Weekend Links & Updates

This is our daily harvest of figs!
In which I share my favorite posts from this blog's Facebook page.
"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."
Galations 6:9

* I'm toying with the idea of creating a Proverbs 31 Woman podcast. How many of you listen to podcasts? Would you be interested in a Proverbs 31 Woman podcast? Please let me know in the comments!
Found on the homestead: Amanita muscaria or fly agaric or fly amanita. It's beautiful, but a strong psychoactive. In Europe they carefully parboil it and eat it, but I think we'll just enjoy it's beauty. All the mushroom photos in this post are Amanita muscaria at different stages of development.
* I apologize for my lighter-than-usual blogging. The homestead fire has really eaten up my time. So far, I've been really pleased with how State Farm has handled the situation. The insurance adjuster for the building called me (after hours) the day I called in the claim, and showed up for an inspection the very next day. The fire inspector came the next day, too. Amazing! The fire expert agreed the cause of the fire was the wood stove, though, as far as I know, he gave no further details.

My dear father-in-law (a former contractor) has been gathering bids for our rebuild project, and I've been spending a huge amount of time making a list of the building's contents and researching replacement costs. This has been really tricky since almost everything in the building was antique or vintage, and for many items, I've had a really tough time finding similar items.

This week, I tried to find replacement value for my organic, home canned foods. Pricing out the jars and lids was easy, but finding similar foods was sometimes difficult. I could find dandelion jelly online, but strawberry rhubarb pie filling? Nope.

The research has only bolstered my good feelings about home canned food, though. For example, I had 72 jars of organic applesauce in the building - almost all from our orchard this summer. On Amazon, organic applesauce sells for .69 cents an ounce. That means my home canned applesauce (not including the cost of the jars and lids) is worth $1,589.76!


* We are loving greenhouse salads! Everything I planted in the greenhouse just a month or so ago is thriving, and all of it is growing faster than the exact same plants I tossed in the ground outside. It's also less troubled by slugs and snails. The tomatoes are still producing, and I'm harvesting several types of lettuce, kale, and beet greens.

* Printable family gratitude devotions for November.

* Another good reason to quit: 2 diet sodas a day linked to double risk of diabetes.

* Migraines might be caused by poor gut health.

* A little bit of an (important) rant: Gut health is being linked to many, many diseases; therefore, a lot of folks are trying to add fermented food to their diets. This is an excellent, healthful step! However, I'm hearing a lot of people talk about fermenting their sauerkraut and then canning it. Friends, when you can sauerkraut, you KILL all the good probiotics in it! So if you want the benefit of fermented food, do not can or heat it. The good news is fermented foods keep for a long time in a cool location, like the refrigerator.

Want some easy fermented food recipes? Here ya go:

* Small bath sauerkraut in a Mason jar
* How to make kombucha 
* How to make yogurt in a crock pot

Oldies But Goodies:

* 14 Thanksgiving Games for Kids
* Easy as Pie cookbook


No comments