This Sustainable House

Posts Tagged ‘natural rythyms’

For those of you who keep up with the TSH website, which isn’t hard given the small number of posts I put up each month, you will recall that about 3 weeks ago I decided to bring to life a sourdough starter… The Mulloonian! The starter took about a week to get going, and over the past few weeks the community has started to develop and settle in. Who needs SIMS when one has a sourdough. In fact, the Mulloonian was going so well that I encouraged it produce a ‘sprog’ so there is currently two colonies in the fridge, excluding last weeks curry, one on organic wheat flour and the other on organic spelt flour.

However the one thing I haven’t yet been able to master is turning either Mulloonian into a nice loaf of bread. Each time I have tried, and admitadley I was trying with the bread machine, it produced an edible loaf with an excellent taste, but a very heavy texture. It could be that the Mulloonian still isn’t quite ‘ripe’ but more likely is the fact that I’m not quite used to it yet.

So this weekend the goal is to practice making sourdough. I have started with a semi-leavened light wholemeal loaf (pictured below) so as to start the weekend with a win. A semi-leavened bread is a bread in which you use both your sourdough culture AND commercial high yield yeast. The advantage is that the commercial yeast gives the dough a really big boost whilst the sourdough culture still imparts a wonderfully subtle taste. It’s the ideal bread for someone who isn’t all that keen on the strong sourdoughs. The recipe that I have used was loosely based on “The Sourdough Bakers” Light Wholemeal Bread. This is a very good site, and well worth a look if you are into sourdoughs.

The next step will be to get a full sourdough bread going in which commercial yeast doesn’t add that boost. This is a little trickier, and will take longer, as there is no certainty around how the culture will behave. Think of the difference between the Mulloonian and commercial yeast as the difference between a flower pollinated in the field by the wind, and one pollinated in isolation by a scientist in rubber gloves. The latter will behave fairly predictably but goodness knows what you’ll get with the former! And that’s the key point… I need to bake with the Mulloonian so as to get to know the community, understand it, and learn how to coax it to work for me. It’s about me understanding it’s needs and treating it accordingly, rather than just applying a mindless tool to the dough.

I’ll pop up some pictures of the resulting sourdoughs… assuming that they are worth photographing!

Semi-Leaven Bread

Like a lot of people, I love sourdough bread. The complex flavours, the aromas, it’s enough to get the mouth watering just by thinking about it. Wonderful!!

However the key to a good sourdough is the starter… a colony of living breathing organisms (fungi and bacteria).There are a number of ways to create a starter such as seeding it with a commercial/existing starter, using commercial yeast to kick it off, or relying on natural yeasts/bacteria in your local environment. It is this latter approach that I have taken to create… “The Mulloonian!”

The starter is being created by mixing equal quantities of water and flour together, and then leaving the mix to ‘collect’ some local yeasts & bacteria. The mix will then need to be ‘fed’ every day for about a week. Feeding is pretty simple, basically we dump half the current mix and replace it with fresh water/flour mix.

After about a week, give or take, the mix should be good and bubbly, with a pleasant slightly sour smell. Bingo! We have starter…

Keep your starter in the fridge and feed it once a week or so. It’s pretty hard to ‘kill’ a starter unless you let it get too hot. Even starving it to death is difficult! If oc

casionally fed, then a starter can live for centuries… think of it as a family heirloom.

The TSH “Mulloonian” was kicked off earlier this evening and I’ll keep you posted on it’s developments… I feel like a father.

1/2/11 – Update – The Mulloonian burst into life this morning with some lovely bubbles appearing throughout the mix. It is also begginning to develop a little hooch, and a distinctly sour aroma… Live, Damn You! Live!!!!

7/2/11 – Update – The Mulloonian is definitely alive and breathing. It took about a week for the cultures to really get going, and now they are bubbling and boiling with that gorgeous distinctly sour smell. In addition, if you take a little taste it is so sour it’ll make your face screw up! Next step is to try our mix to make some bread…

The Mulloonian - Day 1

The Mulloonian - Day 7

One of the principles of permaculture is to use animals and systems to do as much of the work as possible. This comes from the premise that an under-utilized output of any system creates pollution, and this applies equally to material ‘things’ as well as non-material stuff.

In this case I was planning on spreading some mulch around inside the pig pen and, rather than do the work myself, I chose to enlist the help of the pigs. It wasn’t too hard… you’d be surprised what they’ll do for a little cracked corn!

The video below demonstrates the principle with both a before and after viewpoint.

One of the disadvantages of living in a rural area, at least in Australia, is the flies. They lay their eggs in animal manure, and as a result can be legion in an area in which one is surrounded by animals. In the case of TSH we have the cattle, pigs and chickens, as well as the sheep & horses surrounding the property.

To add to the problem, the flys aren’t just annoying but can cause issues with the stock through biting. We therefore need to control them.

Control can take one of three possible routes, or a combination thereof. These protocols are chemical control (pesticides), trapping and biological control. At TSH, chemical control is always the last resort, or act of desperation, and therefore doesn’t apply to this scenario. So we are left with trapping and biological control.

Before I go any further, let me point out an important fact… I’m a lazy sod! I don’t believe in doing something if someone, or something else, would like to do it for me. I am therefore naturally inclined towards biological control. In this case, Biological control will take two paths. Read the rest of this entry »

In an earlier post I mentioned that I had created a pair of ‘sacrificial paddocks’ for the cattle. Well recently the cattle have been moved out of these paddocks, and one has been sown to a spring pasture mix (comprised of forage brassica, plantain and clover). This video highlights how the paddocks were sown, without the use of any mechanical apparatus apart from a rake, and how they are growing.

And they said it couldn’t be done…

Beyond the Brink is Peter Andrews’s sequel to his best-seller ‘Back from the Brink.’ In this much-awaited sequel he sets out a radical, yet achievable, plan to bring our landscape back to life.

Never having read Back from the Brink I cannot comment on that book but I have to admit that I found Beyond the Brink… well underwhelming!

Don’t get me wrong, Peter outlines some very important (if not essential) philosophies concerning sustainable agriculture but mixed amongst these nuggets is a lot of unsupported rantings, and misinformation. This could obscure the main point if it wasn’t read critically.

The key point that Peter makes is that the basis of all fertility are plants, and that farmers (of whatever type) need to recognise this. He argues against laying paddocks bare to ‘fallow’, for the planting of tree on high points (so as to spread fertility below) and for the growth of any type of plant that will correct the imbalances in the soil. Especially if those are ‘weeds’.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anyone involved, or interested, in sustainable agriculture. Just remember to separate the ‘wheat from the chaff.’

HOME is an ode to the planet’s beauty and its delicate harmony. Through the landscapes of 54 countries captured from above, Yann Arthus-Bertrand takes us on an unique journey all around the planet, to contemplate it and to understand it. But HOME is more than a documentary with a message, it is a magnificent movie in its own right. Every breathtaking shot shows the Earth – our Earth – as we have never seen it before. Every image shows the Earth’s treasures we are destroying and all the wonders we can still preserve. “From the sky, there’s less need for explanations”. Our vision becomes more immediate, intuitive and emotional. HOME has an impact on anyone who sees it. It awakens in us the awareness that is needed to change the way we see the world.

This is, quite possibly, one of the most powerful documentaries ever created… it is essential viewing for every human being.

Watch the trailer below

To watch the whole movie go to http://www.youtube.com/homeproject.