Photos to enjoy

The photos below were taken by a customer of ours who is obviously quite the photographer!

Remember, little sprouts farm is available for visits pretty much any time, just call ahead to make sure we are here.

The little Khaki Campbell Ducks floating across their pond

These girls were ready to pose!

Hunter chose this handsome fellow for a closeup, can he catch him?

There he is!

Is that a happy rooster face?

Honey experiments draws a unexpected crowd

We were working on a recipe for honey candy this weekend. As the honey boiled in a pot on the stove. ... they showed up.  Not one,  not two,  but a handful of curious and perhaps a little angry visitors. They slipped inside our home without notice,  not sure yet  how.  Fortunately no one was hurt, and they left peaceably.
Who were these uninvited guests?  None other than the produced of the golden honey itself.. . Bees!  Somehow they smelled the boiling honey,  slipped into our home and were searching out the source of the aroma.
Nevertheless,  the experiments went well and we produced two batches of lemon honey cough drops,  and two batches of lemon honey taffy,  one quite sour. It will take a bit more experimenting before these are ready for resale, but the results were pleasing.
One thing we learned.. . Be very careful with temperature when boiling honey to the candy stage.  The difference between 280 and 310 degrees is seconds.  At 305 honey scorches,  but you must get to 300 to produce hard candy.  Tight controls are in order, but it can be done!
Hopefully this will lead to our own line of no sugar added honey candies.  We proved to ourselves that it can be done,  now we just need to perfect the recipe. 

A new fear of genetically modified crops ?

The article below brings to light a whole new fear of genetically modified crops.  Not only is the question how damaging to health the crops are today,  but as this story points out. .... what happens if there is a mutation of the modification?  That opens up a whole new world of hurt and damage.  The mutation tbat seemed to happen during the Texas drought produced grass that produces deadly poison in high amounts.  What would happen if a similar event happened with GM corn,  soybeans,  or alfalfa.  Suddenly we have a uncontrollable situation.

I say,  better to let nature alone.  GM crops have produced no benefit to date,  only damage.  It appears we are only now realizing how bad playing god in this delicate area can be.

GM grass linked to Texas cattle deaths

Little sprouts kombucha tests very low in sugar

Since we have finally settled on out kombucha recipe,  we needed to measure the final sugar content of our brew.  At first I tried using the hydromter, but it was giving confusing results.  The sugar content shown through testing was not falling as expected,  even when the drink was quite sour.  My theory is that using raw sugar and sucanant was leaving lots of non sugar dissolved solids, thereby giving a false reading. 

So today we picked up some clinitab reagants tablets.  They are primarily used to test for sugars in the urine,  but are also quite useful for testing sugar content in fermented drinks. 

The tests confirmed what we suspected.  Our kombucha recipe was ending with very low sugar.  One batch showed .25% sugar and another showed only trace amounts.  In contrast I tested two popular store brands and found them to show 3% to 5% sugar!  The little sprouts kombucha has 1/4 the sugar of store brands,  or even less!  That is very good news.

For families and individuals  such as our own who avoid sugars and carbs, this is vitally important.  It means little sprouts kombucha can be enjoyed without concern about the negative effects of sugar. We are very happy that we managed to create our own recipe that has plenty of natural flavor,  health benefits,  and no sugar!

If you haven't tried our kombucha,  encouraged you to give it a try soon .  We offer utbolaub,  unflavored,  but you can result flavor it yourself in a variety of ways.  Either plain or labored this acid rich probiotics food is a significant addition to any healthy nutrition program. The benefits are quite astounding!

First venture into the new world

These lucky 24 young turkeys are making tgeuedueat venture into the real world,  out in the open pasture. We moved a set of the largest to the next stage as a test,  to make sure they are ready before risking the full flock.

So far they seem perfectly fine to be out on their own but perhaps a little apprehensive.