Spring Cleaning on the Farm

Best fertilizer is the one you got.  Justin brought a couple truck loads of the sheep manure and many bucket loads of chicken manure to the garden.  A smelly job, but good for the earth.  

We found a place for the ladder.  AKA we gave Pepere Larry a couple extra odds and ends to fix up after he put up the new upstairs door.

He made the little door to match the large lower door.  It lets in a good amount more of light into the workshop  upstairs.  

The barn so far this Spring 2021.  If you do not remember what it looked like before, check out the post on The Barn; The finishing touches.

The roosters are not getting along this year as they had previously.  We have four beautiful and family friendly roosters.  It as a difficult discussion, but we have decided to give away Angus and Carliss to separate homes.  We’re hoping Jupiter and Cameron can share the rest of the space.  Please let me know if you’re interested in adopting a free rooster.  These are the two pictured above: Angus is above Carliss.

A full flock photo.  The boys are up front Lambert and Boston.  Ivy with her bell bottoms is behind them.  Nala and Natalie the Katahdin ewes to her right and the Southdown ewes to her left and in the back.  Do you know what got them to line up perfectly like this?

Yes.  They were meeting our new dog Boomer for the first time.  He sounds like his name, that’s why they all startled together. Boomer is a two year old hound mix that we adopted from the Portland Animal Shelter.

Justin has also been clearing out a new patch to the left of the barn.  This year we’ll probably have turkeys there. You can see the new open space and the large pile of lumbar up front.  I’m excited for the turkeys because we’re getting a heritage breed.  So they will be ver pretty.  Well also keep a few for breeding.  Expect lots of photos.  This spring we’re also getting some meat birds; it’s been a while since our last set.

I love early Spring flowers, it just really solidifies spring for me.  Happy Easter everyone!

Alexia made me these flowers from egg cartons and pipe cleaners.  She envisioned this craft on her own.  It was a great birthday present.  Save your quarters, she’ll be making a few bouquets worth for craft fair season.

Maine Maple Syrup on the homestead

Maine Maple Syrup 

On the homestead 

A few more trees were tapped this year by Jordan compared to our last maple season.  We had a harvest of three 8oz jars and two 4oz jars.  It doesn’t seem like much, but this was a lot of work and a lot of sap!

We start by keeping track of the maple trees on our land and mark them with a ribbon before the winter season when they still have their leaves and are much easier to identify.  Even when it is winter and the trees are bare, they can still be identified by their bark and branch pattern.

You can see a couple more buckets of sap here deeper in the woods.  The gallon jug with some sap is in the snow.

Jordan collects the sap into a clean gallon jug.  We keep the jugs in the refrigerator until we are ready to boil on the weekend.  This year, we boiled about 3 gallons of sap each weekend.

We boil outside over a gas burner in a large pan.  When most of the water has evaporated, we move to a smaller pot inside where it’s a little easier to keep track of the temperature and sugar content to know when we are done.  Check out our quick little 

Video clip here

... showing the whole process from sap collection to the end product.

This new Brix hydrometer has made this year’s syrup even better.  The syrup didn’t crystallize in the jar because we had the correct sugar content. When the red line of the hydrometer floats above the syrup level, then we have gotten the correct sugar density.

 Hot-fresh-homemade Maine maple syrup.

When the nights are freezing, but the days are warm in the early days of Spring, Jordan will be out there again collecting gallons of sap to be boiled down to maple syrup.  If you never saw his 2020 maple syrup project, check it out today.  It details his start-up supplies and goals.  Jordan’s Maple Syrup Project 2020

 

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