Soy Sauce

Two years ago, shortly after I went gluten-free (and thus removed most of the soy sauce out there from my diet, on account of it's having been made with wheat kouji starter), we got together with some friends and started a batch of soy sauce. Now, in case you don't know, soy sauce is not the sort of thing you mix up and eat the same evening. It needs a while - two years or so, evidently - to ferment. For about two years now, therefore, we have been moving, again and again, to corners throughout the house, a veeeery large and heavy bucket of fermenting goo (or, to put it another way, beans and rice, plus some salt, has been molding in various corners throughout the house for the last two years. Now, if you think that sounds bad, just wait a few more months, when I will tell you about Shuzo's natto slimy-bean-rotting fermentation project, and his attempts to make me a natto-lover).

Anyway. It is now coming up on time to separate the liquid soy sauce from the other stuff; a project I don't very well know how to approach. The big bucket is still sitting in the pantry, for this reason, but while I was cleaning the kitchen yesterday, I came across the small jar we set aside for observation, and we decided to try straining it. Straining attempt the first failed (a metal colander suspended above a pot), but attempt number two, the coffee filter, appears to be a success! Now, to work up the courage to taste it.

A look around the winter-time farm

(Yeah, those photos didn't post right ... today is very evidently not a good technological day for me ... maybe I'll find the problem and - even better - solution tomorrow. For now, I give up. Technology has once again outwitted me.)

A snowy February!

It has been a cold few days here, with a low of minus 8 degrees Celsius last night (or, more accurately, at about 7am this morning) and bursts of snow every day so far in February (granted, there have only been three days in the month so far, but still, they have made an impression on me!). There hasn't been enough snow to create real problems (unlike the time a few years ago when so much snow fell that it snapped the electricity line) or even enough to make a proper snow-scape, but I took some photos anyway, and I'll use them to give you that tour of the farm I have been meaning to get to.

Very well, to begin:

The animals! My goat friends, Mary and Pon, made a little noise at the snow but ate a good afternoon's meal nonetheless:



While nearby, the chickens kept together but explored the snowy yard a little:


In the vegetable kingdom, things are slowing down:


But the beautiful (on the inside) greenhouse is fooling the mizuna and shungiku into growth:

And finally, in the farmhouse, the woodstove is a key bit of farm equipment: