It's useful to read other people's blogs. Reflecting on some adjustments we have made to doing things around HHF in recent times it highlighted how sharing knowledge has improved our own activities.
Most recently Paola Spades and Spoons wrote about wine making. In one post she mentioned the volume of preservative used in their wine in terms of grams/litre. Our measurements are done in ppm. Out of curiosity a conversion was performed and it showed a big discrepancy with HHF being on the high side. It turns out our winemaking notes were incorrect, fortunately because we calculate the additive on the litres not the kilograms the discrepancy was not as bad as it could have been. Our notes are now modified.
Gavin Webster's Little Green Cheese published a podcast on brining. What to do with brine once you've salted the cheese has always been a problem at HHF. As we make so much cheese i.e. twice each week there is always the issue of brine disposal. Not any longer the podcast provided a solution for the brine - clean and reuse.
Liz at Eight Acres is always throwing forward interesting ideas and trying new things. Her permaculture posts are thought provoking and have encouraged us at HHF to rethink our processes. Her last post on deodorant is particularly poignant as it has been a couple of months now since soap or shampoo graced my body. I'm curious to see if Liz will take the next big step.
These are just three recent examples of benefitting from the willingness of others to document their knowledge and experiences.
Many other bloggers post interesting and thought provoking pieces and sometimes they are just good reads or listens.
Linda at Greenhaven
Dani at Eco Footprint South Africa
Matron of Husbandry at Throwback from Trapper Creek
Fiona at Life at Arbordale Farm
Barb at Barb's Backyard
Jack at The Survival Podcast
As with all things not every post from HHF is useful, interesting, relevant or even well written but the objectives remain unchanged. To document what we do as a record for ourselves as well as offering the information to others in case they find it helpful. In each post we attempt to improve our writing skills. They say it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something, don't know if that is really true but we continue to practice.
Have spent quite a lot of time today browsing through your blog...it's great and packed with useful information...am interested in keeping bees but not sure if our block is big enough, we are on 1/3 of an acre. Good luck finding your dream property.
ReplyDeleteHi Suzie, There are a growing number of beehives been kept on small blocks. Can be a bit tricky making sure their flight path doesn't intersect with the neighbours washing line or cubby house but doable. One person in Melbourne kept his hives on the roof of the house. Can imagine descending the ladder with a full comb of honey tucked under the arm. Regards John
DeleteThanks for the mention John and Jean, you've got some pretty interesting things going on on your blog too, I just hardly ever get time to comment. As for your challenge, I haven't used shampoo for a couple of years now, but I still use soap, only homemade tallow soap though. If you've like to write about how you've used permaculture, I'd be happy to publish a guest post on my blog :) Cheers, Liz
ReplyDeleteThanks for the guest post invite. We are probably a poor example of permaculture in action. But we'll have a look at the principles and see if there are some good examples of implementing one or more of them that may be of interest to your readers. Regards John
DeleteI always feel happy when someone mentions me on their blog so thankyou for that. Makes me feel important!
ReplyDeleteThere are so many clever people out there and so many different ways of doing the same thing, I learn a lot from reading what others do.
Barb.
Hi Barb, In winemaking there is a condition called Cellar Palate. This is where if you only drink your own wine you eventually can't tell if something is wrong because your taste buds have adapted. Same applies to blogging and subject matter. The more we read the more we learn and improve our own. Fresh ideas and improvements for us often stem from the just the smallest comment or uncontroversial posting in another blog. Look forward to reading more of your experiences. Regards John
DeleteWow - I have just found your blog and lost an hour looking around without even noticing. My husband and I run a small farm in Victoria and I have recently started blogging about it. I'm particularly interested in your cheese making endeavours. Do you have a good cheddar recipe? We milk a cow, and I have tried mozzarella, yoghurt and ice cream, but with the amount of cheese our family eats, I would love to make some cheddar. My attempts so far haven't been great. Thanks in advance John and Jean
ReplyDeleteA little late replying. Cheeselinks in Victoria publish an excellent book on the making of cheese and I pretty much use it for everything. There is a very technical book on cheese (Cheesemaking Practice by R Scott) which provides details on cheeses from various countries although it does require a little more interpretation. I found a copy in the university library and copied out a few recipes.
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