TREE: September 2008

19 September, 2008

Chicken Update

The chickens are all doing well.... The big girls boycotted when the little girls were let out of their cage, free to run through the coop and they stopped laying eggs. That was painful. Of course they couldn't hold out forever, so we're back to a good breakfast! Here are the big ones: Fat & Sassy, just kidding - Petunia y Gabriela.

Aaah, the new arrivals. Goldbug is on the left. Shy is on the right. Hmmm, they look kind of mean here, don't they?

Now Shy is on the left and Goldbug is on the right.

And one more time....

The Scobie-Kombucha Adventure

September chronicles of Kombucha harvesting take 1. I would love to take this time to talk about the benefits and joys of kombucha as a drink, as a practice, harvesting, and more. That will have to happen in a little while after I pull together some research and you will find it on my nutrition blog: http://treenips.blogspot.com For now, I just want to mention the adventures that transpired. Michael and I decided to harvest our scobie today and make more kombucha. It had been quite some time since we'd harvested last and the scobie was so huge it wouldn't fit through the mouth of the jar!!!!

This scobie just continued to grow. We tried folding it, bending it, squishing it, and eventually Michael started stabbing it. While I'm well aware that it is a living organism, it had to be done.

It didn't look possible... what were we going to do?

And before I forget to mention it.... we have a few more jars to harvest still:

Continued

We persevered! That's teamwork! This is a giant scobie!!!! Check it out from this angle:

So, here's the problem. I always date the kombucha when we put it in the pantry to ferment for approximately four weeks.... See?

May 8th. That means we should have harvested around June 8th. Course there was graduation... And family was in town... Then we went on vacation... Then um.... well.... SEPTEMBER????

Seriously. I know. Some people might frown on our excessively long fermentation time... does this means there's more alcohol? I'm not quite sure... Check back to the nutrition blog to find out the important details. This site's just for fun!