Loads of Goodness!! Kombucha Bread... Back to Eden Wood Chip Gardening... Polyface Farm! Homemade Pitch Forks? What more could you ask for?!

 A lot's been happening around God's Little Acre Farms since our last update!! Praise God!! We visited Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in August... I really need to get on the ball and write up a blog about that trip! Whew!! As the summer is winding down we will have more time for posts and videos!

This year was a year of booms and busts! A super bust with the tomatoes... so most of our salsas are more of a pepper and cucumber base but still fantastic! Celery!! Who knew?? Thanks to mom for getting these little ones going!! This particular variety didn't need mounding up, was planted in a shady and moist area and grew fantastic!

We cut the leaves off and dried in the oven...
Method for drying celery leaves:
Line cookie sheets with paper towels
turn oven on lowest setting for 20 mins
Turn off oven
place leaves (or other herbs) in oven and turn oven on once or twice for a bit until dry

They passed the taste test with blue cheese peanut butter!

This was the season for peppers!! Pepper relish, pepper salsa, dried peppers, pickled peppers.... you name it we peppered it!!! 

Thanks to our AMAZING neighbor and tree pro, we now have a source of wood chips to begin our Back to Eden venture!

Check out the video here on how to start your own Back to Eden wood chip garden!

https://vimeo.com/28055108

going to be a FANTASTIC VINEYARD NEXT YEAR!

 Filling in the greenhouse with layers of manure, leaves, and wood chips to heat it through the winter!

Had to say goodbye to the little driveway garden to make room for an expanded driveway... Uncle Jac is excited to transform the 52's using Marilyn and Skippy's old truck so we needed more parking... out comes the little flower bed which will allow for some much needed parking room in our turn around driveway!

KOMBUCHA BREAD!!

We've been indroduced to an amazing healthy drink called kombucha thanks to our good friend and raw milk farmer Cathy and our trip to the Food Freedom Fest put on by the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund!

It's a natural probiotic drink made with tea, sugar, and a weird looking culture called a scoby
I wanted to see if I could use the yeasty part of the kombucha to make bread...and...

I did it!! Sooo excited!! Kombucha bread!!! I read that one person took a scoby and put it in the food processor. I didn't do this. Because the yeasty part is the brown stuff on the bottom that falls to the bottom, I poured off most of the kombucha and took about 2 cups of kombucha including the yeast on the bottom of 2 of my jars. I've done this 2x now. The first time I added a pinch of yeast, this last time NONE!!! Woo hoo... just komucha and flour, let sit for 12 hrs, then I added some salt and honey and voila! perfect bread which rose just as much if not more than my regular yeast bread! The bread tastes better as well smile emoticon

Whole Wheat Kombucha Bread

(about) 11 cups flour
(I grind mine fresh)

Mix with 2-3 cups of komucha, pouring from the bottom of your container(s) to make sure you are getting all that yeasty goodness that sinks to the bottom
I also scraped the brown yeast off of one of my scobys and put in in there

½ cup of honey

Mix and knead a bit to work a pliable dough, add flour or water as needed

let sit 12-24 hrs

At this point your dough should have risen, punch down

add 2 Tbl of salt

knead for 5-10 mins
adding some oil at this point makes for easier kneading

olive oil or lard

let rise until doubled

form dough in desired shapes

bake in oven 375 for 35 min for standard loaf pan

ENJOY! Finally...
Sooo, here is an AMAZING invention by our very own Justin!! He found this pitch fork head at an antique store and made a handle for it... I've got to tell you, I've been struggling with breaking those $35 pitch forks from Lowe's or Tractor Supply... This is an answer to many prayers!! Thank you Justin!

Joel Salatin...Glorifying God and His Creation Christian Credibility

"It's hard to  get people to believe something different if it 

jeopardizes their pay check." Joel Salatin on farming.

It's not hard for God.

Acts 19
23 About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. 24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis,brought no little business to the craftsmen. 25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. 

     The true Gospel of Jesus Christ is hard for most people to believe in America because it jeopardizes our livelihoods, our paychecks. (God was telling me, it was right in front of my face for years!) The Gospel threatens us with homelessness, starvation, we fear death.  If you study the lives of men and women in history that were "friends" of God they all had somethings in common.  God saved them from slavery; delivered them, then God separated them from their societies, relationships, communities, governments, God redeemed them, led them, poured his spirit and word into them, then he gave them laws and 
 
                                   land.                               

          Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses and the Hebrews, the Pilgrims, the Founding Fathers.  All were set apart by God from the world and it's standards, morals, values, "work- jobs", and ways. Saints start to learn and practice God's morals, God's ways, God's laws, God's "work", "job". The men all became "husband", "landowners". God gave them land to care for, animals to care for a family to care for.                                                          
      
        Christians are Men and women that are

                      "keepers at home", farming.

                                             

                Salvation
(In 1776, 95 % of Americans were Christians, farmers, Landowners)
 The blessing of Deuteronomy all have to do with Farming. 
True wealth and spiritual wealth of  knowledge, understanding, blessings comes from.
 I speak also from personal experience, as one who was in the world's system, delivered from it's impoverishment of spirit, soul and body. Returning to God receiving refreshment , restoration, renewal of spirit, soul, and body.

         Joel Salatin was raised in a Christian home. He is a graduate 

of Bob Jones University. He is a Christian Capitalist, Libertarian,  
and Holistic Farmer.

       Joel Salatin grew up on an organic farm where his parents had hippie earthy types over on the weekend but they went to a straight laced church on Sunday mornings. http://truthmatters.info/bible-fundamentalists-cosmic-nirvana-earth-worshippers-and-joel-salatin/

      This is what I've been saying for over the past 10 years..Christians, we missed the bus on taking care of God's creation... we built mega churches that are in full sun running $1,000 electric bills, we pray for healing but go to fast food restaurants. We pray for God's provision but wouldn't DREAM of growing our own food or raising animals for food production.. It's like the parable of the guy drowning in the ocean who is thrown a life preserver and offered to get in a boat "nope, God is going to lift me straight out ..." We want to get rid of cancers, diabetes, loose weight...and all the while the answer is right there staring us in the face... We have gotten lazy and, quite frankly, as Joel puts it, when it comes to food, we are traveling the BROAD ROAD!! Wide is the gate that leads to hell, there are many avenues to choose from. This way leads to pesticides, chemicals, a raping of Creation, and then we ask God to heal us while we are destroying his creation through buying the fake foods made through dishonest practices? No more though!! Time to take the narrow straight way. We are making the turn....


How is Christian Faith Tied to Farming...

We view the Creation God made

Forgiveness.. how to make a forgiving farming food system?
1. We need to help the immune system of plants and animals get stronger and stronger... opposite of today

2. A forgiving food farming system Reduces floods and increases hydration during droughts- ie build ponds during floods for use during drought

3 . Fertility is increased.. how?
large scale compost to in-source fertility and not outsource... we don't have to send military to the middle east to get petroleum based fertilizers

Beauty... 

What does a beautiful farm look like?

A beautiful farm is diverse...
Diversity, plants, animals.. all WORKING TOGETHER
.. no hazmat suits...
A Godly food system is attractive... it should be magnetic.. we as believers should be magnetic!!!!!

Order...

God is a God of order..
How do we have a farm that exemplifies order?

        In Nature...birds follow herbivores in nature... Polyface, (Many faces), Farm moves chicken  behind cows. Chicken start spreading cow patties and eating fly larva... these are big natural principals. See video Joel Salatin

God is a God of relationship
Food systems of today are fundamentally anti-environment

all.. manipulating life like a plastic doll.

However, Life is fundamentally sacred .

The average industrial farm has no relationship.. there aren't even any farmers on these one species farms...

We need to embrace different gifts and talents of animals and plants...

This sounds like the Church... and this is spiritual truth going on in a visceral way...
http://truefoodsolutions.com/blog/food-cornerstone-of-christian-credibility-by-joel-salatin-part-two-farming-and-worldview/

vis·cer·al

ˈvis(ə)rəl/

adjective

1. of or relating to the viscera.

   "the visceral nervous system"

   • relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect.

     "the voters' visceral fear of change"

     synonyms:

     instinctive, instinctual, gut, deep-down, deep-seated, deep-rooted,inward; More

What is wrong with American food system?
It is mechanical... manipulating life...

How can we grow pigs so they can express their pigness 
There is a reason why we should respect and honor the pigness of a pig

It is in this ethical dimension in supporting the pigness of a pig

Today's farming is: how can we grow more stuff as quick as we can?

We LEAD THE WORLD IN THE              5 TOP CHRONIC DISEASES..

Our food system doesn't ask "how do we keep nutritional integrity?"
We have more salmonella, e coli, pathogens due to large scale industrial farming
Food is bathed in chemicals... in many cases it won't even rot... it has no life

We need to opt out..
The Biblical principles...
Broad and easy way verses the narrow way

Broad way- easy, live, eat, but it leads to destruction... diabetes, obesity, toxicity, hospital bills, soil depletion, the making of deserts, (Deserts: Tens of thousands of acres all over the US where the land is come depleted of all nutrients, useless. The size of the Gulf of Mexico.)

        We want to find a fundamentally Healing WAY...THE NARROW WAY!!  
How do we heal the plants, how to we heal the animals, how to we heal ourselves ?
We suddenly embrace this glorious health and abundance that God's grace wants to pour out on us... we participate viscerally and spiritually. The two worlds collide instead of compete and it's a great place to be! 

Joel Salatin... 
Over the years, I’ve seen an amazing transformation in our farm visitors. Today, probably half are conservative home-schooling Christians. I believe that the home-schooling movement spawned an entire awakening to alternative ideas. Families who left the conventional institutional educational setting, who disagreed with credentialed officialdom, found their new path soul satisfying. That satisfaction led them to ask the question: “Well, I wonder what else I’ve been missing out on?”

Jesus came to save, heal, and deliver. For too long Christians have made fun of earth loving green minded liberals. I, for one, stand with Joel Salatin and my liberal earth minded friends in loving the earth God has given us with all we can. There is a broad way and Christians are on their high horse saying "Jesus is the way," singing "Shout to the Lord" in their air conditioned mega churches whose carbon footprint is off the charts. 

       

We say we love the God of creation as we buy apple juice shipped from China laced with arsenic. We allow the proliferation of GMOs which is like breeding a pig with a tomato plant.. it's ungodly and unnatural and our body's microbes are killed by it. Why, oh Lord, didn't you heal my momma of cancer, why does my husband have arthritis, why are my children's teeth rotting?

Lord, you are our healer... and He says "I try to heal you but you keep jumping over the cliff asking me to catch you..." Instead of taking youth groups to amusement parks, we need to put a maddox, or shovel in their hand, take them to a farm, and have them weed out thistles like Kansas did out on the Ranch growing up. It teaches us how we have to work HARD to root out sin.

 Do we want the Broad way or the Narrow way? Churches need to turn their lawns into community gardens and package and can healthy foods and grow grass fed meat instead of trying to feed the poor with nutritionally BANKRUPT items masquerading as food! Give the poor land, dig them a well, build a small shelter and some seeds like we do in Africa. 

Quit with the chick fil le potlucks and have a non gmo organic chicken processing party and allow each family to go home with a trunk full of nutritionally jam packed chickens!!