yesterday because we really did not have much else to do we went to the big city (Dayton, OH) for a shopping trip. We started at Mendelson's one of our favorite places in the gem City. It's a big funky dirty store that sells a wide variety of items from frying pans to computer parts to scanning electron microscopes to jockey shorts to commercial refrigerators. they buy out businesses going under and resell the stuff in their huge building. Shopping there is hit and miss. I always look for plastic produce bags because if they have them they go for a fraction of what they cost "new" and the bags are new and unused. And I did find a roll that had about 75% of itself intact for $3.80. A new roll costs $25 and a case around $50 + shipping. So nice score. Also found cheap jockey shorts (3 for $1), a way cool multi-bladed pair of branch pruners (like a Swiss army knife or Leatherman but instead of a knife blade as the main blade there are pruners plus several other tools including a small knife and a weed popper). I also picked up cheap glue sticks.
The next stop was Belmont Party Supply for brewing items. We were surprised to see they had moved all the brewing supplies out of the beer/liquor store and into its own space next door. They now call themselves Brewtensils. But now they have a lot more room for beer and wine making paraphernalia and I see they are getting into cheese making too and have things like cheese presses for sale. I think I will have to invest a couple hundred dollars in cheese equipment and than start getting more raw milk (i.e. buy another share of the herd) and making cheese. Of course, since I cannot stomach raw milk (I am very, very intolerant to raw milk but can use cooked milk) I will have to pasteurize the milk before making cheese.
At any rate, Eugene bough brewing supplies-various yeasts and hops as well as a nice selection of powdered malts (he wanted liquid but they were out of the 5 gallon containers) plus some no rinse sterilizer for the bottles.
The last place on our itinerary was Harbor Freight the place of cheap crap made in China. I don't like Harbor Freight but they had solar panels on sale for under $150 this week and Eugene has long wanted to get some to start the process of getting us off the grid. So we bought our first solar array. I also saw that next door to Harbor Freight is a huge restaurant discount supply place. Unfortunately, they were locking up for the day when we arrived at the strip mall. So the best I could do was look in the front window and see hundreds of items I want to possess or at least look at and touch (for example, I will not be buying any of the $15K ranges but I will still look at them and ooh and ahh over them). There are few better store in my eyes than a restaurant supply store. The good news is we want to go back to harbor freight to buy a 12' x 10' lexan sheathed green house next week when they go on sale and we can take more than 20% off the normal price. And when we do we will get there long before 5pm so I can check this place out
We drove home while witnessing a spectacular sunset. I was a bit bummed that I did not have my camera with me to document the sunset and put the resulting photos in my Face Book Sunset album. But I was happy that we had such a successful shopping trip
Showing posts with label Beer and Wine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beer and Wine. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Things That Happened in the Past Week or So
The dogs all got baths this past week. Here is Danny all wet and unhappy (he hates the idea of wetness). After his bath he felt much better.
We invited Jules and Rosie out for dinner and pear wine making as we have for the past 5 or so years. here we have (from left to right) Rosie, Jules and Eugene busily cutting up pears.
The pot of pears that we planned on making into wine. but so far this has not happened. the pears were heated (it turns out too much) and than cooled and than wine yeast was pitched (added) but so far after 3 or 4 days nothing has happened. The yeast was old (expired 2 years ago but usually yeast vacuumed packed last many years beyond expiration dates) and so far has not worked. because of that we went to Dayton yesterday and bought fresh wine yeast at Belmont Party Supply on Smithville Rd (if you brew beer/wine or just like drinking great beers go there they have all the brewing wine making supplies one could ever want (or they can order them) and they have one of the best beer selections I have ever seen). While there we picked the owner's brain for ways to deal with this potential wine disaster and he gave us lots of ideas and sold us stuff we may or may not need for the wine. So plan B is to reheat the pears, cool them again and pitch the new yeast and see what happens. It may be we start over with new pears and instead of using whole pears put the fruit into the cider press and use the juice (which would take a lot less time, actually). One way or another we will have a 2008 pear wine vintage.
We went to the farmers market. And here is a rare picture of me at the West's stand across the way from our stand at the Saturday market. We have 2 more weeks of Tuesday and Saturday markets and than we are done with regular markets for 2008. that said we are not done with harvesting and selling food. If you need our food check out our farm store page for instructions on how to get our food when there are no longer 2 markets a week in Oxford and our farm store is not holding regular hours
Monday, November 26, 2007
Beer and the Grid
The beer we made on thanksgiving is fermenting nicely. But the project was not without it's problems. First of all Eugene could not find the airlocks or rubber corks that are needed after the beer is made. He did eventually find an airlock but the rubber corks are still AWOL. He suspects he lent them to our friend Jules (as the wine corker is also missing). But we do not know for sure as she is out of town (or at least not replying to our phone message).
Eugene did use the oxygen set up Wyatt loaned him. This is supposed to make the beer much clearer and likely other good things. I can't tell at this point if the beer will end up cloudy or clear. I do know it has been fermenting well since I raised the ambient temp in the house from 58F to 63F. I got up Friday morning and noticed there was zero fermentation going on in the carboy (the 5 gallon glass jar that one ferments beer and wine in, if doing small batches) so I went to the thermostat and raised it 5 degrees and within an half hour there was a thing line of foam appearing on top of the beer. Within two hours the beer was definitely waking up and by noon it was happily chugging away.
When we lived at the Crubaugh Road farm we heated with wood and always put the carboy of new beer by the wood stove as that was the only place in the house above 50F/55F in winter. now we have central heat and this means the house does not have the hot/cold spots (mostly cold) that we grew used to and actually took advantage of (cold areas make great areas for cold cellaring. Uniform heat makes cold storage quite hard to do without shutting off a room or two). This means if the beer needs the heat a bit higher to ferment, than everything in the house gets to be a bit warmer. I find this wasteful but unavoidable, short of blasting a hole somewhere in the roof for a flue for a wood stove in the house. Than having to deal with the dirt and bad air that comes with having a small wood stove in the house. That said, I do miss heating with wood in a lot of ways. I gotta say when the grid goes down due to storms, when you heat with wood you stay warm. When you heat with an electricity dependent furnace you get cold quickly when the power grid is not running. No fans, no forced air, no heat. It will be nice when we have the wherewithal to get the farm more energy independent. Having a wood furnace, a wind tower, batteries and several solar panels will be a good start. In time we will amass such.
Eugene did use the oxygen set up Wyatt loaned him. This is supposed to make the beer much clearer and likely other good things. I can't tell at this point if the beer will end up cloudy or clear. I do know it has been fermenting well since I raised the ambient temp in the house from 58F to 63F. I got up Friday morning and noticed there was zero fermentation going on in the carboy (the 5 gallon glass jar that one ferments beer and wine in, if doing small batches) so I went to the thermostat and raised it 5 degrees and within an half hour there was a thing line of foam appearing on top of the beer. Within two hours the beer was definitely waking up and by noon it was happily chugging away.
When we lived at the Crubaugh Road farm we heated with wood and always put the carboy of new beer by the wood stove as that was the only place in the house above 50F/55F in winter. now we have central heat and this means the house does not have the hot/cold spots (mostly cold) that we grew used to and actually took advantage of (cold areas make great areas for cold cellaring. Uniform heat makes cold storage quite hard to do without shutting off a room or two). This means if the beer needs the heat a bit higher to ferment, than everything in the house gets to be a bit warmer. I find this wasteful but unavoidable, short of blasting a hole somewhere in the roof for a flue for a wood stove in the house. Than having to deal with the dirt and bad air that comes with having a small wood stove in the house. That said, I do miss heating with wood in a lot of ways. I gotta say when the grid goes down due to storms, when you heat with wood you stay warm. When you heat with an electricity dependent furnace you get cold quickly when the power grid is not running. No fans, no forced air, no heat. It will be nice when we have the wherewithal to get the farm more energy independent. Having a wood furnace, a wind tower, batteries and several solar panels will be a good start. In time we will amass such.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thanksgiving Brew
It's thanksgiving and we at Boulder Belt are not eating a turkey dinner (mainly because I did not hop to it and order a pastured turkey from the Filbruns a month ago and when I asked 2 weeks ago if they had any left they said no, they were sold out) this year. nor are we going to anyone's home to feast upon their turkey and trimmings.
No, we are staying in and the plan is to brew beer all afternoon. We shall consume the first of this beer on New Years Day. So truly a holiday brew.
Our friend Wyatt says he is coming over with home made bread and a wort chiller. Eugene made a green tomato chutney yesterday so I am thinking making a vegetarian curry for dinner. We have a lot of greens left over from last Saturday's Winter market that need using as well as peppers, onions, snow peas and leeks. I could also throw together a salad (we have a lot of salad greens too).
This is the first Thanksgiving I have not celebrated in my life. Usually I am cooking at least one meal. Some years when I was working in food service by Thanksgiving day I had cooked over 10 different Turkey day feasts. This year nothing and I gotta say it is nice not to be responsible for dinner for many.
My sister quit celebrating years ago (20 years?) when her infant daughter suddenly died of meningitis the day before Thanksgiving (nothing thankful about that!). Go forward about 16 years and the Owsleys are in Detroit dealing with our mother dying of a stroke. She died 2 days after Thanksgiving that year. The T-day dinner that year was leg of lamb, a big salad and lots of wine and beer. Not very joyous but we made the best of it. At least we were all together (except Mom who was dying in a hospital) for the first time in decades for a Thanksgiving.
So today will be about watching Parades on the TeeVee, drinking home brews and craft beers while making beer and curry.
Tomorrow will be all about Buy Nothing Day
No, we are staying in and the plan is to brew beer all afternoon. We shall consume the first of this beer on New Years Day. So truly a holiday brew.
Our friend Wyatt says he is coming over with home made bread and a wort chiller. Eugene made a green tomato chutney yesterday so I am thinking making a vegetarian curry for dinner. We have a lot of greens left over from last Saturday's Winter market that need using as well as peppers, onions, snow peas and leeks. I could also throw together a salad (we have a lot of salad greens too).
This is the first Thanksgiving I have not celebrated in my life. Usually I am cooking at least one meal. Some years when I was working in food service by Thanksgiving day I had cooked over 10 different Turkey day feasts. This year nothing and I gotta say it is nice not to be responsible for dinner for many.
My sister quit celebrating years ago (20 years?) when her infant daughter suddenly died of meningitis the day before Thanksgiving (nothing thankful about that!). Go forward about 16 years and the Owsleys are in Detroit dealing with our mother dying of a stroke. She died 2 days after Thanksgiving that year. The T-day dinner that year was leg of lamb, a big salad and lots of wine and beer. Not very joyous but we made the best of it. At least we were all together (except Mom who was dying in a hospital) for the first time in decades for a Thanksgiving.
So today will be about watching Parades on the TeeVee, drinking home brews and craft beers while making beer and curry.
Tomorrow will be all about Buy Nothing Day
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Shrink Wrapped Boats Head South
Eugene and I were getting some beer (the Brooklyn Beer Party assortment) at the liquor store in Eaton and I noticed the shrink wrapped boats have migrated down to SW Ohio. There were four sitting out behind the liquor store. Yesterday we got gasoline at Swifty and I noticed they were gone.
Crazy to be shrink wrapping such items (or any items really) when we are at or beyond peak oil.
Crazy to be shrink wrapping such items (or any items really) when we are at or beyond peak oil.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Rainy Spring Days on The Farm
It's been raining for the past two days so we have not been doing much farming-the soils just too wet. That is not to say we didn't need the rain, we did. And the lettuces, peas, spring mix, spinach, asparagus, strawberries, radishes, onions, leeks, raspberries, kale, broccoli, chard, scallions, herbs rutabagas, etc., look quite happy about the rain
Before it rained we got almost all the onions in the ground. All that is left are some late planted seedlings that are not big enough for transplanting yet. Now we have 3 or 4 beds of leeks to get in and we are pretty much done with allium planting until October when we plant garlic.
The next big transplanting project will be tomatoes, peppers and eggplant that will go in the end of May or early June. Looks like we will have around 1500 plants to put out over a couple of days.
Meanwhile we will be transplanting broccoli, cabbages, cukes, zucchinis, melons, winter squashes, lettuces, pac choi, etc., and doing a lot of direct seeding of various crops like carrots, turnips, spring mix, radishes, basil, parsley, sweet corn, potatoes, etc., throughout May, June and July. Unlike home gardeners we have to keep planting over and over so we have a constant seasonal supply of produce so there is no putting in the garden over a day or weekend. We will be done planting sometime in November or December.
While it's been raining we have started clearing out the storefront of a lot of detritus (aka yard sale items) and putting that in the barn where the huge, commercial, 3-door fridge used to be and moving all the equipment we use to package produce (scale, plastic wrap, pulp boxes, plastic bags, wax boxes, salad spinner, wash tubs, chest freezers etc., from the barn to the back of the store which is being turned into a packing shed. This will greatly streamline selling produce out of the store having the refrigeration where things are being sold so no one has to run to the barn to get more bags of spring mix or strawberries or a chicken and than at the end of the day take everything back to the barn
We also bottled homemade pear wine and beer over the past two days. The beer ought to be ready to drink for my birthday May 11h
Before it rained we got almost all the onions in the ground. All that is left are some late planted seedlings that are not big enough for transplanting yet. Now we have 3 or 4 beds of leeks to get in and we are pretty much done with allium planting until October when we plant garlic.
The next big transplanting project will be tomatoes, peppers and eggplant that will go in the end of May or early June. Looks like we will have around 1500 plants to put out over a couple of days.
Meanwhile we will be transplanting broccoli, cabbages, cukes, zucchinis, melons, winter squashes, lettuces, pac choi, etc., and doing a lot of direct seeding of various crops like carrots, turnips, spring mix, radishes, basil, parsley, sweet corn, potatoes, etc., throughout May, June and July. Unlike home gardeners we have to keep planting over and over so we have a constant seasonal supply of produce so there is no putting in the garden over a day or weekend. We will be done planting sometime in November or December.
While it's been raining we have started clearing out the storefront of a lot of detritus (aka yard sale items) and putting that in the barn where the huge, commercial, 3-door fridge used to be and moving all the equipment we use to package produce (scale, plastic wrap, pulp boxes, plastic bags, wax boxes, salad spinner, wash tubs, chest freezers etc., from the barn to the back of the store which is being turned into a packing shed. This will greatly streamline selling produce out of the store having the refrigeration where things are being sold so no one has to run to the barn to get more bags of spring mix or strawberries or a chicken and than at the end of the day take everything back to the barn
We also bottled homemade pear wine and beer over the past two days. The beer ought to be ready to drink for my birthday May 11h
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Bottling wine
Newly bottled pear wine ready for corkingAbout a week ago we put the carboys on the kitchen table where they suddenly started bubbling again. You cannot bottle actively fermenting wine so we waited and waited for it to calm down. Daily we would discuss whether or not we could bottle the stuff and daily we decided it was too active.
Today, though, the wine seemed quiet enough to rack up. So after lunch we got 13 bottles cleaned up and corks sterilized and decanted one carboy into 13 bottles. We didn't have enough bottles to rack up the other carboy. we made a lot of wine!
Me tasting the new wine. It is a sweet wine with a good pear flavor. As it ages it should get a lot drier.
Cheers!
The plan is to go to a Superbowl party tomorrow and hope the wine drinkers there kill enough bottles so we can finish this job on Monday.
A note on the Superbowl-I have no prediction on who will win. I would not pay attention to this commercial fest at all if there was not a social occasion to attend with lots of good food, drink and friends to nosh with
Friday, December 09, 2005
Yep it Snowed
The snow is over. We got around 5" of the stuff. All the schools are closed.
Eugene spent a great deal of the late morning/early afternoon pushing snow around using the BCS (that is a walking or two wheeled tractor) with the plow attachment. The high winds last night scoured out most of the snow in the parking area. Except the part right up by the road (For which I think we can thank an O-DOT plow). But he sold a hay rack a couple of days ago and they guy is supposed to come by tomorrow to get it so he got the snow up to and around the hay rack cleared away.
Nate, the puppy thought the snow was GRRREAT!!! He now knows drifts are for running through and biting. He stayed out so long in the snow his pads got pretty frozen. Just like a kid.
The cats are not at all amused by the snow. Navin wanted out last night while it was still snowing. He went to the front door and was faced with a lot of frozen precip. No good. So he went to the kitchen door hoping that door would open up onto some warm dry weather. but that didn't happen, snow at that door too. So he went back to the space heater and laid down and soaked up more heat.
The farm is a very different place today. Lots of white and very little green. the house is extra cold today. The thermostat on the wall says it is 55˚F. Brrrr! Wouldn't be bad if it was 59˚F, that 4 degrees makes a big difference.
Invited friends out tomorrow for a sledding party. I have no idea how many folks will come. It doesn't matter as sledding is always fun.
I am thawing some apple cider we pressed in August. The plan is to heat it up and put in some spices and drink the sweet warming fluid. The adults can add rum as well. Will also make hot cocoa to which the adults can add kaluah and/or rum if they choose.
Eugene spent a great deal of the late morning/early afternoon pushing snow around using the BCS (that is a walking or two wheeled tractor) with the plow attachment. The high winds last night scoured out most of the snow in the parking area. Except the part right up by the road (For which I think we can thank an O-DOT plow). But he sold a hay rack a couple of days ago and they guy is supposed to come by tomorrow to get it so he got the snow up to and around the hay rack cleared away.
Nate, the puppy thought the snow was GRRREAT!!! He now knows drifts are for running through and biting. He stayed out so long in the snow his pads got pretty frozen. Just like a kid.
The cats are not at all amused by the snow. Navin wanted out last night while it was still snowing. He went to the front door and was faced with a lot of frozen precip. No good. So he went to the kitchen door hoping that door would open up onto some warm dry weather. but that didn't happen, snow at that door too. So he went back to the space heater and laid down and soaked up more heat.
The farm is a very different place today. Lots of white and very little green. the house is extra cold today. The thermostat on the wall says it is 55˚F. Brrrr! Wouldn't be bad if it was 59˚F, that 4 degrees makes a big difference.
Invited friends out tomorrow for a sledding party. I have no idea how many folks will come. It doesn't matter as sledding is always fun.
I am thawing some apple cider we pressed in August. The plan is to heat it up and put in some spices and drink the sweet warming fluid. The adults can add rum as well. Will also make hot cocoa to which the adults can add kaluah and/or rum if they choose.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Rainy Sunday
Its' been a rainy lazy Sunday. Watched the Bengals beat the Ravens. Watching football on any level is not something I do often (I go to a superbowl party every year and that is usually the extent of my football watching. Eugene will watch even less than I do). But hey, it is not every year the Bengals do well. And there wasn't much else on TeeVee (we get 6 channels here at Boulder Belt Farm and have no interest in satellite/cable). About half time Eugene got bored and went out in the drizzle to plant day lilies on the eroding banks around the pond. He dug up many buckets of them about 5 days ago at the old place.
This work in November will make for a pretty display in May, June and July. And it will keep the bank from slumping any worse than it already has. That is if Nate, the large, possibly German short haired pointer puppy, will let these plantings be. He tends to dig up anything can get at. He took out a rather big clump of pampas grass. Eugene replanted elsewhere, where nate cannot get to it until it roots (than I want to see the dog try and drag the grass out of the ground. Sure its' easy when the grass has been in the ground less than 72 hours ). He got out into the front yard overnight a few weeks ago and pulled out several irises I had just planted. He's a rascal.
So while Eugene is getting muddy I am blogging and making a pizza dough for tonight. it will have onions, cheese, locally made organic Italian sausage, sweet peppers from the freezer and perhaps some zucchini from the freezer.
Might make some winter squash to go along with though we did have winter squash last night.
Oh and I have some hot chocolate warming on the stove that will get a shot of kaluah or rum (or both!) when it is served.
This work in November will make for a pretty display in May, June and July. And it will keep the bank from slumping any worse than it already has. That is if Nate, the large, possibly German short haired pointer puppy, will let these plantings be. He tends to dig up anything can get at. He took out a rather big clump of pampas grass. Eugene replanted elsewhere, where nate cannot get to it until it roots (than I want to see the dog try and drag the grass out of the ground. Sure its' easy when the grass has been in the ground less than 72 hours ). He got out into the front yard overnight a few weeks ago and pulled out several irises I had just planted. He's a rascal.
So while Eugene is getting muddy I am blogging and making a pizza dough for tonight. it will have onions, cheese, locally made organic Italian sausage, sweet peppers from the freezer and perhaps some zucchini from the freezer.
Might make some winter squash to go along with though we did have winter squash last night.
Oh and I have some hot chocolate warming on the stove that will get a shot of kaluah or rum (or both!) when it is served.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Moving a Farm (pt 2)
When we last saw our heroes they were painting, cleaning, installing appliances in the basement and yes they were moving a few farm related items such as tillers, lawn mowers, etc..
But they had not started on moving the house because they had a plan, a good plan called the Moving Partay.
It all started with a simple email sent in early September:
Greetings,
As you know we are moving and we will be having a moving party. This will occur on Sept. 18th (Sunday) starting at 10am. We want to get the big items moved (we should have the house mostly set up by the time this party happens) What we will be moving is a large 3-door commercial fridge, some grain bins, other fridges, freezers and a few other things.
For this part of the effort we need 5 or 6 strong backs and 2 to 3 truck/vans that can carry weight and large bulky items. We also could use 5 to 6 big coolers to put food from the freezers in while the freezers are in transit
We also need a crew to facilitate clean up at the new place. The old owner left a variety of "farm art" (as my friend Pat Flick calls junk in fields) and we need to get it sorted and moved out of the planting area and put somewhere else. Some of the stuff is good stuff some of the stuff can be recycled and some of the stuff can be burned.
We will supply food (pastured chicken, a big tomato salad, burgers, etc.) and beer, wine and a bon fire for the after moving festivities. feel free to bring a dish your self.
Please let me know ASAP if you are coming. If I don't hear from you I will assume you will not be participating.
If you cannot make this event butt want to see the farm we are planning on having an open house some time in October when we are more settled in
The Partay
And on Sunday Sept. 15th it culminated in a gathering of people, a 17' U-haul truck, our Dodge cargo van and a few other vehicles. Eugene's Brother was the only person to show up in the morning and Eugene had to pick up the U-haul truck so we were only able to get the Dodge van and dave's car loaded for the first run to the new place. We took stuff over, foundf no one there so unloaded and went to lunch in eaton. came back and the ferrario family had arrived as had Molly Willburger, A MU student interested in us farmer types. By 2pm Marc and Lisa biales and Chuck herms arrived and later Steve Dana showed up. Soon both places were a hive of activity. By day's end we had managed to get most of the household items moved and even got the living room and kitchen set up decently. Food was provided by my friends Lisa who brought a deelish black bean soup and Karen who brought a spicy BBQ. We supplied the beer and wine. A good time was had by all
The Big Fridge
Moving the household was not too big a job though we do have 2 big freezers, fridges and a few other big items. The big job of the day was moving this 3-door commercial fridge we bought about 6 years ago from Kona Bistro in Oxford, OH when they remodeled their kitchen. The fridge is HUGE and can hold about 35 bushels of food. It had been sitting on the west side of our old place under an metal roof Eugene had built around the thing. I was not there when the crew got to moving the fridge but from what I hear they had no problem getting the roof down and the fridge moved off of its' pad. But they did have a problem getting it into the 17' U-haul truck-it was too tall by about 4". Bummer.
So the solution was to not load the fridge and load other things into the truck instead and get all that stuff over to the new place, unloaded and in the house or barn. When that was done several people left and a few latecomers arrived and as the sun was setting Eugene, Syd, Chuck and Scott decided to go back and wrestle the big fridge into the 17' U-Haul truck. While they were gone us ladies sat on the deck, watched the sun set and sipped single malt scotch and drank beer. Shortly after dark the guys came back with the fridge loaded on at an angle. They got the thing unloaded and than found that the biggest doorway we had was still 2" too short for the fridge so it sat outside overnight awaiting Eugene to take off all the molding around the doorway so it would be big enough to accept the fridge.
The Following Day
After the moving partay was over we were still needing to move more large items before taking the truck back so the next morning we went back to the Crubaugh Rd farm and moved the chicken tractors (these are movable coops, not tractors like what one would plow with. Our chickens do not drive), rolls of fencing, 2 big grain bins (like 65 bushels each) and many really long bamboo poles. Pile those things in the truck, drove back home and when got there we found that one of the chicken tractors had almost gotten loose. Good thing we were driving back roads and not a major highway in case the thing had fallen out of the truck. It seems we did not secure the latch well on the back and it had come loose and the door was trying to slide open. It did not so no damage.
After the final use of the U-haul we cleaned it out and returned it and ran into a problem. According to U-haul we had not rented the truck and therefore they felt they could charge us more than the estimate. We did not like that idea at all so they quickly backed down and than found we were not in their system and that the problem could be traced back to the poorly trained employee who rented Eugene the truck the day before. this was going to take a while so we went to breakfast at the Main St Diner in Richmond (a little hole in the wall breakfast and lunch place that has been around forever). I had biscuits and gravy and some pretty bad coffee. Eugene had the same plus pancakes. After B-fast we finally returned the truck and drove back home via Lowe's to pick up some hardware items for the new house.
Stay tune for part moving pt 3: Living Between two Farms
But they had not started on moving the house because they had a plan, a good plan called the Moving Partay.
It all started with a simple email sent in early September:
Greetings,
As you know we are moving and we will be having a moving party. This will occur on Sept. 18th (Sunday) starting at 10am. We want to get the big items moved (we should have the house mostly set up by the time this party happens) What we will be moving is a large 3-door commercial fridge, some grain bins, other fridges, freezers and a few other things.
For this part of the effort we need 5 or 6 strong backs and 2 to 3 truck/vans that can carry weight and large bulky items. We also could use 5 to 6 big coolers to put food from the freezers in while the freezers are in transit
We also need a crew to facilitate clean up at the new place. The old owner left a variety of "farm art" (as my friend Pat Flick calls junk in fields) and we need to get it sorted and moved out of the planting area and put somewhere else. Some of the stuff is good stuff some of the stuff can be recycled and some of the stuff can be burned.
We will supply food (pastured chicken, a big tomato salad, burgers, etc.) and beer, wine and a bon fire for the after moving festivities. feel free to bring a dish your self.
Please let me know ASAP if you are coming. If I don't hear from you I will assume you will not be participating.
If you cannot make this event butt want to see the farm we are planning on having an open house some time in October when we are more settled in
The Partay
And on Sunday Sept. 15th it culminated in a gathering of people, a 17' U-haul truck, our Dodge cargo van and a few other vehicles. Eugene's Brother was the only person to show up in the morning and Eugene had to pick up the U-haul truck so we were only able to get the Dodge van and dave's car loaded for the first run to the new place. We took stuff over, foundf no one there so unloaded and went to lunch in eaton. came back and the ferrario family had arrived as had Molly Willburger, A MU student interested in us farmer types. By 2pm Marc and Lisa biales and Chuck herms arrived and later Steve Dana showed up. Soon both places were a hive of activity. By day's end we had managed to get most of the household items moved and even got the living room and kitchen set up decently. Food was provided by my friends Lisa who brought a deelish black bean soup and Karen who brought a spicy BBQ. We supplied the beer and wine. A good time was had by all
The Big Fridge
Moving the household was not too big a job though we do have 2 big freezers, fridges and a few other big items. The big job of the day was moving this 3-door commercial fridge we bought about 6 years ago from Kona Bistro in Oxford, OH when they remodeled their kitchen. The fridge is HUGE and can hold about 35 bushels of food. It had been sitting on the west side of our old place under an metal roof Eugene had built around the thing. I was not there when the crew got to moving the fridge but from what I hear they had no problem getting the roof down and the fridge moved off of its' pad. But they did have a problem getting it into the 17' U-haul truck-it was too tall by about 4". Bummer.
So the solution was to not load the fridge and load other things into the truck instead and get all that stuff over to the new place, unloaded and in the house or barn. When that was done several people left and a few latecomers arrived and as the sun was setting Eugene, Syd, Chuck and Scott decided to go back and wrestle the big fridge into the 17' U-Haul truck. While they were gone us ladies sat on the deck, watched the sun set and sipped single malt scotch and drank beer. Shortly after dark the guys came back with the fridge loaded on at an angle. They got the thing unloaded and than found that the biggest doorway we had was still 2" too short for the fridge so it sat outside overnight awaiting Eugene to take off all the molding around the doorway so it would be big enough to accept the fridge.
The Following Day
After the moving partay was over we were still needing to move more large items before taking the truck back so the next morning we went back to the Crubaugh Rd farm and moved the chicken tractors (these are movable coops, not tractors like what one would plow with. Our chickens do not drive), rolls of fencing, 2 big grain bins (like 65 bushels each) and many really long bamboo poles. Pile those things in the truck, drove back home and when got there we found that one of the chicken tractors had almost gotten loose. Good thing we were driving back roads and not a major highway in case the thing had fallen out of the truck. It seems we did not secure the latch well on the back and it had come loose and the door was trying to slide open. It did not so no damage.
After the final use of the U-haul we cleaned it out and returned it and ran into a problem. According to U-haul we had not rented the truck and therefore they felt they could charge us more than the estimate. We did not like that idea at all so they quickly backed down and than found we were not in their system and that the problem could be traced back to the poorly trained employee who rented Eugene the truck the day before. this was going to take a while so we went to breakfast at the Main St Diner in Richmond (a little hole in the wall breakfast and lunch place that has been around forever). I had biscuits and gravy and some pretty bad coffee. Eugene had the same plus pancakes. After B-fast we finally returned the truck and drove back home via Lowe's to pick up some hardware items for the new house.
Stay tune for part moving pt 3: Living Between two Farms
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