Around the Homestead | Northwoods Homesteader

The Blessings of Friends

MerrieSeptember 14, 2015September 14, 2015Leave a comment

For those who don't know my husband had shoulder surgery in late spring which meant that he was out of commission for close to three months. We primarily heat our home with wood and the spring is the time that we are felling trees and getting the cutting, splitting and stacking into the woodshed done. This year we were unable to get any trees on our own property cut down due to Ken not being able to use the chain saw.

We ordered 5 cords of log length wood from a local logger and had it delivered in late July. So now we had the trees sitting on our driveway and Ken started to do what he could to work on the pile.

We are so blessed with great friends who for two weeks in a row came by on Saturday to help with the process and now our woodshed is full and the wood is drying to be ready for our first fire.

I want to thank all those who have helped us with this enormous task. Wade, Mike and Carol, Pastor Jeff, Robbie, Angie, Shelly, Dave, and Pastor Dave, Brett and Riley.

The woodshed is fuller than it has ever been and there it still a little left that should help us start off our supply for next year. Everyone worked really hard followed by a lunch of burgers. I just want to say thank you to each and everyone of you. We would not have been able to get this job done without all of you.

Five, Not So Little, Piggies

MerrieAugust 1, 2015July 11, 2015Leave a comment

This year we are raising five pigs for ourselves and friends. It is very fun to raise pigs they are entertaining and easy to raise. The biggest thing is that you have to have a good fence to keep them in. As you can see by the picture our pigs are trained to an electric fence. We have the fence running down into the woods so the pigs can get out of the heat in the shade.

Pigs love to root things so having a larger pen gives them more room to have fun and pigs do love to have fun. They run around the pen and kind of wrestle with each other like our two dogs do. It is fun to watch them.

We are very happy to raise pork for our friends who do not have a place to raise their own. I count a privilege to be able to improve what our friends are eating and letting them know how their meat was raised. It is so important that if you can buy your meat and produce from local sources. The closer you are to your food the more healthy it will be for you. Raising our own meat is one way that we ensure that what we are eating is good for us.

I'm working on a few different ideas to raise our own food for our meat animals. As I talked about we have put our meat birds on pasture which cuts down on the commercial feed that we have to give them. When the pigs can root around they find all kinds of things that they like to eat. We also give them our kitchen scraps, corn cobs, watermelon rinds etc. Further on in the summer we will get dead fall apples from a friend that they will also enjoy. These extra treats really add to the quality of the pork.

So, visit a local farmers market or grocery store that sells from local farmers and see how much better fresh food tastes.

Adding a Second Bee Hive

MerrieJuly 25, 2015July 12, 2015Leave a comment

It was such a long cold winter that we were certain that our one little bee hive hand not survived. In February I went out with my stethoscope and listened while I knocked on the side of the hive and nothing. I was sure they were dead. So I ordered another nuc to replace the hive. Well along came a warm day in March and I went down to the hive. On top of the snow was hundreds of brown spots and a few dead bees. The brown spots were, uh hum, bee poop. Bees will not go inside their hive, they are very clean insects, they wait for a warm day and they take what it called a cleansing flight. So that day I found out that the bees had made it through the winter. We were so excited but now we had more bees coming so what to do. Well, we ordered another hive from a beekeeper friend who builds them.

As you can see from the picture we had it built to match the first hive. The new one is on the right. The older hive is doing great. We have put a honey super on and are in hopes of getting a little honey for us this year. Last year we didn't harvest any so that the bees could have it all. It is probably good that we did so they had enough food for the winter. We will do the same with the new hive this year. By next year we hope to be able to harvest from both.

The above pictures are of installation of the nuc into the new hive. The green box is how the nuc arrives. This contains 5 frames of already drawn comb with a queen, brood that she has laid and a lot of working bees.

When we got home with the nuc we set it beside the new hive and opened the box so that the bees could get out to feed and drink. We let them settle down for a couple of hours since they had traveled over Maine's pot hole roads to get home. When we opened the nuc you could see the bee activity. The frames were very active. The five frames from the nuc were placed into our hive body. We put another super of frames on top so the queen could lay even more brood. You can see a few stragglers still in the nuc box. We just left the box next to the new hive and they found their way to their new home.

We are having so much fun with the bees but mostly we are just leaving them alone to do their thing. There are many things in bloom for them to make honey with so sweet things to come.

Busy Summer On the Homestead 2

MerrieJuly 11, 2015July 11, 20152 Comments

The strawberry harvest has come to a close. My wonderful husband picked the last of them from our 100 or so plants. We were able to freeze whole berries to use in our breakfast smoothies. I think when we were all finished there were 4 gallon bags in the freezer. That of course does not count the countless number that we ate along the way. I took the last of the harvest and made ice cream with them today. It will be a treat this evening after my husband gets home from work.

I have gotten into making kefir everyday and we use that and homemade yogurt in our smoothies. Our local natural food store stocks unpasteurized milk that I make the kefir and yogurt with. We sweeten with just a bit of honey add greens like kale then a few strawberries and blueberries. It is a full meal when whirred up in the blender.

The garden has been planted from the seeds that I started back in April. I really enjoy gardening but to be honest I'm not very good at it. Everything is always great when I get it planted then along come the weeds and I seem to never be able to get ahead of them. I know I need to mulch to keep the weeds down but I never seem to get to it. It is hard to come by straw here in Maine since no one really grows oats or wheat so I use wood chips. All the chips that we did this spring went down on the inside of the hoop house on top of the cardboard. I'm trying to get that area doing much better so I can use it next year.

I did purchase a small 6 x 8 foot greenhouse from Harbor Freight. It is still in the barn in the box since I need to level the ground where I want to put it. It will go in the front yard where I took out the two peach and two apricot trees that did not make it through the winter. My goal is to be able to grow greens during the winter, or at least maybe until January before the real cold hits.

Well, time to move the soaker hose in the garden to the green beans. Visit with you soon.

Spring Is Around the Corner!!??

MerrieMarch 15, 2015Leave a comment

Beware the Ides of March certainly applies to Maine as we are once again in the middle of a large snow storm. When I went to the barn to take care of the girls this afternoon there was already nine inches of snow and the winter storm warning is not due to expire until 11:00 pm this evening. Despite the snow as you can see the birds are still hitting the feeders.

Despite the fact that it is snowing Spring is due to come around eventually. Soon it will be time to get the seeds for the garden started. I usually start the tomatoes, peppers and a few other veggies around April 1st. Since I don't dare plant outside here in central Maine until Memorial Day for fear of frost, I give my plants about a 8 week head start.

I placed our baby chick order this week for delivery in April. I was hoping to get the new chicken house built this week but obviously it is a bit hard to build on top of a couple feet of snow. I will be able to get the new loft put up in the barn though even if I have to work in a bit of cold. We have a 10 foot ceiling on the first floor so we are going to put up a 16 ft. by 4 ft. loft up about 3 feet from the ceiling. This loft will be used to store our bags of shavings. We used to be able to buy shavings by the truck load for a fair price from the local lumber yard but since pellet stoves have become so popular all those shavings are going to the pellet makers. Now we purchase our shavings by the bag. It actually makes them much easier to handle and much easier to store. We no longer have to shovel them out of the back of the truck into the storage bin.

A second building project inside the barn will be the addition of another chick brooder. Our flock is expanding and the April order will have 58 birds in it. The one brooder we have will be okay for a week or two with that many in it but as soon as the chicks begin to grow there will not be enough room.

It has been a tough winter on the laying hens. There have been many, many days of really cold weather as well as wind. They sure don't want to be outside in that kind of environment. So, not only are we here in the house looking forward to Spring but I know the girls are too. Well, here is what we hope to see real soon.