In the morning quiet

March 13, 2018

The silence is broken as the alarm sounds of in the darkness that is our bedroom.

It is 5:45 one of my days off as I have this week booked off from work. I have slept in till this point as normally I am already at work.

I let Amanda stay in bed this morning as she normally gets up to milk the rest of the week (even on days that I am home she typically gets up to milk and let’s me sleep in a little longer or just so we can hang out while we milk).

Our youngest got up to help me with milking (he enjoys the homestead life).

Once again the silence of the night is broken as the snow crunches beneath our feet as we walk towards the barn with milking bucket in hand.

As I enter the barn I am met with quiet darkness which is broken with a bleat from Millie and some answering bleats from her kids (who are in a separate pen over night).

I lead Millie over to the milking stand. She steps right up as she has become accustomed to our new morning routine. The sound of her hooves upon the wood disturbs the silence even further.

Our youngest is sure someone is at the barn door but it is just Blaze in the next stall over scratching his head on the partition wall.

Spray down Millie’s teats and udder to make sure she is clean the sound of the spray is loud in the stillness.

Pat her dry and place the milk bucket under her and gently milk her into a strip cup to check that everything looks good and she is healthy. The youngest takes a turn stripping out some milk from Millie into the bucket. We switch who is milking as his attention wains. The sound of the fresh milk against the side of the stainless steel bucket has a satisfactory ring to it and is almost relaxing as I get into a rhythm.

Millie relaxes as the swelling in her udder receds. She starts to munch away on her grain chewing loud enough that you know what she is doing even though her head is out of the circle of light produced from the flashlight.

Milk collected the youngest and I reunite Millie with her kids. Headed back to the house the snow crunches under our feet once again.

The house is quiet as everyone else is still sound asleep. The clock ticks on the wall. We get out the filters and the funnel. Put a filter into the funnel/strainer and pour the fresh milk through it sounds almost like coffee dripping in a brew cycle.

Put the milk into the fridge and wash everything up.

The youngest decides to go back to bed. I sit down to drink a cup of coffee.

Finally some quiet in the morning.

Tapped in!

March 6, 2018

Sugar bush time is upon us! I have tapped our pipeline (which is a first for us). Up until now we have always used buckets. Mind you up until now we have lived in town. Last year we tapped with just a few buckets because that is what we had on hand.

This year we will use those same few buckets and the small pipeline we have set up. The reason we went with a pipeline for sap collection is simply less work and less loss of sap. Buckets can only hold so much and then they overflow (this isn’t a major issue if you have time to collect throughout the day). Where a pipeline pipes the sap to a larger tank so as long as you size it accordingly to the amount of taps, in theory you won’t lose a drop of sap.

Now we didn’t tap lots just a large handful as this year we have been busy doing all sorts of things and there is no point in putting out so much effort to not collect the benefits of it. So by limiting our taps we can add to it next year and the year after and continue to do so until we reach the number of taps that we decide we are able to do and willing to do.

This will be an interesting year as we have a better boiling system (Thanks Dad). I will highlight the evaporator system we have when we start boiling in a separate post.

Happy sugaring everyone!

Milk…it is a journey

March 4, 2018

Well this morning we milked Millie for the first time. We have stripped her out here and there just to make sure she was used to the idea and to make sure that the kids were able to get the milk that they needed.

To get to this point has been a journey.

Last year we got a miniature horse (who isn’t a mini now but not a pony…probably a class all of his own… if you remind me I will write a post about that another time lol). Now you can’t have a horse (mini or pony or whatever he may be) and not let him have a friend. So we got a few bottle baby goats. We had them wethered (castrated) and brought them home. We had them castrated so we wouldn’t be dealing with a Billy/buck who can be real jerks. After a few months it was evident that one of the two had been missed for castration.

What do you do with an intact Buck? You find him a girlfriend. Along came Millie. We had chickens at this point and I know we had some bees bumbling around…so after some conversations I am sure that the goats must of had with the birds and the bees…we ended up with kids…

Now that we have kids we have a supply of milk.

We have built a milk stanchion. (I found plans for this at fiascofarm.com).

This stanchion is a well thought out plan all the designers ask is for a donation for using the plan (which I still need to send to them).

We have left the kids with Millie up to this point. Now that we are going to be milking her we will be separating them overnight. This allows her to bag up so we have a supply of milk in the morning to tap into. Once we are done we put her back with the kids for the day and we will separate them again in the evening.

This morning we went out and put Millie on the milk stanchion and washed her uder and teats with a wash solution. A solution that Amanda made from a recipe she found from 104homestead.com.

We put the milk bucket under her and started milking…if only it was that easy. She was a little nervous being a new thing for her but with a few close calls of hooves and buckets we managed not to loose any milk.

We came in from the barn complete with a milk pail of fresh milk and smiles upon our faces.

We filtered the milk through a stainless milk strainer with filter that we purchased on line at shenandoahhomesteadsupply.com.

And now we have milk cooling in the fridge.

This is just a quick overview of how things went. There is more to the process of milking and at some point I may write a detailed post about how to milk. There is lots of good information around sometimes it is just weeding it out.

We have used fiasco for information as well as https://www.weedemandreap.com

Once again there is always information to be had you need to sift through the information and make the best choice for yourself and for your family and animals. I don’t know everything even with Google.

Have a great day everyone and happy milking!

Proud to Announce!!

February 19, 2018

Mervin (our buck) and Millie (our doeling) are the proud parents of two little kids a little buck and a little doeling.

Mom is doing well.

The babies are doing well.

Yesterday Amanda and I went to look at a horse a few hours away. When we got home Amanda was headed towards the barn to put everyone in for the night. She was talking on the phone with a friend who had just called upon walking into the barn she heard a little cry and immediately said I will call you back I have baby goats. She hung up and yelled for me to come.

Millie had twins but being a new mom we wanted to spend some time to make sure everything was good. (Which is a good practice regardless of how many they have had). She was spending time with the little buck but not so much with the little doe. We watched to see what she would do. After a little while we went into the pen with her and tried to get the little ones to nurse. She wasn’t having anything to do with that. So we dried the little doe off a little more as it was a little cool out yesterday. After she was dry Amanda and I worked on getting Millie to allow the littles to nurse. I stripped (a milking term for pulling milk from a teat on an goat or cow) about 15 to 20 strips to make sure she was able to provide the milk she had produce. Once we had her realize that she did much better with everything.

I got up in the middle of the night to check and make sure they were doing well. Amanda got up in the early hours to check in on them to make sure they were doing well. So today they are 24 hours old and have a better idea of what their feet are about.

It is so nice to see littles come into the world here at Split Rock Heritage Homestead. Looking forward to our goat herd growing.

The great pig dilemma

January 29, 2018

I have a confession to make, I’m addicted to the cute irresistible sight of pig snouts! I love pigs. The one animal we always new we would have on the farm, in fact we had an adorable potbelly as a pet when we lived in town.

We researched pigs before the sale was final, before we ever picked up the keys from the lawyer, we new the perfect breed.

Berkshires, a heritage breed from England reaching north America as early as 1823. A large black pig with white feet, nose and tail tip. Black pigs are better for pasture their dark skin protects them from sunburn. Berkshires have an up turned snout which means they do slightly less deep rooting in the fields. They produce a richly flavoured dark red marbled meat. But the selling factor for me I think is their docile personalities at 600 lbs you don’t want a pig that doesn’t want to be your friend pushing you around.

I spent a large amount of time looking for these special pigs, although the Berkshire is making a comeback pure pigs in general are fading away, for quick cheap easy mixed breeds that are ready for market faster, and no one’s knows anymore your grocery store pork doesn’t say Berkshire or duroc. The delectable pork you picked up today may not be available at your local grocer tomorrow and you would never be able to pinpoint the difference if it was. I contacted a lot of people, claiming to have Berkshires only to be disappointed by thier spotted red piglets. I contacted registered breeders but they didn’t have litters last year. We looked and looked until it was getting to late in the season to buy piglets and we settled on the much enjoyed Seven and Ate that taught us such great lessons and have feed my family well all winter.

One lesson we learned from Seven and Ate was you have to get pigs early. Or you feed them when they eat the most long after the feed is supplemented by “free ” pasture feed. So I have been on the prowl for my dream pigs again.

Meet 22117-69 now known as Thelma. And her darling sister Louise the formally 22117-70.

We found them!

3 hours away in a little town called Parham with a wonderful couple at Tryon Farms. The whole experience was wonderful. The couple was great informative and shared not only the long search for their berks but the love for them as well, we pet all the “big pigs” and walked right in with mommy and her piglets, she wasn’t the least bit upset to share her babies with us and came over for some loving of her own.

The next dilemma…… We are going to keep Thelma and Louise as breeding stock so I’m not quite sure what’s going in the freezer…..

Bacon and eggs!

December 9, 2017

Mornings on Split Rock are not like they were when we lived in town. In town we had to feed the dogs and cats…here in Split Rock our mornings involve mucking out the animal stalls and adding bedding where and when needed, hauling water to the animals as we don’t have running water in the barn (believe me it is on the list of wants and dreams). Mornings involve feeding the animals and putting them out for the day. 

Some mornings (many mornings) Amanda does the majority of the chores with help from the kids as I am out the door well before the sun even considers breaking over the horizion. I pitch in when I can and where I can. I know the work that she puts in here in the homestead. I know the work that I put in and the work that out kids (sometimes willingly sometimes not so willingly) put in to help. Regardless of who put in the work it is nice to reap the benefits of what have been sown. It is nice to see some of our dreams come into reality.

Well today dreams became reality! We ate breakfast (closer to brunch time as I got called in to work for a few hours this morning). Now eating breakfast isn’t new here on the homestead nor would it be new when we were in town. The difference is that we had on our plates our very own eggs (which we have already had over the summer) but what goes amazingly well with eggs…that’s right! BACON! But bacon that we raised here on Split Rock Heritage Homestead! 

What a great taste left on the tastebuds of bacon and eggs…bacon that has been fed organic feed and no garbage…eggs that have come from our own free range chickens…yolks so bright that it reminds you of the sun coming up…our chickens are free range and get grained with organic feed as well.

All in all it was a great meal. This morning was a realization of a dream. It was hours of work put into caring for these animals that give some much back to our family. It was a lesson learned by our kids that hard work pays off. 

I am inspired from this mornings meal to work harder to continue to chase our dreams of being self sufficient. 

What a great meal!

Shane

A day of opportunity

November 21, 2017

Slaughtered our first pig today, that in itself creates A lot of thought. I loved her , I feed her, cleaned up after her and chased her around every stinking time she escaped the pen. I also talked to her softly for her last few minutes and thanked her for what she would provide my family.

There’s more to it then that though, I mean beyond the farm part, beyond where knowing where your food came from, how it was treated and what it was raised on. More today then I  imagined, then I hoped for, far more that went beyond why we are here at Splitrock and why we wanted to be.

My beautiful brillant child that struggles with so much anxiety cooked from scratch a full meal today completely on his own, pushed through his anxieties and tears and struggled through it. All his adult helpers were busy with the pig not available for his rescue or his questions. I thank her for that what an amazing experience she gave us what a great opportunity for growth!

The rambuctious 8 year old is snuggled up with my husband, asking a billion and one questions about how bullets are made how guns work, you can see his mechanical braining turning, absorbing, listening, his future understanding is being shaped. I can thank her for that.

The goal is to appreciate all “ate” ( the pigs name) gave us and part of that is not being wasteful. I collected all of the organ meat, for the dogs meals today. As I served the liver the kids all wanted to touch it, yet again another great learning moment…. I encouraged them to feel the lung, it’s different then almost anything they could feel. 

Our prideful but shyly curious child, asked to dissect those lungs, we looked at them, how they work, what they do, all theirs pieces I watched her future unfold and there it is 1 more reason I can thank her.
She filled my heart today, she feed my family, she encouraged personal growth, she pushed the mind of a mechanic in the making, she opened the blossom of a surgeon be it a vet tech, or open heart. She created family conversations and memories that they will all look back on.

Its a bittersweet process, one I will be forever grateful for. In that one single act of slaughter all our dreams came true, We loved, we appreciated, we understood. We became homesteaders, We made homesteaders of our children, that understand, Love and appreciate where thier food comes from both the sacrifices and the joys.
Thank you Ate for a most wonderful first experience.

It has been a while…

July 3, 2017

Well I suppose it has been a while…you might be thinking that we dropped off the face of the earth…but that is not the case…we have been busy here on the homestead. We have been working on settling in with homestead life. 

We have moved the pigs from where the garden site is located to a new location where they will most likely spend the rest of their summer until they fatten up for our winter meat. 

I have built a new generator shed (roof and posts) I plan on wrapping it with straw in the near future as that will dampen the sound of the generator while it runs. Currently the generator is housed over 100 feet away from the house. It will now be closer to 30 feet from the house (getting moved tomorrow if everything goes smooth).

I have passed my rough in electrical inspection of the electrical work I have completed. I rewired the complete house. I hope to have my final done this week. That means once that is complete I am able to start buttoning things back up in the house. 

We have a banty hen sitting on a clutch of eggs so in about 21 days from now we should have a bunch of chicks. Now we don’t want to have a huge flock of banty chickens however we want her to learn to sit and brood a clutch as she will be one of our incubators. In the long term plan we plan to use them to incubate the silver’s eggs.

We have been getting and eating quail eggs from our quail. I hope to build them a new run shortly. Their eggs taste good it is just a lot of work to do anything fancy with them.

We have planted part of our garden and will expand on it for next year. This year has been too busy and too wet to get everything in on time with starting from scratch and with other stuff that has come up. 

I know reading this that some of it doesn’t seem like much (some of it is a whole lot on it’s own) but between working full time and commitments to family, friends, and events on top of all of that I feel like we have been busy. Real. Busy…

I will try to post more again as we settle into our new crazy and find ourselves again. 

Until the next time…happy trails…

“Sit tall in the saddle, hold your head up high keep your eyes fixed where the trail meets the sky and live like you ain’t afraid to die and don’t be scared just enjoy the ride” – Chris Ledoux

New-ish members of the farm

May 2, 2017

Chickens, I believe a staple at every farm and Split Rock is no exception. I knew just the ones to Silver Laced Wyandottes, the original of the Wyandottes an American heritage  breed of the 1870s, dual purpose and rose combed excellent for our cold winters. Not as easy to find as I first thought with all the great things going for them, but find some I did.

Our first adventure in late March, we travelled quite a distance for 25 day olds we preordered in January when our farm life became a reality.  Upon arrival for pick up only 19 day olds hatched ( over about a to week period) so we picked up these cuties as well hopefully our future incubators.

The first challenge was keeping the little ones warm, they spent the first 24 hours in our propane oven ( cracked open of course) until we could get a small generator running 24/7. Keeping brooder lights on without constant power proved to be a challenging feat I spent one night on the couch with my sleeping babies on my chest under a house coat because the generator decided it needed an oil change at 2am.

The next obstacle, I admittedly was so excited to actually find a source for the chicks I wanted I didn’t do enough research on the people supplying them to me a mistake I will not make again. After we got the heat situation figured out we lost chicks almost every other day. It called for drastic measures I didn’t want to take but we treated the remainders with some medication and although the numbers are way done we now have 8 happy, healthy little chicks growing well and fast, eating mealworms and fresh greens and now organic scratch. Getting ready for their transition to outside living….. With their ever faithful watchdog by their side.