Tag: homestead

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.

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

Busy balancing the busyness

February 27, 2017

Life here on the homestead has been busy. Most people can relate to bring busy.

I have been busy at work due to the amounts of snow we have been “blessed” with this year. I have been busy with bedrooms (the house came with one finished bedroom and a few that were in various states of being started or being completed). So I have added framing, drywall, mud and paint. It has been busy and that’s okay. It is an important task that needs to be done for all of our families sanity. We love each other dearly but we all need our space. We all need a spot to retreat and to regroup. So we have been making it a priority to acomplish these rooms so we can help create a better balance for our family life.

Part of this has been a hard struggle for me.  I can be focused on getting the task done and not want to be bothered by the kids and therefore lose out on teachable moments. One reason for moving to the homestead is so we can speak into our children’s lives and to equip them with tools and skills to succeed in life. This means that even if I might be able to get this done sooner on my own it might not be the right thing to do. So…I have had to remind myself to include them so they can learn. What better time to teach some simple skills by involving them in finishing their bedrooms.  

In number ones bedroom the screws in some parts of the closet aren’t burried quite deep enough that you will notice them for years to come (he put them in on his own) some he got perfect, some I fixed and some I didn’t as a reminder to both of us down the road that we all learn somewhere, and it might not be perfect but you can improve over time. 

Number two helped measure what cuts we needed to make for sheets of drywall to be hung…not sure how many extra cuts I made or how much extra time I spent going over how to measure.  But in the end it was worth it. Number two has learned some skills and learned that we need to stick through it and that we aren’t all perfect off the top but that we need to be taught and practice our skills to get better at them. 

All the kids have come up with their own ideas of how they would like to paint their rooms here is number two’s finished paint.*

We haven’t started on Number three’s bedroom yet. However Number three has more interest in helping with construction even though younger it is his personality. And he has always been this way.  I remember roofing a friends house a few years ago. The house was just behind the school so number one and two would walk over after school and play outside until Amanda came to get them while I continued my days work. Number three was in Daycare, Amanda would pick him up and come see the progress of the roof and take the other children home. One of these times she came up on the roof to talk to me and see where things were at. So while I was talking to her I heard a small voice asking what could he hammer! Looking over I saw number three standing on the roof holding a hammer, he had climbed the ladder by himself because he wants to be involved in the job in the work at hand. We calmly talked with him and got him safely down on the ground again.  The other children said later that they didn’t realize they were allowed up on the roof. It didn’t even occur to them to try it out. Number three is our risk taker who is ready to plunge into whatever you would allow him to (if your ready for it or not).

I am so glad to see our children learn new skills and confidence in their ability to learn new things. They have all been adjusting well to these changes in our life here on the homestead. I have been learning to balance getting it done and getting it done a little slower but empowering our children through the process. I think it is worth the wait. 

Amanda is so much better at having them involved in the things she does (I think it is a mom thing) than I am.  Thank you Amanda for doing that and reminding me of the importance of taking the time to do that.

And so we continue to be busy balancing the busyness with priority of enrichment of our children’s lives compared to the speed we could accomplish the task at hand.

*I will post pictures of the other bedroom paint schemes when they are finished.

Shane