term we Know It Alls use to say they were producing milk).  But little did I know goats are herd animals with a very strong pecking order. The two larger girls pooled their crankiness and set forth to destroy the third.  Calling on Nancy and my other homesteading friends for advice they all said that I needed another goat.  Apparently they are known to pair up and that makes them happy.  So now I had 6 girls. That's a lot of goats to milk. I'd started in earnest and then we were off.  Now it's time to discuss the care of "My Girls".

Being a part time herbalist and a full time goat owner it was only natural that I start my goats on herbal dewormers as soon as I brought them home to the farm.  I was working on my own formulations before I'd brought the girls home and I'd thought had it perfected.

I had the girls fully tested prior to bringing them home.  Because I had bought them in a neighboring state it is required that they be fully tested for every ailment known to goats and given a health certificate to produce when I crossed the state lines.  I knew they were healthy and worm free.  So the herbal worming started right away.  My formula relied on a 3 day dose every 6 weeks.  Having given them the first dose as soon as we got home I waited patiently for the next 6 weeks to arrive.  When it did I dosed the girls again.  At the beginning of the 18th week I had a full vet exam done on the girls again.

To my amazement(and disappointment)  my girls were FULL of Worms!  The vets chuckled among themselves saying things like "I've never seen so many worms" and "is this for real?". Seriously I was saddened by my failure.  But that didn't last long.  I was back to the drawing board.  I had the girls chemically dewormed.  The resulting milk was used to feed the chickens because of the milk withhold time on chemical wormers.  But all was not lost. I was determined to get this formula right.

After having such a disappointing failure under my belt I did some more reading and some more experimenting and I came up with a weekly worm formula.  I'd already been adding some herbs to my animals rations it seemed only natural to work out a more regular weekly dose that didn't include the wormwood.  I also changed how I used the wormer.  I now was making the dosage balls a head of time and keeping them in the freezer for use whenever I needed it.

Now it was time to test my formula on my girls.  Starting with the first day of the next month we gave each girl two doses  of our "monthly wormer". One with the morning feeding and one with the evening feeding. They loved the taste so that was a plus.  We continued the dosage for the required 3 days.  Then the following week we dosed with the "maintenance" formula.  We followed this routine for 18 weeks and had our herd tested again.  Not only were they worm free but they had gained a good amount of weight.  Apparently the worms were keeping the girls from getting some of the nutrition necessary to keep them in top shape.

As the years of goat keeping continued we changed some of our formulas and some of our routines but in the end we feel we've got a pretty good handle on how to care for goats.
If anyone would like to try our herbal wormer please check it out on Etsy.




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Meet your local blogger...

This was to be a recap of the week....


But I think it's time to introduce myself...

What to say….I’ve been somewhat reluctant to write anything about myself here up until now.  But it seems now that I feel people are beginning to take me serious here on the internet it’s time to open up a little….


I bounce back and forth between using “We” and “I” when I describe myself and my life.  I’d been a “We” for about 20 plus years so it’s habit as much as anything.  Plus even though I’m single I can’t take credit for building this place alone.  I did have a long time partner/husband in this adventure I call my life.


I really can’t even say I’m a farmer at this point.  I’m a supporter of other farmers now actually.  Having been born in Indiana in 1966 I guess I’m a hoosier.  But that part of my life is pretty hazy.  I have no memory of that time. My first real memories started in North Carolina.  It was the early 1970’s when my parents lived in Wilmington.  I have some of my best memories from there.  I remember a beautiful boat, I remember awesome friends and neighbors and lots of seafood.


After those memories come a very activity filled childhood in Upton Massachusetts.  My father was a Navy recruiter working out of Boston and my mother was a homemaker. I was lucky enough to be given the responsibility of owning animals at a very young age.  My Mom loved horses and she was the person that encouraged me to  love them also.


She had bought a young “grade mare” but she really must have been more Morgan than anything.  That became my sister Samantha’s horse “Misty”.  My parents then purchased a retired barrel racing horse for me.  Her name was “Rosie” and I loved her with all of my heart.  I don’t really remember being all that close to people when I was young but I was close to Rosie.  I remember going on amazing rides all over our little town.   We had this pond not far from my house and I would ride my horse across the pond.  It was amazing to feel her legs stir the water. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget. It was like the churning of a huge ship.  


Rosie had so many issues I see now but to me she was perfect.  She later developed what they called “Navicular” in those days.  I know we worked hard to ease her pain but eventually she had to be put to sleep.  


As a young adult involved in animals it was only natural that I do something in the animal husbandry field.  In Massachusetts farming wasn’t really an option. I didn’t know any farmers nor did it interest me.  I had decided I wanted to be a Marine biologist.  I’d been accepted to University of New England. But my parents had made plans to move to Illinois.  I’d thought that I was ready to be on my own and stay in Massachusetts.  But when I graduated from high school and the plans were being made to move I decided I wasn’t ready to be “on my own”. So I loaded up my 1976 Honda Civic and my doberman and followed the caravan to the Land Of Lincoln.


I remember my parents subscribed to the Pana Palladium and the Breeze Courier.  Both local papers from towns close to where my parents were moving.  I also remember the fear in my sister’s eyes when she saw the results of the local “Chicken Judging Contest” at the Christian County Fair.  She was such a smart girl and she was so afraid she was going to school with hillbillies and rednecks...I chuckle now.  I love these hillbillies and rednecks now!


Once I got here I was lucky enough to have a Grandpa that put me to work.  He let me come to work for his road construction company.  That was in the days when there were no women on road crews.   Equal opportunities for women made it so every federal construction job had to have a certain number of minorities working on each job.  I soon got on with the Teamsters local and spent the next 4 years traveling all over Illinois working road construction.


Road construction here in Illinois was not a year round job at that point. So I was laid off in the winter.  It was a pretty nice life.  I soon was able (with the help of my Parents and Grandparents)to buy my very first house.  I’d found a house in Owaneco.  It wasn’t very far from my parents so it was perfect.  It was such a beautiful house.  I remember my boyfriend at the time and myself working hard to fix it up.  I drive by that house today and am reminded of such great times.


I was no longer driving a truck I’d been given a small house cleaning business from a family friend that was retiring.  She trained me and introduced me to all of her customers.  She had been doing it here for about 20 years so she had put together a great client list.  I was happily employed and loving life.  I was still only 22 at the time. I’d been cleaning the house of one of the executives of ADM trucking and he’d offered me a gravy job cleaning the offices at the trucking terminal.  I was able to do my regular cleaning jobs and then go to work from 4 p.m until midnight.  Life was pretty good.  


I was now a single, gainfully employed home owner.  What more could I ask for?  And that’s when it happened folks.  Love...it does it to us all of the time doesn’t it ladies?
I met a wonderful man.  He was a driver at ADM. He was single, good looking and he liked me.  What more could anyone ask for?  


I’d met him in October of 1988 and by July 1989 I’d graduated from Truck Driving School and hit the road.  My parents sold my house for me and I was off traveling the country.  We had a great run I must say.  I have such amazing memories from those years. I worked for what is now known as “The Ghost Fleet” . In those days we delivered Patriot Missiles to support what was called Desert Shield.  We then delivered more varied ordinance for Desert Storm. And after the war was over we then delivered lots of nuclear waste, nuclear fuel rods,etc.  When the war was over and the military bases were closing we’d gotten on with Emerson Electric out of Bridgeton Missouri.  That was one of those jobs that someone had to die for you to get on. They were the perfect trucking company to work for.  It was like we died and went to truck driver heaven.


We then were no longer staying out on the road for months at a time.  We were working 4 or 5 days a week and then we were home on the weekends.  This doesn’t sound like it should be a problem but it was.  Because we’d been driving the loads we had we just weren’t able to come home.  We’d sold our little house to our daughter and her new husband.  So we were essentially “homeless”.  We bought a HUGE 5th wheel camper and moved it to the local lake.  We were living the dream.  Working all week and camping all weekend.  
When spent all summer riding our motorcycles on the weekends all around Illinois looking for a place to build our dream home.  For those looking for their perfect piece of land you know how tough it is to find.  You see open fields all around you and you think how tough could it be to find a place?  It’s tough!  Really tough.  We’d see farmers out in the field and we’d stop and ask if they knew of any small acreage for sale. There wasn’t any...NONE!


It was just a miracle that we were at my parents place visiting before heading out on a motorcycle trip. We headed the opposite way we normally would and not 4 miles from my parents home there was a hand lettered sign painted on a piece of plywood reading “House and 10 acres for sale” with an arrow facing down a country lane.  It was a homesteaders dream come true.  Surrounded by nothing but flat farmland we’d driven our motorcycles up a hill that we hadn’t even known was here.  There at the top of the tree lined road was our dream home...okay. Maybe it wasn’t a dream home but it was LAND!  It was a fallow bean field with NOTHING on it but dry beans and a small elderly but well taken care of double wide house trailer.
Not only was there one creek running through it but there were two! This was perfect and we could afford it! They were asking $48,000.  We didn’t even bother to negotiate. We told them we’d take it on the spot.  It was a steel! We’d shaken hands with the nicest couple we’d ever met and we had a deal!  I’d called my parents from our friends home that we were visiting and asked to borrow $2,500 for the earnest money. My parents didn’t even question it.  My Dad had the money that evening for us.  The deal took over 2 months to be worked through but the couple stayed true to their word.  The house was ours.  


For the next 12 years we built this place on weekends while we were driving during the week.  It was exhausting but it was definitely worth it to me. In 2005 I decided it was time to retire and do this fulltime.  That was also about the time when I decided I just couldn’t drive anymore.  The traffic became horrendous.  The construction became a constant annoyance and I really felt I could kill someone out there. I had someone say “One slip of the wrist and I could kill someone”. Knowing that and being angry isn’t a great combination.
People have no idea what it is like in a Semi.  It worked out because Emerson was closing it’s trucking division and they were outsourcing all of their loads to the cheaper companies.  My husband stayed on during the transition.  He’s known no other jobs since 1973 so it was just me here in the country.  I’d decided I wanted to groom dogs for a new profession. It was something I had done on and off all of my life so it only seemed natural this is what I should do.  We built a beautiful shop and I started building a very good business.  We then expanded into boarding dogs also.


We had a beautiful manicured place in the country.  Mowing the lawn was my ex-husbands therapy from a long week of dealing with traffic and people.  We’d bought a big Kubota tractor with all of the attachments and kept building the place.  By then I’d been bitten by the homesteading bug and I spent all week making up a list of the improvements my husband could make to the place on the weekends. I met an amazing woman that was raising dairy goats and making homemade bread and homeschooling her children.  I wanted all of that (except the kids) so I’d gotten online and started researching the best dairy breeds of goats….

I’m going to continue this later.
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Building a business where there is no business part 3

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend.  It was restful and now it's time to get back in the swing of things.

Recapping the last post.  We had been lucky enough to have friends that helped us set up at the Downtown Springfield Farmers market.  When we'd first started we had not really developed our product line.  We just let our customers guide us to what they were looking for.
We specialized in hot process soaps and herbal salves.  We then expanded into pet shampoos and conditioners.  We also made soy candles and scent melts.  Our booth had gotten so large that we now brought 4 tables and two tents.  The weeks were crammed with animal husbandry and soap making.  We also gardened 2 acres of chemical free produce.

Remember that this started a number of years ago.  We'd then gotten an opportunity to set up at Soulard Market in St.Louis.  Once we'd made two separate trips to St.Louis to get the legal paperwork done we were ready to hit "The Big City".  We then split up and I stayed here to sell at our local markets and Javier took to the big city.  We were making more money than we could have originally imagined.  We loved what we were doing and our customer base showed it.

Over the next couple of years not only had our soap business grown but our farm had grown.  We had begun to raise berkshire hogs and dexter cattle.  We began to practice rotational grazing like Joel Salatin.  We made an egg mobile and offered our customers pasture raised eggs along with pastured broilers.  We invested in numerous different kinds of chickens to try our luck at something other than the standard cornish cross chicken.  We were then milking 17 goats twice daily.  We produced pounds and pounds of amazing goat cheese.  We'd also committed to supplying a couple local restaurants with farm raised,chemical free fresh duck,lamb,chicken,beef,pork and goat.  This was what we look back as our hay days.  At that point there were three adults here at the farm.  We were it.  We didn't have any children, interns or employees.  Were were still having lots of fun so even though we were exhausted at the end of the day we were doing the things that we loved.

Our farm was in full swing and we absolutely loved what we were doing.  We had friends in the Illinois Department of Agriculture that went out of their way to make sure our little farm was involved in all things agriculture around Illinois.  We were the first non-food producer that set up at the Illinois Products Expo.  We felt like we were pioneers in small farming in Illinois.  This was exactly what I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  Little did I know that God had different plans for us.  Through no ones fault in one season the farm totally changed.  We'd lost absolutely everything except the farm. We had made some decisions and some plans that just didn't work like we'd hoped.

Now after having taken a year off to decide what it is that we wanted to do with this part of our life we are here to build a business where no business exists.  We gained valuable experience that all of the schooling in the world wouldn't have taught us.  Today we are building our lives from the ground up.  We no longer focus on off farm sales and markets.   Our focus is here on the farm. We have a beautiful patch here in the country and we look forward to making our dreams a reality.

We are so glad you all chose to spend some time here with us.



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Building a business where there is no business continued


For those of that didn't read yesterday's post I'll do a quick recap. I started off with a little of our farm history.  I then followed up with some information about a CSA.  That's not at all timely so I'll pick that up at another time.  Having left the story with the tales of our farmers market days.  Which is where I will start the story again.  Having gotten as much local money as we were likely to do without leaving the farm we had decided it was time to hit "the big city" with our goods.  For us that is Springfield Illinois.  We were lucky in those days to have two summer markets in Springfield.  We were blessed that we were already involved in the Illinois Stewardship Alliance so we'd had some introduction to the network of pioneers that were already making a living farming in rural central Illinois.  The two pioneers that made the most impact in our decision to attempt to sell our wares in the city were Garrick Veenstra of Veenstra's Vegetables and Andy Heck of Heck's harvest.  They had teamed up to open one of the largest booths at our market.  It filled two entire stalls and was filled to the brim with the most amazing vegetables we'd ever seen. If these two thought our stuff was good enough for the big city we were good to go!

We spent the next couple of weeks creating what we were to soon find out was some very popular home made soap,lotion,herbal salves and soy candles.  We'd already been making all of our own products here on the farm. Plus I have a Pet Grooming and Boarding business here so we'd been making our own pet products too.


We had been told that to get a space at the market you had to reserve and pay for your spot in very early spring.  That was a feat that would remain impossible up until the day we decided to quit going to the markets too.  If you remember in yesterdays post we'd already told you how much of a struggle it was to keep the lights on by the time the long Illinois winter decided to end.  
But because we had friends at the market we also knew that in the early spring most of the booths remained empty because here in central Illinois winter makes early spring crops a hit or miss. Most of the vendors in those days didn't have greenhouses or any type of season extending equipment.  We were told that all we had to do was get there before 7 when the vendors set up.  After the paid vendors were settled in and accounted for the market manager would let in the vendors that hadn't paid.  To make sure we wouldn't miss out on getting a space we left our house at 5 a.m. to make the hour long commute to the market.
We had managed to be first in line. Later we discovered there weren't that many brave souls willing to chance the unpredictable Illinois spring weather.  The following markets we were able to leave the farm an hour later and still get our spot.

The first couple of markets were terribly disappointing but both myself and my partner are very passionate about what we were doing so soon our booth was crowded with visitors and we were selling our wares like the hotcakes we thought they were.  Our business grew and our product line grew. We were absolutely thrilled with the money and the interaction.  On that note I think it is time to take a much needed break from sitting here at the computer and head out to interact with the beauty here on the farm.


Gotta Love The View Here!!!




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