Syruping

Please excuse the stove... I hadn't cleaned
up yet when I took the picture.

Syruping this year has been odd. Normally, one of two things happen. Either we have a fairly short, intense season or weather shoots directly from hard frozen winter to too-warm spring-that-wants-to-be-summer and we essentially skip syruping weather altogether. This year, we had all the buckets pretty early (end of February, beginning of March?) because predications said that we'd get syruping weather soon.

Only we didn't. Every time we checked the weather after that, they'd dropped the predictions for the following week by another 10 degrees. We proceded to get several more ugly snow storms usually with a few days of somewhat syruping-friendly weather in between. And it just stayed that way - back and forth - for weeks. We'd go days at a time with zero flow, and then spend a few days slogging through three feet of snow to get to the trees out back to collect sap and running two giant pots on propane burners in the garage. Some of the storms were so windy and awful that they actually tore spiles out of the trees!

It's now officially the middle of April and the forecasts are still all over the place and STILL include snow for the foreseeable future. That said, we made the command decision to be done for the year. The pot in the picture was the last batch of the season. We got a couple gallons and we're grateful for that, but we've reached the point at which diminishing returns no longer justify continued effort. At this point, I just hope the weather settles into something reasonable before the apple trees start to blossom - I'd hate to lose another apple crop! 

Indestructable

This is our *third* guaranteed indestructible splitting maul.

Much like our border collies, we apparently do not respect that "indestructible" means you're not supposed to be able to break something. *sigh*

Thankfully, my husband is talented and was able to replace the handle but I seriously think there's a design flaw somewhere. How many centuries have people been chopping/splitting wood? And we don't have truly indestructible tools for the purpose yet? Somebody should get on that.

In the meantime, if it wanted to STOP BEING COLD so that we didn't NEED to keep chopping/burning firewood, I'd be extremely on board.

Where Do I Apply for Global Warming?

Our newly expanded rhubarb bed. Two mature plants on
the right, two new ones on the left.

 Can anyone tell me where to apply for global warming?

I keep hearing about it. It's in the news, discussed at massive international seminars and conventions, and giving all kinds of environmentally conscious people serious heartburn.

But for all the fuss, I am displeased to report that it's May and it snowed here. Not the beginning of May, the ides of May. And not just a little flurry - a full bore, whirling-snow-everywhere-to-practically-white-out-conditions snow that stuck to the garage roof and the porch until the sun came up the next morning.

As someone who has fruit trees already starting to show green and thinking just beginning to blossom, this nonsense is unacceptable! We know better than to try to plant our garden proper before Memorial Day, but there's nothing we can do about timing of the trees or the rhubarb plants.I will not be a happy camper if we lose our chance to get fruit because of unreasonably crazy weather patterns.

So if anyone knows where I can apply for global warming and get some proper spring-heading-for-summer weather out here, please let me know.

Our new asparagus bed! Fully planted, but not yet sprouting
anything noticeable. Exciting anyway.

Summer Pictures

Just a few quick pictures to share today... 

We have pumpkins actually growing in our garden! They're either cheese pumpkins or sugar pumpkins... the seeds got all mixed together, so I don't actually know which is which any more. It doesn't matter though. Having any kind of pumpkins makes me unreasonably happy!  : )

The pumpkins may still have a couple months to go, but apples are unexpectedly coming ripe early. Check out the two buckets I collected the other day, waiting to be made into pie filling, sauce, and other goodies!

Since we (finally) got a good apple crop this year (after several years of nothing thanks to wonky weather patterns), I allowed myself to experiment with making sparkling (but not hard) cider. The process seemed simple enough - freshly pressed apple juice and champagne yeast, mixed in a fermentation-appropriate bottle and left on the counter for a couple days.


Apparently I will need to practice some of the finer points, because when I opened the bottles they all but exploded! A wee bit over-carbonated... oops. On the bright side, what remained post explosion was very yummy! Seeing as it was experimental, I only made a couple small bottles. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try again before the season is out. 

Somehow it is the last week of August already, so there's plenty to do and I won't linger and ramble today. Just wanted to share a few pics since I actually remembered to take them! 

Beautiful Bottle Crates

In my opinion, one of the best aspects of home brewing – aside from the drinking the yummy results of your work, of course – is that you collect beautiful bottles to store things in. It makes me quite happy to open the fridge or step into the pantry and see sleek flip-top bottles in amber, cobalt, and clear glass holding beer, wine, or kombucha. So much more lovely and satisfying to the soul than plastic jugs!

With our primary workspace upstairs in the kitchen, and our main storage space downstairs in the basement, we need to be able to move bottles efficiently – whether full or empty. For a while we were using old cardboard 12-pack boxes, wine boxes, or plastic filing crates. They worked, but weren’t great.

Then I was on Pinterest and saw a photo of a wooden crate someone had made themselves… and I knew we needed some. I broached the subject to my handsome and talented Prince, and he agreed to think about it. We were busy, though, and the project sat on the back burner a while.

In the last couple months, while we were back and forth from the Toy Store (aka Lowes) getting supplies for other projects, my Prince found some wood he thought would do nicely. Then he disappeared into the basement. The babies sat at my feet upstairs, supervising my activities, but would periodically cock their heads and perk up their ears, staring curiously at the floor as the sounds of woodworking spiraled up from under our feet.

When he re-emerged, my Prince was holding a custom-made, custom-sized crate for our shiny bottles! It is both beautiful and rock solid – perfectly for carting bottles around and for storing them in style as their contents ages. He’s made a few more since then, each appropriately sized for a different style of bottle. I am very fortunate to have a husband who is creative and talented enough to design and create such awesome things for us! 

Summer Projects: Pear Trees

Every year we enter reach spring with an ambitious list of projects, chomping at the bit to get started. (Incidentally, where do I opt out of this whole “Climate Change” thing? I seriously resent how late Spring starts these days, and how wet the summers have been!)

This year, one of our top projects was planting pear trees. We have long agreed that plants should earn their keep; if we’re going to carve out space and time to tend something it needs to contribute. Fruit trees decidedly fit the bill.

In May, we did a ton of work in and around the back corner of the yard and the spot we’d picked out for our new trees. We opened it up, taking down spindly pines and some larger trees that would have blocked the sunlight, figured out what the soil pH was to make sure it would appropriate, etc.

Our baby pear trees!

Then we headed to the local nursery and grabbed four pear trees: one Bartlett, two Commice, and a Seckel. We set them up in a beautiful, sunny spot and crossed our fingers. That combination should allow for strong cross-pollination and allow us to expand to other varieties in the future if we decide we want to.

So far, they’re thriving! Other than the fact that the deer ate all the little tiny baby pears off of them, they’re strong and growing well.  

Fruit trees are a long-term investment, of course. It will be years before there’s any kind of good return, but for now we’re delighted to have crossed this item off our list and to have taken our property one step closer to our larger vision of all it can be.  

Not Blogging - But Not Slacking!!

So, it's been forever since I posted. It's almost embarrassing at this point... sorry!

But the lack of blogging hasn't reflected a lack of things to blog about. On the contrary - I've got a backlog of things I wanted to post but never got around to. Hopefully I'll get caught up in then next couple weeks!

In the meantime, here's a couple quick pics of little things we've been up to.

Another scrap quilt completed for the guest bedroom!

A giant, comfy napping ball for the babies. Supervision in style!

Bottling homemade Carrot Wine. (And tomato wine.)

Planting piles of seeds, waiting anxiously for them to sprout, and
then finding garden space for them all!

See? Totally not slacking!  :)

More to come soon!

My Elegant & Complex Garden Plan

Despite never properly putting our garden "to bed" last year, I had great intentions of being totally on top of things this spring. Mapping out a garden plan, companion planting, researching what specific strains of common veggies (tomatoes, etc.) grow best in our region - you get the idea. 

But after a brutal (and busy) winter, I found myself with nothing planned or in place when that first post-it popped up in my planner reminding me that it was time to start planting seeds for this year's garden. What I did have was a pile of assorted seeds in the freezer whose age, levels of proper prep for saving, and probability of sprouting varied dramatically.

Since we've (finally) found a couple good farmers' markets locally and signed up for a CSA this year, I knew our primary veggie needs would be covered regardless of what we grew ourselves. [insert sigh of relief here]  Thus, I settled on my highly elegant and complex garden plan for this year: throw everything  on hand at the dirt and plant what sprouts.   :)

I reassured myself that if we somehow got an abysmally low sprouting rate we could always pick up a handful of seedlings somewhere to fill in any empty garden space. As it turns out, though, our sprouting rate was much higher than anticipated! I've made a huge mess twice already - once in the original round of planting, and again when I transplanted a bunch of seedlings to bigger cups.

I started with seeds for two kinds of pumpkins (cheese and sugar), peppers (chili and two varieties of bell/sweet), broccoli, carrots, eggplant, spinach, arugula, butternut squash, tomatoes (three varieties), onions, and lavender. So far I have no cheese pumpkins, eggplant, or peppers and only 1 butternut squash seedling. Everything else is thriving... and starting to take over our window sills. If they keeping soaking up what sunshine we can get, they'll (hopefully) be strong and ready for their move outdoors Memorial Day weekend.

Meanwhile, our wild edibles (like purslane) are starting to make an appearance, and our established perennials (rhubarb) are showing new growth as well. (Yay!)

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything survives my poor gardening skills (and the deer), and that we get a great harvest this year despite my very inelegant plan.

Winter: 2; Ash Bucket(s): 0

It's pretty universally agreed that the majority of the country is tired of winter right now. To say there has been a TON of snow, and that it has been crazy cold, is an understatement.

But nothing really brought the point home like killing two ash buckets in less than a month. We heat the house almost solely with wood, which is generally awesome, but when it's stupid cold and we're burning hard the ashes can pile up quickly, no matter how efficient we try to be.

When I went to pick up the first bucket from where I'd left it outside the front door, and bottom completely detached from the top, I wasn't really upset. It was inconvenient, but it had come with house. If everything else we've seen was any indication, it was probably cheap to begin with and God only knows how long the previous owners had had it. I figured it didn't owe us anything. 

Then I found out how expensive those things are! After I got over being appalled that someone would expect me to pay $70 for a bucket that I would use six months a year to dump fireplace ashes, I told myself it would probably last us forever. That would make the cost per use really low, and make it qualify as an investment...  Until it broke, two weeks later. 

Seriously?! Two ash buckets in less than a month?! *sigh*

Thankfully, I had filed the receipt so I can return it. I also discovered that such buckets can be bought cheaper... at Tractor Supply, of all places! So ultimately, it will work out to be a good thing, but I still take the demise of such utilitarian tools as a mark of nasty this winter has been.

We're on track to put the final nail in the coffin of our "indestructible" maul this year as well. No one said heating with firewood was easy on the tools! Still, I'm tremendously grateful that as our neighbors deal with high (electric/propane) heating bills and dump money into yet another pallet of pellets, we still have firewood from our own land laid up to see us through. We will definitely adjust our estimates of much to lay in every year based on this experience, though! And hopefully, the next ash bucket we buy will be the last...

The First Rule of Homesteading

Since I first read it, I have appreciated the wisdom of Titus 2 and wondered why it does not feature more prominently in the church. I didn't actually hear the verse until I was an adult and reading about homesteading. The reason I ran into there, I've found, is because it speaks to the very soul of the independent, self-sufficient lifestyle.

The first rule of homesteading is to share what wisdom you know generously and receive wisdom from others with thankfulness and modesty.

I believe this is why so many homesteaders, though up to their eyeballs in their own projects, are compelled to blog – to pass along what they've learned the hard way so others don't have to. It is why I am tremendously grateful to have neighbors down the road (who have kids my age) that have taken us under their wings.

We spent three hours yesterday morning tramping around in state forests, being introduced to orchards, deer trails, old quarries and berry patches. It's a bad year for apples here, unfortunately, but the black cap berries are ripening and a handful of hickory nuts are already dropping from the trees. We're learning to look for and identify these precious resources and scoop up what we can. God willing, next year we'll be able to skip buying bushels of apples and pints of berries, collecting them free from land no one else bothers with. It will save us hundreds of dollars – money that can be invested in garden infrastructure and other essentials.

We'll only know how because our self-taught neighbor took it upon himself to offer his valuable knowledge to the next generation. To others of the same mind, with the same values. And because we were willing to listen.

We are doing no favors to the current generation of children coming up through school with collaborative learning techniques and find-it-yourself teaching methodologies. We rob them of the understanding that their elders have accumulated wisdom from which they could learn if only they'd respect it, look for it and ask.

In the era of youtube and google, there's something startlingly wonderful about being able to walk beside another human being, seeing and touching the object you're learning about, asking questions and getting answers to your specific situation in real time. The longing for that personal touch echoes through the blogosphere, whether you read about homesteading, crafting, parenting or anything else.

We are all good at something, have lived through something or are passionate about something that someone else is trying to learn. We still have nearly a month before summer gives way to fall, school starts back up and the pace of life increases again (if it ever slowed down)... Will you consider looking around for opportunities to share what you know? Whether by blogging, inviting someone over for tea, or signing up to teach a course through your local extension/ continuing ed program, consider sharing what you know. Someone out there desperately wants to learn and would be so blessed.

(Note: Did you know that you don't have to have a degree in something to teach an extension/ continuing ed course? Usually a passion for your subject and a reasonable course outline is all it takes!)

Windshield Surveys or Why You Need Trees

Recently, while reading about housing grants, I ran across the term Windshield Survey. As I had with so many other unfamiliar terms that morning, I googled it. What I found left me so incredulous that I ran it past someone I know who has been writing housing grants for years. She confirmed it: a Windshield Survey is when government representatives (usually County level or below) drive around, taking pictures and notes of what they see.

Typically they're looking for evidence of substandard or out-of-code buildings, gathering evidence to support their petitions for funding or for potential participants in rehabilitation programs. While I appreciate their good intentions, this idea seriously creeps me out... because the information rarely stops with them.

Once government (at any level) has information, it begins to travel. Reports on out-of-code housing work their way to the ears of code enforcement officials, leading to citations and demands for costly clean up or repair work. They reach social works in the school system who start paying attention to your kids, looking for other evidence that things may not be well and opening up entirely new cans of worms.

"Higher income" homeowners find their properties being reevaluated to make sure they're paying enough in taxes and that recent improvements to the property were properly cleared with the local government and inspected, sometimes leading to extensive fees, fines and even forced replacement of or changes to finished work for the most inane of things - unapproved fence styles, expansion of a deck a single foot further than allowed, etc.

The good news is that government officials of any kind are not allowed on your property unless you invite them. Which means that a simple privacy fence or hedge can dramatically reduce their visual access to your domain.

Because its summer, our property is almost entirely invisible from the road. When winter comes, however, the foliage will die back and we'll be much more visible. Although where we live is unlikely to experience windshield surveys, we're discussing the possibility of putting evergreens in along the roadway to eliminate the need to worry about such things altogether.

I know that not everyone is as possessive about their privacy as I am. I understand that extroverts often highly value visually open property and the possibilities it opens up for unplanned interaction and easy-flowing parties. But I believe everyone has the right to know that this kind of thing goes on and to protect themselves if they so desire.

Oh, and while you're at it, think about putting a gate across your driveway... Now that we've experienced having one, I'll never be without one again!

Efficiency

I think, sometimes, that if science had been taught differently when I was in school I would have been fascinated by it. Math, too, for that matter.

For example, have you seen one of these? Appropriately called Kill A Watt, it's a nifty little device you plug into the wall and then plug any electric device into to find out how much energy said appliance is pulling. If you leave it there for several hours, it will give you an average pull, allowing you to extrapolate how much it costs to run a given appliance per day, month, year, etc.

That information, of course, allows you to make smart choices about what to replace and when. For example, we plugged in the monstrous fridge that came with our house and found out that it would be in our best interest to replace it sooner rather than later! On the other hand, our equally ancient chest freezer is barely pulling anything so there's no point in replacing it until it dies a natural death.
 
When we were apartment dwellers, there was depressingly little we could do about our electric bills. The best we could hope for was to plastic the windows over in the winter and set the thermostat to the most restrained temperatures feasible.

Now that's we're homeowners, we're turning keen eyes to a push for efficiency in our home. Because really, who doesn't like efficiency? It's green, it's responsible, and in the long run it frees up time and money for other projects. Did you know that it's more cost effective and financially smart to put up to $100,000 into improvements on your property than to invest a penny in the stock market?

I'll be honest and say that number blew my mind. It also gave me fresh motivation to dig into an exploration of what is available to us and a good use of our efforts. Summer is an ideal time to evaluate and increase the energy-smartness of your home/property. The warm (and hopefully dry) weather allows outside projects and spillover space for messy indoor projects. It's a particularly good time to tackle winter preparations (like insulating walls or fireplace cleaning/ repairs) since most of the world won't start thinking about them until fall at which point the waiting lists abruptly get long and more expensive. 

If you don't already have some efficiency-improving projects on your summer list, might I encourage you to pick at least one to try for? Even simple steps can make a big difference!

Where you have seen the biggest bang for your buck in home efficiency improvements?

Homestead in the Misty Moutains

People have been asking for pictures of our new homestead in the misty mountains, and I finally found the camera and got it to cooperate. It's amazing here, though I can't stay and gush as my (very long) to-do list is sitting impatiently beside me. So here's a sneak peak...

It's a little blurry, but this is the awesome gate across our driveway - we are our very own gated community! Can I tell you how much the introvert in me loves that?

I love having a fireplace! The carpet, on the other hand, I don't understand. Who intentionally chooses a mottled, rusty brown carpet for their house? It's okay. My take-no-prisoners vacuum has whipped it into shape so it's clean and that's all that counts for now.

 I have never seen anything quite like my ovens here, but it's an excellent set up. Being smaller than standard size, each oven heats up in a fraction of the time. With two, I can bake bread and make dinner at the same time! (Yes, I know. I get excited over the most random things.)

Incidentally, the color on the wall that you can see a little bit of is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. It's a gorgeous, silvery shade that looks very clean and elegant. It works perfectly and I'm delighted with it. (It's also scrubbable, in case someone leaves muddy streaks from a wagging tail across it... not that we'd know anyone who might do that around here...)

It's technically part of the drainage on property, but if we'd wanted to incorporate a decorative "water feature" we couldn't have done any better than this. When it rains (which it has - a lot) overflow creates a little waterfall running over the shale and in a runnel along the driveway. It's beautiful.

Now that it's stopped frosting at night, several trees like this one are budding. I have no idea what they are, but I suspect they're going to be lovely.

Incidentally, pretty much every view out of our windows looks like this - all trees. It's gorgeous!

The house still needs plenty of love, but the scrubbing and elbow grease are starting to pay off. It's starting to look more like us, and already feels like home.

Sorry I'm not much of a photographer, but I hope you enjoyed the sneak peak!