Friends and family.

Posted on 2006-Mar-15 at 11:14

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

Hey, I just discovered on of the benefits of having a grinder and having friends over. It gives them a new experience and they tend to be willing to give it a try and grind some wheat for their cookies (or waffles). It's kind of a fun thing!

I got to see my sister and her new baby yesterday! What fun! It was so relaxing (and Joe ground up 4 cups of flour for me...the cookies were delicious! Chocolate chocolate chip with pecans...mmmmmm! So healthy, all that magnesium or mangenese...you know!!!)

I just met someone at the door today that had a question about one of the horses. We chatted and she and her daughter are going to come over and play at 11:30 today...A new friend!!!

Hmm, I still have some flour that Joe ground yesterday... maybe I'll make a treat and have some tea.

Report on the grinder.

Posted on 2006-Mar-14 at 03:52

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

Here is my "WAAAAH!" report:

Well it is still hard to grind the grain, but as I was stirring today, I realized how much easier it is for me to stir stiff batter than it is for my kids to do the same. So I am reasoning that perhaps I shoudn't sell the grinder on e-bay yet.

Also, my husband suggested each of the kids grinding for 5 minutes. That will work for bread with meals, but not for bread in bulk etc.

My sons suggested that I could pay them a few quarters to grind in thier free time throughout the day. That might be a good deal. I think I have artheritis of some kind in my hands so I am not sure if I will be doing a good or bad thing by continueing to grind, but I have learned to stretch them well so that they don't hurt as badly...I sure like my boys (and my girls too). They are so good to help without complaining, and they have such a good sense of humor.

So the verdict is still out...Has it been a month yet? I don't know. It must be nearly. I am going to keep on hand-grinding for now

A letter.

Posted on 2006-Feb-27 at 01:17

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

Here is a letter I wrote in response to a question from Sarah:

Dear Sarah,
If you are thinking about getting a grinder, I would start by reading reviews online about what people like and don't like about the ones they have tried. I will try to find the link that I thought was so helpful to me.

So far for us, buying grain locally at the healthfood store seems to be very good in value and ease. On my blog under "Wholegrain" I posted some sources I had found for shipping grain. Some of them look interesting to me.

The grinders which look the best to me right now are the Nutrimill impact grinder and the Mil-rite from Retsel (for electric grinders). The hand-grinders that look the best to me are the Country Living and Family Living hand mills (the verdict it out on the Little Ark Retsel handmill I have...I'll see how I feel about it in a month when I have developed some muscles and perspective).

I have to tell you, the bread I am making from our fresh ground flour is way better than what I made from our store bought whole wheat. One thing my grinder does well is to make the flour really fine. It wil be worth it to me to get a motorized grinder if I wimp out on this hand grinder, because of the cost of whole wheat flour and the taste of fresh ground flour.

Hope this helps!
Have  great day, Jenette.

I will be adding some of the other links that have been helpful to me in the next day or so.

Whew!

Posted on 2006-Feb-25 at 07:17

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

I spent two hours grinding 4 cups of wheat for about 8 cups of flour the other day.

I don't think this experiment is working out so well.

I read a review of handmills and mine was the one the author would not recommend for women and children.

He said his female co-workers said they were done after 5 minutes of it.

He recommends the Country Life hand grinder at about 40 minutes for 10 cups of flour.

Of course I bought mine for 60$ and the Country Life is almost $400.

I had to rest every 30 seconds or so with the hard wheat.

I will keep this up for a month, and see if I get unwimpy, then make a decision about saving up for the Country Life, or saving up for an moterized grinder.

I wanted some exercise

By the way, we love the way the flour tastes coming out of this thing.

Links to Wholegrains

Posted on 2006-Feb-21 at 11:05

http://www.edenfoods.com/

http://www.mountaintopsmilling.com/index.html

http://whole-natural-foods.com/cgi-bin/catalog/catalog.cgi?m=y

http://waltonfeed.com/index.html

http://www.store.honeyvillegrain.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=273

http://www.frontiersurvival.net

http://www.ozarkorganics.com/

New muscles and becoming trim.

Posted on 2006-Feb-21 at 08:03

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

So we are down to this:

Jimmy had to grind the flour

(by hand)

for me to make him some chocolate chip cookies last night.

Yesterday morning I ground wheat for about 30 minutes to make waffles for our family of 9.

I am thinking that if I make bread twice a week and waffles once a week...

I can throw away the fitness stuff I bought on t.v. a couple of weeks ago.

Whew!

When I measured this morning,

1 cup of wheat=1&2/3 cup of flour.

It takes me about 12 minutes to grind 1 cup of wheat very fine.

It is VERY fine, almost like white...makes Jimmy happy.

Makes me happy because he is eating whole wheat without barfing.

By the way, he likes the fresh ground whole wheat more than the 50/50 flour I used to buy!

This is good, I'll see how I stick with the hand-grinding.

I think it may be good for me.

Buying in Bulk.

Posted on 2006-Feb-14 at 08:12

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

So, I am looking at buying things in bulk, and I got a catalog for a buying club. Now, a couple of things have struck me. 1. The prices in this catalog are not any better than what I can get through the local health food store. 2. I want the local health food store to stay around. 3. I only have so much room right now for lots and lots of any kind of food. I am going to buy this stuff from the local store. That way I can try stuff out in small ammounts first and then order bulk through them if I want more.

Kind of related, I just realized from reading Selling What You Sow that, even when it isn't cheaper to buy from the local orchard (we have quite a few in driving distance), I think I will try to buy more from them directly when their fruits are in season, farmers get such a paltry percentage of the profits when they go through grocery stores. I appreciate our grocery store and I will still be glad to buy from them, but I am excited about helping keep our small local farms going here. Maybe someday it will be me inviting people to come and pick their own produce on my farm!

Hand grinding wheat on my Retsel

Posted on 2006-Feb-13 at 03:59

"Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light". -Michelle Terrill

Sue Greggs is right! It does take a lot of calories to grind wheat!

Well, I certainly have calories to spare so this will work for the time being, but, unless I want this to become a full-time endeavor, I will be getting the parts to moterize this mill.

I set up the wheat and the grinder on the table this morning and the kids and I took turns grinding for quite a bit of the morning. I would say it takes me about 5 minutes of grinding per half of a cup. My oldest asked how much we needed. I told him I ussually bake up big batches with 12 cups of flour...His eyes got BIG! !

As it was, we just ground up about 2 cups, enough to make some flat bread to go with our lunch; it was good!

Wow! My arms are SORE, what a wimp!

We used hard white wheat. Looks a bit light, but sure tastes whole wheat.

I didn't need to use any gluten in it and it was whole wheat, so I was pretty impressed with that. We'll see how long I last with this hand-grinding...it certainly has been fun in some ways, and I suppose it works well for my obsessive-compulsive personality.