Gestern habe ich wieder Quark gemacht! Hier in den Staaten is es fast unmöglich im Supermarkt quark zu finden. Zum Glück ist es aber super-einfach Quark selber zu kultivieren. Einfach Milch warm machen (30 Grad Celsius), Starterkultur hineinmischen und dann nach 24 Stunden mit einem Käsetuch die Molke abtropfen lassen. Fertig. Man kann ein paar […]

Yesterday we set a temperature record of 78°F (26°C) and I decided to work on my composting project. I had two nice piles of compost from last year that I had turned in early summer. One of the piles I had inoculated with mycorrhizal fungus to see if that has any benefit for the compost. […]

Monday, Laura made this loaf of sourdough bread, which was tasty as it was pretty: Montag hat Laura diesen leckeren Laib Weizensauerbrot gebacken. Weiter unten ist noch ein Bild …

I finally did it. I bought my own MIG welder!

Last weekend I spent some quality time under the truck, fixing some stuff that’s been bothering me for a while. I finally found the idle adjustment screw and turned up the engine idle speed a notch, so that the truck doesn’t just die on me all the time when the engine is cold. I also […]

A couple of weeks ago, I helped our new neighbor move a chicken coop on his property. He attached pneumatic caster wheels under the frame of this ancient, roughly 4000-pound structure. We then jacked it up with car jacks, knocked out the foundation, dropped it on the wheels and I towed it with my truck […]

This weekend I replaced the two front engine mounts on my 1991 Mercedes 300D. The driver side mount was completely destroyed by several biodiesel leaks from the fuel lines that run directly above it. The passenger side mount was probably OK, but I replaced it anyway. I spent about $100 on the parts and another […]

Last week the starter on my truck died. I had had some problems starting the truck, but I blamed the old batteries. I installed new(er) batteries, and all seemed fine. Until last week. The starter was dead – not even a “click” – nothing. I was just lucky that we made it home. At the […]

Saturday we finished building the pasture fence. Wow … what a slog! We started working on this project 4 weeks ago. I rented a Bobcat and built a 200 foot/70 meter driveway through the woods up the hill to the top of the pasture. There, we installed a 14-foot/3.5 Meter gate and then we built […]

A few weeks ago our bathroom flooded and the cheap, beige linoleum flooring was completely destroyed. So we ripped out the linoleum and we ended up ripping out the vanity and the toilet as well. We got new bamboo flooring and a new dual-flush toilet from Costco, and a great bamboo vanity from bathandgranite4less.com. Last […]