Spring Fishing

What is a dad to do when he is home alone with his boy on a warm spring day? Updates

• Animals: Returned "Romeo" a boar we borrowed. He arrived on April 1st and returned home this past Sunday. We think he did his job, he at least gets an "A" for effort. We are hoping our two sows will be having piglets in July/August. Not ideal timing. Next time around we will plan for spring piglets rather then fall.
• We hope to get our electric fencing up within the next couple weeks and get some cattle out in the pasture.
• Broilers are really close to freezer camp. Maine Man has almost completed the plucker. He just needs to attach motor. Pictures and post to follow.
• We have babies! One of our does had a litter. Not sure how many? I'd say at least 4 by the picture. I did not want to disrupt them so I just put my camera in the hole of the box and snapped away until I caught a glimpse of them.
  

• Garden is coming along. We have lots more planting to be had over the next few weeks. The greenhouse is another project that needs to be done. Not sure when we will have the time. One of MM's buddies gave him plastic for it. Only problem is that it is 3 feet too short in width. Not sure what we are going to do with that. Too bad it wasn't too short in length instead. That would have been an easy fix.

• Food: I have been doing a little experimenting (imagine that!) with raw milk. This week I made butter for a first. Skimmed 1 gallon, end result about 2 tablespoons. It was very tasty. Note to self: don't bother unless you have a milking cow in your backyard an an abundance of cream. I also attempted to make yogurt. Bought the culture at the natural food store and incubated it using a crock pot with water. Did not come out very well. Consistency was good but it seemed a bit tart. Not sure what I did wrong. I never buy plain yogurt, just flavored so it could have been that? Will experiment again sometime!
• With some of that milk I had to use up I also made this grape nut pudding recipe. It is at the bottom of that post. MM ate it up in no time. If you are looking for a really good chocolate cake recipe with peanut butter frosting this is what I made for Leah's birthday. I made it for the first time last year for MM's birthday, it is now a family favorite!
• Leah has been cooking up a storm. She nearly killed me school vacation week. I think I gained 10lbs and had a bad case of dish pan hands. Damn I need a dish washer! It is the top of my I NEED list! This past weekend she made some really yummy peanut butter balls and she plans to post the recipe sometime soon on her blog.

• Community Treasure Chest aka the "tote" from here on out. That adventure has REALLY taken off. I started with one tote in circulation but others wanted to join along so I started a second. It has been SUCH A SUCCESS! My buddy Miki is starting a third except she is putting a little twist on it making it a couples tote. I have received great feedback from the members. Everyone so far has been happy with the goodies they have scored. SO VERY excited at the responses! I think I may have even inspired a women I work to put one together with some of her friends. If you haven't considered getting one of these started in your neck of the woods I suggest you get on it.

Maple Syrup Sunday

Last weekend we boiled down 9 gallons of sap. We used a propane turkey cooker and I cooked 2 batches, 4 gallons on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. It took all day, like 10-12 hrs each day. Most expensive syrup we've ever eaten. Had I planned ahead I would have gathered wood and cooked it that way but I did not. I also should have added to the syrup as it boiled down. The way I go about it this weekend will be based on the mistakes I've made. I will also use a shallow pan rather than the deep lobster pot as seen above. As of tonight we have 17 gallons to boil down. When the sap was boiled down I was unable to tell when it was ready. One web site said "it will have an oily appearance", and another said when it "reaches 219 degrees". I could use some HELP here from those of you that have experience with this!

Neither method worked perfectly for me. So I went by the guess factor and consistency, probably not the best method.

Batch # 1 after cooled had the consistency of honey. You could eat it by the spoonful and I DID! It is from nature, it must be good for you, right? :)
Batch # 2 turned out a bit on the watery side. Regardless of consistency it is the best maple syrup I've had since I was a child. As it cooked up the sweet aroma brought me back to my childhood at the sugar house in Canada. Interestingly, that is the ONLY memory I have of going there as a child.


On a final note, I will clarify that I did drink raw milk as a child. My brother reminded me after he read my post. My brother milked for some time as a teenager. He use to fill an old glass vinegar bottle after his workday was done. So I indeed did drink raw milk when I was at my Dad's on the weekends. Funny how I completely forgot about that. I think at the time I did not really know the difference. Last weekend we stopped and bought a gallon of raw organic milk from a farm in my brother's hometown and I made my first batch of mozzarella cheese and it was SO easy and tasty. The whole family liked it! I bet you can't guess what I'll be posting about in the next week or so. Things have been crazy busy here with Springs arrival. I will catch up on everyone's recent posts over the weekend.

Savoring the Moment

Maine Man & I were off today and the kids were in school. Unusual occurrence here on the homestead. He planned to go out back and gather wood since we only have a weeks worth left. We have burned about 7 cord this season. In my mind I was reviewing the endless list of things I could do then decided to go along. I find that sometimes you just have to say hell with it, "it can wait". It all to easy to get caught up in the routines of life.
That is something I love about the kids! Their spontaneousness (I'd say I just made that word up because spell check is not finding it) , their ability to completely change my focus for the day. They do that too me on a routine basis. I never regret it!

Any how, we gathered some wood then went for a walk on the trail.

There is still lots of snow but regardless it was a gorgeous day.



Even Callie thought so. She loves going out back. The minute she has the slightest idea we are going out back she goes ABSOLUTELY mental until you hit the trail.

We gathered bows for the goats to munch on.

MM stacks the down brush to help house the wild critters (rabbits) in the long Maine winters.

Even though the snow has been melting slowly and most days have been cool. The preparations of Spring are still underway. I planted green peppers and cauliflower and plan to start more seeds over the weekend. A green house is in our future....post to come. We have lots of peeping chicks and ducklings in our wood room. We sold all but the 20 chicks (rhode island reds) we are keeping and 10 ducklings(khaki campbells). MM always orders by th 100...uggg. I SO want an incubator but I also long for a new camera, pressure canner, and a dishwasher. That is my WANT list for 2009.

On Sunday we are going to tap our two maple trees. I look forward to that adventure. Another first! On a final note I am dreaming of finding a local source of raw milk so I can give homemade butter making a try. Then maybe I'll progress to yogurt and/or cheese making. Maine Man grew up drinking raw milk. I have never even sampled it.