The winecaps, agaricus, and wild mushrooms in our forest are also fruiting abundantly. Our permaculture efforts, including the recently planted paw-paw trees, are fully leafed out We’ve not yet seen much activity in our ginseng beds. I have a feeling that the deer and wild turkeys are eating them.
Now that all our ciders are fully mature, Kathy and I did a tasting of 7 different five gallon batches. All were technically perfect and had no off flavors. We are now able to focus our future efforts based on the aroma, complexity, and mouth feel we can achieve using different combinations of sweet, tart, aromatic, and astringent apples.
9/13
Sweet - Golden, Gala
Tart - McIntosh, Rhode Island Greening, Gravenstein
Aromatic -
Astringent -
lightly carbonated, clean/dry, primarily tart character
9/27
Sweet - Honey Crisp
Tart - McIntosh
Aromatic - Macoun
Astringent - Crab
moderately carbonated, clean/dry, complex/complete/balanced, aromatic
10/11
Sweet - Baldwin
Tart - McIntosh
Aromatic - Macoun
Astringent - Crab
moderately carbonated, clean/dry, less complex
10/25 *****The Winner
Sweet - Baldwin, Golden Delicious
Tart - McIntosh
Aromatic - Macoun
Astringent - Crab
moderately carbonated, clean/dry, complex/complete/balanced, aromatic
10/26
Sweet - Baldwin
Tart - Winesap
Aromatic -
Astringent - Crab
moderately carbonated, clean/dry, more tart, less complex
11/8
Sweet - Baldwin
Tart - Red Spy
Aromatic - Macoun
Astringent - Russet
moderatedly carbonated, clean/dry, rounded, buttery, very wine like
11/9
Sweet - Baldwin, Golden Delicious
Tart - Winesap, Cortland
Aromatic -
Astringent -
moderatedly carbonated, clean/dry, lacks complexity
We also ordered another 4 kegs so that we can keep 8 different kinds of beverages on our tap system as part of our product development. I’m adding a keg of honey lager next week and a keg of sparkling mead this Summer.
We’re still on cria (baby alpaca) watch - Daisy Mae has not yet given birth, although it is clear she is near. He’s a photo of Sunny, who is 1 year old this month.
We continue to raise our young Spring birds - chickens, geese, and pheasants. At the moment, our bird count is
Ducks - 8
Chickens - 26
Geese - 3
Guinea Fowl - 65
Our goal is to keep the guinea fowl population from expanding. We try to discover their hidden forest nests and gather their eggs on a daily basis.
The hives continue to grow and Kathy now has to use a step ladder to take off the honey supers. We have 22 hives, 12 at Unity Farm and 10 at five distributed locations within a few miles. Below is a photo of one of our queens - look at the center of the picture for the bee with the black thorax.
Our vegetables continue to be prolific and we’re harvesting 20 pounds per day for family, friends, and creatures. The strawberries are ripe and I’m eating them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The monarch butterfly caterpillars are feasting on milkweed and the wild flowers are in bloom all over the pastures. It's almost Summer.
1 comment:
Just a quick note to tell you how much I enjoy your Unity Farm posts -- I look forward every Thursday to reading about your ongoing efforts. In addition to being interesting and informative your blog is also inspirational: every time I think my life is busy and overscheduled I think about what you are accomplishing and realize that I have a lot more capacity than I realize! That said, you seem to have an almost mystical ability to cram 36 hours of work into a 24 hour day! Thanks a lot for including your blog posts on your already lengthy list of chores...
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