Vermont Castings Dutchwest wood cookstove

Bruce is loading our new stove for the first time.
Eilidh (EYE lee) (age 27 months) is clapping the morning it is all finally installed. Note the flat cook-top. This stove has been in about 2 weeks now. We've fried steak and eggs on it during a 3-day power outage when Ike came through Ohio. We also have pasteurized milk on it in an enamel pan, and made homemade soap on it already. It is quite efficient. Yesterday I could feel its heat upstairs in this old farmhouse. Bruce has percolated coffee on it a few times, and found that coffee stays at a perfect warmth without continuing to percolate, sitting on an iron trivet on top. No more keeping coffee and tea warm on "simmer" on the electric stove.

Homeschooling

We have embarked on our first experience at homeschooling. It is a most interesting experience. It has taken me months to sort out what kind of homeschoolers we really are, and to learn the rules and the lingo. We are eclectic and traditional.

My 16 y/o daughter was taking advanced classes in public school and did well to the end of her sophomore year last year. This year at home we are studying what she would have been taking: World History, Literature, Chemistry and Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry. She is also studying French, taking 2 art classes from the local Oglebay Institute (oil painting and ceramics); acoustic guitar lessons, and the HS principal has permitted her to continue being active in the drama club. She is the stage manager in the fall play. She's a self starter, so homeschooling her is probably easier than it would be some other teenagers.

"Homeschooling" a 2 y/o little girl is really just play. But I have printed out lists of things she needs to accomplish by kindergarten. I've already graduated 2 boys from high school. One of them was in speech therapy from age 2 to about 8, so I have a pretty good idea of what needs done already. I have been gifted with 4 healthy children who always could probably have done better if I'd homeschooled them, provided I had known what I was doing. So my second husband and I are going to try it from the beginning with this one. Well, the oldest I may not have had success with. He is very bright, but was always a challange, and I think having someone other than his mother teaching him was a wise idea. But the others could have easily been homeschooled.

I have help. The 16 y/o and my husband have been teaching the 2 y/o number recognition. I didn't realize this until last night when she was pointing at numbers in a book and saying their proper names. Preschool skill lists also help. Like I didn't realize that cutting out little pieces of paper with scissors was something desireable. My husband disapproved teaching her how to use scissors. We will just have to keep scissors in a secure place from here on.

The public school guidance counselor is worried about my daughter, and my pulling her out of school. She doesn't know it, but she is part of the reason I did. I hope to knock her socks off with what we accomplish at home this year and next. I think my daughter will do better without her guidance.

Elderberry Jelly, Part VI, YUM

Need I say more?

Elderberry Jelly, Part V, Straining

Forget jelly bags. I use cheap cheescloth, and always have. I use it for cheese too. You can get it in the craft section at Walmart, or about any fabric store. There are 4 layers here. This is the hot, mashed pulp, simmered for a few minutes until the pulp and juice separates from the seeds.

I draped 4 layers over this bowl, poured the pulp in gently, then tied it from my cupboard with some paper string. I use various thicknesses of paper string for lots of uses. It is cheap. It can be used to tie packages, tie up sheep fleeces, hang cheeses, and hanging jelly from the cupboard door.

Notice the steam curling around the bottom. This pulp is HOT.

I twist this bag when it is touchable. I twist it one way, then the other, tight, and squeeze as much pulp and juice as I can get out of it without ripping the cheesecloth. It makes the jelly taste better.

While this cooled, and before I twisted the juice out of it, first I washed the pot I poured it out of for the last stage of jelly-making. Then I pulled 4 hot pint jars out of the oven and set them on a clean towel. It is supposed to make 4 1/2 cups, which is only 2 1/2 pint jars, but I always sterilize extra. No recipe is exact.

Then I twist every last bit of juice I can get out of this bag; and pour the juice back into the pot. I add my 4-years expired pectin, and bring it to a rolling boil. Then I add 4 1/4 cups sugar, stirring, and bring it back to a rolling boil for one minute. I take it off the heat. I attempt to remove foam, but there is no foam to remove, really. Then I pour it into the hot jars up to 1/8 inch from the top. I use the tongs I've boiled with the lids to put the lids on the jars, straight out of the simmering water I've boiled them in, and twist on the rings.

Now the recipe from the pectin box says to invert the jars for 5 minutes. This doesn't go well. They leak. So I decided not to invert the second batch.

I make my husband some toast with butter and jelly, with the bread he made yesterday, and I clean out my jelly-making pan, the "foam" cup, and the spills. That is when he tells me it is too lemony. But I don't care. It tastes good.

Elderberry Jelly, Part IV, Mashing

What you see here:

A potato masher in a pot of 6 cups of elderberries. Yes, some of the stems are still on. If you try to remove them, you are guaranteed to go insane.

A juicer with one lemon's juice in it, and two lemon's seeds and pulp (this is the second batch). The recipe calls for 1/4 cup lemon juice. My husband later told me it made the jelly taste "too lemony," masking the elderberry flavor too muich. So I won't use it next time. I was just following the recipe.

A soup mug with a ladle in it, for skimming off the foam which never transpired in this jelly.

A pot with boiled lids, and a boiled tongs. I also boil everything I stick into the jelly or anything else I can, to keep it as sterile as possible. The jars are in the oven at 250 degrees on a cookie sheet. I am careful not to touch the tops when I pull them out with hot pads.

I might mention that I used pectin that expired in 2004. It is 2008. It worked just fine - my jelly set up beautifully.

Elderberry Jelly, Part III

And here they are, all in a bowl. All the stems are in the bag now. You can't tell by this picture, and I didn't know it until I measured them, but there are just about 12 perfect cups of elderberries in that bowl. The jelly recipe calls for 3lbs. According to my Pyrex 4-cup measure, 2 cups is 16 oz., so 6 cups is 3lbs.

How often do you pick a bunch of elderberries, and clean the stems, and wind up with EXACTLY enough for 2 batches of jelly?! I was tickled.

Elderberry Jelly, Part II, Cyanide Issues

I cut the berry heads into this brown paper bag, with kitchen scissors. I thought I had eliminated all the insects before removing the stems. Then I proceeded to roll and pick the very ripe elderberries off the stems, right into the bag. To the right is a blueware bowl that I put the empty stems into. It wasn't remotely big enough, but it was handy.

As I de-berried the stems, I also liberated about 3 spiders, 4 brown crickets, 2 tent worms, 1 unidentified worm, and 2 katydids. The sack got rather full of elderberries.

I have read that elderberry seeds, stems, and particularly the leaves and stalks, contain cyanide. The red elderberries (which I've never seen in Ohio but may be here) are more likely to poison than the black. Even so, poisoning is very rare. People make jelly out of red ones too. Pitted fruits (plums, peaches), almonds, apple seeds; plastics, and cigarette smoke contain cyanide, so it isn't uncommon for us to be exposed to it in small amounts. Cooking is supposed to break down the cyanide, so elderberry jelly is not anything to worry about. It has a distinctive flavor. I suppose the breakdown and the way jellies are made is why you can make such from many wild fruits with cyanide laden seeds, with no ill effects.

But if you are remotely worried about cyanide, the CDC website lists these symptoms:

Small Amounts

rapid breathing
restlessness
dizziness
weakness
headache
nausea/vomiting
rapid heart rate

Large Amounts

convulsions
low blood pressure
slow heart rate
loss of consciousness
lung injury
respiratory failure leading to death

Even the mild symptoms should happen within minutes of exposure. Some people can taste or smell a mild almond flavor. I have been around black elderberries my entire life. I have hollowed out the stems and tried making whistles out of them. I've watched my goats eat the leaves, with no apparent ill effects. In fact, my goats will strip any elderberry plant they find. It is quite possible that I have been mildly poisoned in the past and not known it. But after spending a day in the kitchen with elderberries, I still love them as much as I ever did. You will see why in subsequent posts.

Elderberry Jelly, Part I

The first picture is the elderberries. This bush is over where my 7 y/o Newfoundland, Morgan, likes to sleep. It is the only elderberry patch that the berries stay on until I can use them. This photo was taken today, September 10th, 2008. The berries are ripe, and hanging heavy. Many have dropped to the ground. They are also covered in pollen.


The second picture is the plant whose pollen the elderberries were well dusted with. As a matter of fact, while I was picking berries, and stepped on the stalks of this plant, the pollen filled the aire like mist. It worried me a little since I was about to make jelly with berries literally caked with this pollen. So I spent about an hour going through my books identifying the plant. It reminded me of ragweed, but I knew it wasn't - at least not the real stuff. I seemed to recall someone calling it "Indian Hemp." Repeated googling came up with duds. I finally found it online with the words three-lobed leaf invasive weeds pollen, or some such thing. You can't tell by my picture, but the leaves have distinctive lobes.

It is Ambrosia trifida, in the aster family.
It has many common names:
Giant Ragweed (gut instincts are sometimes right!)
Wild Hemp (hey, that too!)
Buffalo Weed
Horse Cane
Tall Ambrosia
Bitterweed
Bloodweed

With some further googling of the latin name along with the word pollen, poison, and so forth, I learned that the pollen is actually used as a treatment, ingested, for ragweed allergies. And bees use the pollen. I am curious how the hemp got in there, and am wondering if I can use this as a fiber also; possibly in basket weaving or making rope. But I was satisfied the pollen was harmless. So I was satisfied to go on and make my jelly with Ambrosia trifida dusted black elderberries.