New Season, New Site, New Dorm Fridge... err Cheese Cave

Welcome to the new site! Yep, it's still us, just a revamped site. Now that the wedding is over I finally had a little time to give some love to the site. Scrapple did his best while I was planning the wedding, but I'm glad I had some time refine it a little. We wanted it to feel a little lighter and cleaner so I spent last week drawing chickens and laying out a new design - we hope you enjoy it!

And now for another unveiling, kicking the fall season off with a bang: Our new cheese cave! 
yes - we said "cheese cave"
OK - it may be a crappy dorm fridge from the 80’s, but look a little closer and you’ll see the next step in hatching Little Seed’s cheese dreams! I’ve been making fresh cheese at home (thanks for the inspiration Melody!) once or twice a week for the past month. We’ve gobbled up ricotta, mozzarella, buttermilk cheese, primosale, and now today skyr. We’re ready, and excited, to move on to aged cheese. It’s one step closer to making something that might actually resemble a product we’ll make and sell on the farm.
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Attack of the Spider Mites, Revenge of the Hop Rhizome


Chinook Rhizome Re-Sprouting Hop Vines

As you can see, my hop plant has re-emerged, and with it my hopes to one day brew with homegrown hops. Earlier this year spider mites attacked and devastated my lone hop plant (of the Chinook variety). You can see the carnage on top of the soil where the new shoots are sprouting. Everything was going fine, the plant was growing extremely fast, I already trellised it up and across the window (it was probably a good 15-20ft long if I unravelled it), and then one day the bottom leaves started to turn brown.Before Mite Hop Plant

Pretty soon more leaves were turning brown. One by one, all the way up the twine trellis, each leaf was slowly decimated. I could see the little bugs under the leaves, but no matter how many times I sprayed them with soapy water or smushed them between my fingers I couldn’t defeat them. Then one week they must have multiplied because in a flash all of the growth was brown and leaves were sent raining onto the sill below. 

So, in denial, I forgot about it. It’s summertime and summertime is not brewing time. Too hot for brewing in the apartment and too

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Grandkids Horrified by Antiquated Views

I read a couple recent articles about Jackie O’s grandkids being “horrified” by revelations that their grandmother got "all her opinions from her husband”, JFK, or that “women are too emotional for politics”. At that point in time (the 1960's) her statements wouldn’t have been nearly as controversial as they are today; it was simply a world very far removed from today’s reality. So it’s interesting to think about Jackie O’s grandkids’ reactions and how so much can change in just a couple generations.

So my question is, what will "horrify" our grandkids about our generation? Maybe our excessive use and reliance on fossil fuel? Maybe our entrapment of livestock and force-feeding of genetically modified substances in inhumane environments? Maybe our extreme reliance on antibiotics just to keep those same animals alive?

Or maybe it will be
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