My friend brought 4 bushels of wheat back from "Out West". The deal is I get 3 bushels free but I mill the fourth bushel for him. This is the first wheat I have milled with the second hand Retsel Mil-Master I had bought. It does an excellent job of milling the wheat. It comes out just as fine as store bought. The flour is slightly warm but not even close to being hot. It is really quiet too. I am making bread using half bread flour and half whole wheat. I want to make it with 100% whole wheat flour without adding vital glutton. Does anyone have a recipe like that for bread, pizza dough, pasta and others?

YES!!! I've had it about 2 months now, I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I ordered it online straight from the Country Living website (countrylivinggrainmills.com) It is very nice, well made, (quite heavy!) very efficient, and I am looking forward to hooking it up to a bike (my biceps are getting pretty toned! time to work on my legs!) I figured if I was going to eat bread I'd better work for it ; ) The manufacturer tests every mill and sends you a little sample of flour that was ground with your mill. They leave the mill set at the setting that ground the flour (it was perfect) but you can play around with the setting if you want to. For the record, I was a very out of shape, not very strong new mom with lots of baby weight to lose. I found the grinding to be a pretty good workout! DH can use it no problem with one hand, I still have to use two. It takes about 600 revolutions of the wheel to make 3 cups of flour. I usually do 100,then rest 5 mins then another 100 etc... takes me about 20 mins. much more productive than the gym. (I've lost 11 lbs!)

I have a Golden Grain Grinder that is 30+ years old...my dad gave it to me about 15 years ago. I really like it. It has 2 stones that grind the grains and you can adjust it from coarse to cake-flour fine. All of you that are grinding wheat, can you tell me what is the whitest wheat? We have several Amish and Mennonite communities near us and I have bought several wheat and flours from them, but they all have their own name for them. Some call it "naturally" white wheat...is that whole wheat, or just unbleached? Last week I bought 3 lbs of "hard spring white wheat" to grind, and it does seem to be whiter than a lot of wheats.

Carol, We bought some pullets and also some straight run. Most of the straight run birds turned out to be roosters. It has been hysterically funny. If you think listening to one young rooster trying to figure out how to crow is funny, just multiply it by 5. They all can crow pretty well now but for a while it was just pitiful. Now that they've figured out the whole crowing thing, they are working really hard on crowing in unison. So far, they get along and aren't fighting. One of the Welsummer roosters is clearly the alpha male, and as long as the others respect that, they may not fight very much. The bad thing about having roosters is that they start crowing around 3-5 a.m. and I am a light sleeper. These roosters are kind of sweet. Every other rooster we've had in the past had to be taught that if you spur the human, you get kicked in the head. (They learn fast.) These roosters haven't even tried to spur a human. Hooray--civilized roosters! We're getting oodles of eggs, and one hen is acting like she might go broody and sit on the nest, but it is getting late in fall for her to start that because it would be cold when the chicks hatch out. So, we'll probably continue gathering the eggs and then let her set on a clutch of eggs in the spring. Barb, It is not at all hard to build a secure coop/run. There are photos and plans all over the internet. With a chicken run, what has worked for us is having it fenced on all sides, including the ground and the top, so they can't fly out and predators can't fly in, dig in, climb in or jump in. If the coop has predator proof doors that are closed every night, they'll be fine. Snakes are sometimes a problem here, and we kill every one that comes into the chicken coop. Tim tried catching and releasing chicken/rat snakes against my will, and they always came back, usually within 24 hours, so now they all get shot. We've had one snake take out a half-dozen chicks in one day, so we keep chicks in a brooder cage made of 1/4" hardware cloth until they are 3/4s grown. This year we have had exactly one snake in the chicken coop, and it didn't do any harm, so it has been a very good year in that regard. Check out some of the chicken housing on the link. I bet at least one of your sons is handy enough to help you build one. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Chicken Coop Designs