On Tuesday morning I was up at 5:45AM and got the photos edited, the post up, the cat fed, the kitchen cleaned up, and the laundry folded. Then I went out and cut these 2 cabbages. There are 3 nice big ones left to do.
My helper friend arrived at 9:45AM and he started cleaning up the cabbages. The split one had a lot of critters that had moved in. In the end, the split one weighed 5.85 lbs and the little one 2.27 lbs.
But I realized that my helper friend had missed a lot of stuff in the split one and by the time I finished with it, we had 5 lbs.
So I had to do the math for the salt for 2/5ths for the little one. This is always fraught for me and I hope I got it right…
I had gotten the new weights washed and so while he was chopping, I was decanting last week’s 2nd jar. They all got weights and back into the fridge.
We use Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation recipe “Savory Seed” but we used salt. Here’s my adaptation:
I put a strip of cling wrap under the lid to protect it from the salt. It also keeps the bugs out.
Last time I left the jars on the counter and they got a little brownish. I think I forgot about the light, just focused on temperature.
So this time I will put the jars in the pantry like I did the first time. It’s colder in there now, low 60’s so it will take longer to ferment. But the light is excluded.
My helper friend took the weedwacker over to be adjusted and ran some errands. Once I’d cleaned the kitchen up again, I just sat and watched movies. Later my son helped me fold the tarps to put away, but that was it for the day.
We are well into autumn weather, except the rain that used to come the first weeks of September hasn’t happened. It’s very dry here. The night temps are 40’s to low 50’sF and the days are sunny and 70’s. But the sun isn’t up until around 7AM these days and it’s getting dark by 7PM.
The SAD (seasonal affective disorder) starts to kick my butt in mid August as the light becomes less than 14 hours. By September it’s well established. I used to be able to use the Sun Box to treat it, but the light sensitivity got too bad. And I didn’t tolerate the other lights. So at this point I’m doing Vitamin D in high doses, a multi B vitamin, and hoping for the best. I won’t use antidepressants.
On Wednesday no helpers come. I plan to walk the middle pasture to check the fence and pick up branches. If I have the energy, I will do the front pasture also. That ought to do me in.