I grind my own wheat into flour.
Heck yeah, I do.
I actually do all sorts of ridiculous homestead-y things, but grinding flour is probably my favorite. It's loud and messy and makes our kitchen smell a little funky. The white plastic bucket that the wheat kernels are packaged in seem a little apocalyptically prepper to me. Or mildly Amish but I can't be Amish because I use electricity to grind my grain. Someday I need to write about the Amish friend I made in Virginia. We used to write letters to each other and she would occasionally call me on the phone. I am an official FOA...(friend of Amish).
But we're not talking Amish now, we're talking flour.
It takes about 8 cups of wheat berries to make 14 cups of flour. That's enough for a lot of loaves of bread. And cookies. And muffins.
The "Magic Mill" that I use (seriously, that's what it's called and it is magical) was purchased at a garage sale. For five measly dollars. I think I bought it from a lady who really wanted to be a homesteader-type but quickly realized that buying bread from the store was infinitely simpler than going through the nonsense of wheat grinding and bread baking. I like to think that us wheat grinding and bread baking people belong to an elite and special counterculture of dangerously complicated folks. Indeed, we will change the world one loaf of bread at a time.
I hear the timer in our kitchen going off now so I need to go tend to the sourdough loaf that is proofing in the kitchen. Probably need to feed the sourdough starter (mine doesn't have a name but I am open to suggestions) and think about starting a new batch of kefir. There's ferments to be fermented and SCOBYs to be grown (for those of you who don't know; Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast--it's how you make kombucha).
And don't even get me started on the crazy stuff I like to do with the raw milk! Now that stuff is (illegal) just plain wild! Raw milkers are definitely counterculture!
ETA: I suppose I should clarify that I don't actually do all of this stuff currently. I probably have at one time or another though. And lots of other sketchy and/or weird stuff. I'm always evolving my weirdness.
Need some freshly ground flour? I'm your girl.
Finished product!
This is how it starts. The basement looks like it belongs to a prepper!
And this is the lady who does the hard work. Purchased at a garage sale for $5. What?! You don't have a grain mill at your house?!
