Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 49: December 3, 2022

While Miriam and I are home decorating the Christmas tree, the snow plow operator braves winding mountain roads that hug the side of the mountain. Samuel is a grader operator for our county’s road department. This is a lead position that involves organizing a crew during summer months for road-building and regular maintenance such as resealing worn roads with rock and oil, known as “chip seal” and grooming road shoulders, among other tasks.

In winter, work turns to clearing snow from roads at the south end of the valley we live above. Visual markers like lines, signs, and shoulders are often obliterated by feet of snow, so Samuel goes by memory. It is hazardous work that often does not allow time for breaks.

Praying for a white Christmas presents a quandary because it means Sam will have to work. He ends up working most Christmases and our celebrations have to be flexible.

The Cat grader Samuel operates was purchased new 7 years ago. In winter, he has to chain up before plowing. Chains for grader tires are heavy.

Living dangerously holding “the cat.” Notice leather gloves.

Decorating the tree

My daughter Miriam and I enjoyed a lovely evening decorating the Christmas tree together. With old-time Christmas carols and hymns playing softly, we unwrapped memories along with decorations.

I still have my very first ornament: a red reindeer with a bell and one eye missing. And the ceramic ornaments my mother painted by hand: a little German girl and a Christmas tree.

Rather than purchasing an ornament for my children each year (nothing wrong with that) I made one for each of them. Cheap, sturdy acrylic felt, tiny beads and sequins, polyfil, and lots of hand stitching late at night yielded snowmen, mittens, ballerina girls, nutcrackers, bells, doves, carolers, lollipops, and Santas with a bag o’toys.

I even created ornaments in memory of favorite pets, including kitty cats and ducks that my children found comforting. Oh, the hours of fun I spent making these! I made some for myself, too. The Santa mouse ornament seems especially appropriate as we have so many mice at Chocolate Box Cottage!

What fun it is to recall Christmases past and re-tell the family stories. So thankful to have one child out of five nearby.

Baking

I baked 4 dozen Matrimonial Rolls for an event that was canceled, so it is soup, salad, and rolls for dinner for a week! Not a bad thing.

The recipe for Matrimonial Rolls is available in three versions, tailored to three mixers: KitchenAid Artisan, Bosch Universal, and Ankarsrum Assistent.

Wood stove

Early morning, Samuel puts the wood stove to use thawing a loaf of frozen homemade Old Fashioned Buttermilk Bread.

We use the wood stove to warm blankets, melt beeswax for salves and making beeswax wraps, thaw frozen foods (on a cookie sheet), melt crystallized honey, and cook – even though it’s not technically a cook stove. I’ve learned to work with it and produce some wonderful soups, stews, hot beverages, broth, beans, and more.

Curious and eager to learn to use your contemporary wood stove to cook? Read my 10 Tips for Cooking on a Modern Wood Stove and get started right away!

Studying herbal medicine

Winter is a good time to study. The garden is quiet and attention is focused indoors. I dusted off my herbal study materials. I am so looking forward to diving back in! Here is a link to the course of study I am involved in and highly recommend.

The index of modules for the course is 6 pages long. Each module includes printable handouts that can be saved electronically to your computer and/or printed out and added to a notebook as I do. 

I learn better when I take notes, so I also keep a couple of spiral notebooks and as I watch and listen, I take notes. This is where the real learning and thinking take place, for me. It depends on your learning style.

Doc Jones shares his proprietary herbal formulas throughout the course. You will see that each herb studied has multiple applications, which is really exciting. It means you don’t need to keep 100 herbs in your apothecary. A reasonable number of herbs will cover many bases and that number depend on the particular health issues you are addressing in yourself and your family. The fact that he shares his tried-and-true herbal formulas is rather…amazing!  I keep a 4×6 file box and jot those “recipes” down along with their pertinent info on a card and file it. 

He doesn’t just share the formulas, you learn the how and the why of applying herbs. You will learn anatomy and physiology, nutrition basics, and a whole lot of common sense applications. He really teaches his students to THINK. 

If you’re thinking this is a deep learning experience, you’re right. Many people take 2-3 years or even 5 years to complete the course because it’s not something you can just stuff into your brain. It has to be absorbed.

Bookshelf

Advent by Anja Dunk is steeped in tradition. The reader is initiated into the realm of German winter culture, beginning with a Bunter Teller, a colorful plate of Advent biscuits (cookies), followed by children busily polishing their shoes and cleaning their bedrooms in preparation for Nikolaus – St. Nicholas Day, and Christmas Eve, the pinnacle celebration of Christmas for German households. Learn to make Zimststerne (Cinnamon Stars), Schoko-Pfefferminztaler (Chocolate Peppermint Biscuits), meringue mice, oat waffles, Apfelringe (chewy dried apple rings) to decorate the tree or your home.

Bavarian Cooking by Olli Leeb is a gem of a cookbook that opens with a stunning folk art fold-out map and calendar of holidays. Pictures of old world cooking utensils and a typical American-Bavarian kitchen stove decorated with tiny blue flowers are included. Appealing font and line art adds to the charm of the old world recipes. Many of the dishes I grew up eating are in here, or variations of them. Makes me homesick for my Grandma. The meat chapter includes all part of the animal – nothing wasted. Pages and pages of noodles and dumplings and plenty of recipes featuring seasonal vegetables and desserts both special and everyday. 

Bavarian Cooking is out of print, so I invite you to check my favorite online used bookseller. (We can both earn points toward free books!) 

Click the link and then type the name of the book in the search bar on the website when you arrive. If it is in stock, great! If not, you can create a wish list and add this title to it. They will email you when it is back in stock.

Blessings to you this week,
Michele and Samuel

Note: This post contains links to products and vendors I use and appreciate for their quality and usefulness. Some are affiliate, some are not. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases when you use the links I provide; this does not change your price.

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 43: October 29, 2022

This week brought a huge blessing in the shape of a quilt, made especially for me by my Mom’s best friend, Joy. I already refer to it as the hymn quilt because the floral-framed blocks contain lines from old hymns ad songs we sang in church when I was growing up. I can hear my Dad’s voice in my mind singing Amazing Grace and I cannot describe what a comfort this is. He has been gone nearly 20 years and I will miss him so!

The hymn quilt is large enough for both Sam and me to cuddle under on the couch and already feels like it “belongs.”

I am a quilt maker and I appreciate all the love and effort that goes into the making of a quilt. The fact that Joy would make one for ME is amazing. And in the picture below, you can see she made TWO hymn quilts! One for me and one for her, which makes it even more special.

“This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior, all the day long!” This lovely quilt provides so many reminders that I know will bring me comfort in the years ahead.

Joy brought lunch to “my” weekly tea at Mom’s. I say “my” because I am the one who brings lunch! It was nice to have a a break from preparing the food and just enjoy the company. The fact that she gave me a quilt was the icing on the cake. This week Mom was especially delighted when four granddaughters joined us: Alyssa, Savannah, Miriam, and Amelia.

Sam’s projects

Garden gems

My hard-working man wheel-barrowing firewood from wood shed to house.

The garden is quietly winding down for the season. Winter squash have been harvested along with the last of the tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers. Cheerful little Red Gem marigolds are still blooming, plus a few others.

The teepee was a surprise star in the garden this year. Mayo bule gourds, cover the bulk of the willow pole frame and if you look closely you might be able to see a few large gourds peeping between the leaves, including one resting on a chair. There are also Heavenly Blue and Candy Pink morning glories and cinnamon vine growing vertically, with nasturtiums and herbs clustering around the “skirt.”

Mayo Bule gourds in all their green glory. Ranging from 8.5-11 inches (22-28 cm) high with belly measurements (circumference) of 23-28 inches (59-71 cm) these beauties are smaller than those I harvested from the garden of our previous home, but are still quite respectable. Gourds will cure to tan or gold.

A closer look, so you can appreciate their peanut-like warts and the way the light glistens on their skin.

I have made quite a fuss over Sadie and her ducklings; here is a picture of dad Sylvester with the little dumplings. They are sprouting tail feathers now!

You’ve met Lavender, my garden hen before. Her leg was broken in a stampede of small chickens and I separated her to give her a chance to heal. I wasn’t sure she would ever be able to walk, but within a 4 weeks she was attempting to put a little weight on that leg and by 10 weeks she was walking fairly well. After a few rain showers, I decided it was time for Lavender to rejoin the flock for the winter. It would be selfish of me to keep her separate.

I set Lavender in the henhouse early one morning while it was still dark to give her the best chance of integrating without being picked on. She stayed in all day, sitting by the food and water. Good – this gave her a chance to imprint with the henhouse and recognize it as “home.”

The next morning she filed out of the henhouse along with the rest of the chickens and I was glad for her. Success was unfortunately short-lived. Soon a commotion was heard in the henyard and when I went to check, Lavender was gone. I tramped all over the hen yard and pasture, even the swampy areas, in my muck boots, to no avail. I could see no sign of her.

And then, I saw this: a clump of lavender-gray feathers. My heart sank, because I knew what it meant.

Preserving

Still working on the second box of Paragon pears. I used a vintage apple slicer to core and slice a mountain pears. What I especially like about this handheld slicer is that the coring circle is very narrow, wasting little fruit. It also cuts fruit in 12 slices rather than 8, which is a better fit for the space between trays of my Excalibur dehydrator.

Cores from several batches of Vanilla Laced Pear Jam were used to start a new jar of fruit vinegar. The last of the elderberries went into another jar for elderberry vinegar. I stir both jars daily twice and am looking forward to tasting these gourmet fruit vinegars.

Bookshelf

Olwes Miaken’s Creatures is my new favorite sourdough book. Diana Brüggemann, who happens to be a friend of mine in Germany, corralled her menagerie of “creatures” (sourdough starters) into a book! Covering 20 distinct sourdough creatures, some of which aren’t even sour, you will enjoy getting to know each one of them and seeing what they can do. 

The book is nicely organized and well formatted, making it easy to read. It is full of great recipes for bread and other baked goodies. Diana even shows you how to swap one type of starter for another and offers tasty ideas for ways to use “discard,” a useless term since she doesn’t advocate throwing anything away. No, no – you’ll start your own Monster Mash jar as soon as you get this book, trust me!

Note this post contains links to products and shops I use and appreciate. Some are affiliates, some are not. Thank you for supporting my writing and these businesses!

Blessings,
Michele

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 42: October 22, 2022

The weather caught up with the calendar, bringing good conditions for deer hunting at last. The ducklings are growing into gangly juveniles, and pears are ripe and ready to preserve.

Sam watches the weather forecast with intensity and rain means the deer are moving around, improving our chances of bagging one for the freezer.

The views were spectacular and the air was damp and delicious.

While plodding along behind Samuel, I had a thought. The finest carpets in the finest hotels can’t compare to walking on moss.

Fall webworm-infested manzanita bush. Wild turkey surprised me by posing for a portrait!

We tramped through miles of forest over moss, twigs, and leaves silenced by rain, got our pant legs soaked, and picnicked on hot soup. We even ran into snow flurries. In the end, we saw a lot of does, but just had a glimpse of a spike.

We ran into snow at 4,500 feet (1,372 meters) elevation.

Hot, homemade Chicken Noodle Soup on a cold day felt luxurious and we enjoyed it with a spectacular view.

Back home, Sam made me a perfect Enchanted Forest Chai using my homemade mix and I paged through a favorite cookbook to unwind and warm up.

The ducklings are doing fine. Each day they grow a little bigger and braver – within sight of their parents.

Preserving and cooking

Italian oregano and strawberry mint hang in bunches from the kitchen beams to dry. Strawberry mint really does smell and taste like fresh strawberries and makes lovely tea. I like to use my Chantal stainless steel tea kettle for tea.

Meanwhile, I was fortunate as a Master Food Preserver (MFP) to be able to purchase pears for preserving from Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center (SOREC).

Most of our fruit trees did not produce this year which highlights our gratitude at having pears. The Rogue Valley is pear country, or used to be before wine grapes, hemp, and cannabis became hot commodities, so I have many delicious pear recipes and I’m using them all!

From left to right: Michele, Carole Evans, Vickie Belknap, Margaret Crow, Jeanne Prince.

Left to right: Vanilla-Laced Pear Jam, Pear Cider and Paragon Pear Vinegar.

On another hunting day we enjoyed Beef Stew with Vegetables cooked right on top of the wood stove. Cooking on a modern wood stove took some practice and experimenting to master, but once you figure out your stove it’s easy. Learn more by reading my 10 Tips to Cooking on a Modern Wood Stove.

Is there anything better and more comforting than Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup? Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup with Homemade Knoephla, fluffy German egg noodles.

Tea at Mom’s

Tea at Mom’s this week included a lovely lunch made by Mom’s best friend, Joy: buffalo sloppy joes on homade buns and Italian Almond Cookies.

Earlier in the week Sam completed the sale of the sheep. Our original dream was to raise Painted Desert sheep for a few reasons: to keep the pasture mowed, sell enough to pay the annual property tax bill, earn a modest income in our future retirement years, and harvest a few extra males for meat.

We never were able to rebuild the bloodline after the losses to the mountain lion in 2020, unfortunately, so when Sam’s truck required expensive repairs he wasn’t equipped to do, we knew we would have to sell the sheep.

I have to be honest, it was disappointing to see that dream die. We invested so much time, effort, care, and money to get started with the sheep and now have nothing show for it. Life goes on…

God has new dreams for us and for you.

Bookshelf

A new book at my side: Wildcrafted Vinegars by Pascal Bauder. I have only skimmed it thus far, but can already tell it is a good one! Having played with making vinegars from scratch with a variety of fruits, berries, herbs, flowers, peels, cores, and pomace, this is an exciting addition to my bookshelf.

Blessings,
Michele and Samuel

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2

Week 22: June 3, 2022

If you follow my Chocolate Box Cottage page, you know we took the last week as a Homestead Holiday. (Thank you Kathi Lipp for the creative and perfect name.) Homestead Holiday is a time to do projects on our place that we can’t get to in a weekend. When you live in the countryside, especially if it’s an older house, the projects pile up.

Urgent projects: repairs to plumbing, washer, irrigation system, fence maintenance, chimney cleanout, clean rabbit hutches, and firewood.

Fun projecs: planting the garden, yardwork, and assembling freezer meals.

Every Homestead Holiday begins with housecleaning! A kitchen with a clean floor, tablecloth, and candles feels inviting. Read more about Homestead Holiday prep here.

We spent leisurely mornings together with tea and coffee on the front porch in all kinds of weather. What a treat to listen to the birds and frogs and take in the beauty around us!

Evenings we ate simply and early. We lit candles lavishly, listened to music, read, and enjoyed a couple of good rainstorms.

First project: washer repair.

The garden got lots of attention. Bunny berries were harvested from the bunny quarters, soil was prepared to receive seeds and transplants, and I wrote names on stakes to label plants as they were planted.

Due to unusual spring weather, we are late bringing in the last of the firewood. We picked a warm day for this load. Cool days are much easier!

Eight freezer meals were assembled to freeze and cook later in the slow cooker and multicooker (aka Instant Pot.) I am sold on the convenience of freezer meals. I used to rely on them about three nights a week when I was working (away from home, I’m still working).

It dawned on me that I am in fact still working, though the location has changed! I work at, from, and in the home. Over the years I have revamped some of our family’s favorite recipes to be freezer meals. They are made of real food ingredients like meat and vegetables with spices – so good! Then I discovered The Family Freezer – what a treasure trove of WONDERFUL FREEZER MEAL RECIPES! They are healthy and delicious and she offers printable labels, shopping lists, and more!

One day we drove to town for an appointment and supplies and had lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant. Another day we went fishing at Lost Creek Lake, where crickets serenaded us with their particular brand of music. I can never resist gathering a few pumice stones. These will be used to mulch potted plants.

We enjoyed the first handful of ripe strawberries. Sylvester, the handsome Silver Muscovy drake, proclaims his lordship over the gillyflowers.

Heavy rains and cool weather favor the wild herbs. I picked a teapot’s worth of herbs for tea, including wild chamomile, Matricaria discoidea; self-heal, Prunella vulgaris; lemon balm, Melissa officinalis; and broadleaf plantain, Plantago major. It is critically important to correctly identify any herbs you forage and use.

The teapot is stove-top safe borosilicate glass and so handy for bone broth as well as tea. This one is discontinued, but here is a similar teapot. I especially like that it does NOT have a long spout, which would make it difficult to clean.

We worked hard and went to bed tired and happy!

I’ve included a smattering of pictures from our Homestead Holiday. Perhaps this is something you could adapt to your situation? The more I think about it, the more I think this concept is adaptable to all kinds of housing – not just homesteads. Why not set aside some vacation time to dig in and work on fix-it projects, print pictures and put them in photo albums, organize your closet or bathroom, create a terrace garden in pots? The list goes on. I would love to hear your thoughts about how you plan to use this concept!

Blessings,

Michele  

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2

Week 7: February 19, 2022

Cool, frosty mornings are right around freezing and afternoons in the mid 60’s F (18c). The birds are happy and fill the air with chatter. It is surprisingly loud. Anyone who says they, “crave the quiet of the countryside,” has never been there. Or here.

The skunks have returned. From where, we do not know. We enjoyed being skunk-free these last several months, but when we heard the cat food bowl hit the side of the house on Monday evening Sam and I knew that meant the reprieve had ended.

We haven’t been sprayed (badly) yet, just small puffs of nauseating stink that last only a couple of days so far, and that due to Sam who persists in chasing them off. Sometimes I think he is worse than Toby, our grumpy old Maine coon cat. “Get outta here, go on, get!” says he, gesturing with his arms.

Skunks retaliate by picking up the empty cat food dish and flinging it against the house. And spraying, of course. Then ever so leisurely slipping under the gate to seek vittles and hospitality elsewhere.

Which means re-washing whatever is in the dryer because the scent goes right up the dryer vent and permeates the wash. Gahhhh!!! But as I said it hasn’t been terrible – yet. That day is coming, I am sure, and wouldn’t you love to be here visiting when it does?

Maybe you’d rather play my apprentice as I go through the farm kitchen tasks of the week: cooking, gardening, fermenting, inventorying the pantry, adding herbs to the apothecary, as well as shooting a video and answering at least a few hundred questions on all of the above subjects in online venues! I wish you could, it would be nice to have the help and the company some days!

Simple pleasures: cozy, beautiful socks (handmade by a dear friend, Linda Chandler, in Kentucky who send them to me as a surprise. Thank you, Linda!) a cup of tea, and a homemade cookie.

Valentine’s Day lunch at Mom’s. We packed a basket with a big jar of German Vegetable Soup with Dill, Baked Rice (custard), and Red Velvet Chocolate Tea from Farmhouse Teas.

PNW-Style Bacon and Veggie Fried Rice with garden greens, carrots, leftover chicken, and eggs from our chickens. A great use of leftovers, cool-season garden veggies, and odds-n-ends in the fridge.

Preparing to shoot a Bosch bread making video for Homesteading Family. Carolyn Thomas’ Art of Homemade Bread masterclass teaches you everything your grandmother (or great grandmother) used to know about baking soft, fluffy, and sliceable homemade bread. This is a batch of 5 loaves of 100% whole wheat bread.

One good way to get to know a far-away place is through their food. Get to know Ukrainian food and you will fall in love with the people. My mom’s side of the family is German-from-Russian, which is actually Ukraine. Summer Kitchens is one of my most-cherished cookbooks, it brings me closer to my family roots.

Four bowls of splendid salad greens: buckwheat, sunflower, pea, and radish (from left to right). I find seeds in many places: bulk bins at the locally-owned grocery store, Sprout People, and Johnny’s Seeds. Seed racks at garden centers frequently offer a small selection of seeds expressly for sprouting and eating. (You would not want to use treated seeds for food.)

I’m guessing grumpy Maine coon (Toby) locked the beautiful damsel in the hutch? Your guess is as good as mine.

Musqueé de Provence seed pumpkin, identified by the macramé yard I tied on the stem after hand-pollinating the female flower last summer. A peek inside reveals rich persimmon-colored flesh wish sweet, melon-like aroma and a wealth of sturdy seeds to save and replant.

Early spring pantry check. Your pantry may be spread out in different places like mine is, between kitchen cupboards, baskets on the floor, a closet, under beds, perhaps a shed or garage, and don’t forget your freezer!

A basket of garlic with many options for preserving before it begins to sprout. This time I plan to turn some into garlic salt, roast and freeze some for savory soups, and ferment some as a paste to season marinades and dressings and add flavor to stir fries.

We have been eating from the winter squash heap all winter and still there are plenty. Some will be baked and pureed for future pies, creamy soups, muffins, and other baked goods. Varieties left here include: Waltham butternut squash, porcelain princess pumpkin, and Musuqee de Provence pumpkin.

We are using up the last gallon jar of water glassed (or limed) eggs preserved in lime water. I keep a pair of rubber gloves draped over the top for ease of grabbing eggs. You also see a gallon of coconut oil, a crock of sauerkraut (in back), a lone bottle of huckleberry kombucha, and several jars of fermented garden produce including tomatillos and tomatoes.

A peek in the chest freezer reveals whole stewing hens (also known as spent laying hens) for broth, a turkey purchased at a discount last Thanksgiving, and local beef and fish.

Five gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids are a convenient way to store whole grains like wheat, rye, barley; beans, popcorn, salt, sugar, and more as the lids easily spin off and on with one hand. No more struggling with a bucket tool to open a lid. I keep quart and half-gallon jars of individual grains in my kitchen cupboard and refill from the buckets as needed. Since I get into the buckets regularly, we do not use oxygen absorber packets. We eat from our food storage and continually replenish it throughout the year.

Happy mail from Starwest Botanicals included astragalus root, licorice root for, more amble glass tincture bottles, and a new set of tiny stainless steel funnels for easy filling of tincture bottles. Three homemade additions to the apothecary this week included diced dried organic tangerine peels, diced dried ginger, and dried hawthorn berries from a local tree. Some of the ginger was made into a fizzy ferment to add spice to stir fries and peanut dipping sauce for summer rolls.

Family-friendly movie recommendation: Support Your Local Sheriff. James Garner stars in this classic Western comedy, aided and abetted by the late Jack Elam, a southern Oregon local. You might just laugh through the entire movie like we did!

Coming soon: a new roof for the greenhouse!

If you have a few more minutes to relax with your cup of tea, feel free to take a peek at last week’s Cottage Diary entry. Thanks for visiting!