Year In Review

Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of this little blog of ours (you can see our very first ever post here), so as we did last year this time, we thought it would be fun to look back on the past year and see what all we've accomplished. Sometimes it seems like we aren't moving fast enough toward our goals, but seeing a list of all we've achieved in the last year is very encouraging and keeps us excited to continue our journey to self-sufficiency. Here's what we've been up to this past year.

1) Expanded our flock of guineas when one of our hens went broody and hatched out her own keets.

2) Got our first big snow since moving to the country and learned about being prepared for winter storms.

3) Tried our hand at making maple syrup (part 1 and part 2) from our own maple trees.

4) Contributed to our first e-book, Farm to Table through the Year.

5) Developed an easy (and beautiful!) method for drying herbs from our garden.

6) Delved into the world of beekeeping when we brought home our first nuc colony.

7) Added to our flock with five new pullets.

8) Witnessed the magic firsthand of letting a broody hen hatch out her own chicks.

9) Rescued two tiny kittens (Gizmo and Emma) who just appeared in our chicken coop one day.

10) Successfully transplanted fig trees from my grandma's garden and harvested our first figs.

11) Had great luck with planting cucumbers for the first time.

12) Opened an Etsy shop to sell prints of photos taken on our homestead.

13) Grew sunflowers for the first time.

14) Built our own reclaimed wood farmhouse table.

15) Tried a new heirloom variety of tomatoes with great success.

We're really proud of all we've learned this past year and can't wait to see where the next year takes us. We hope you'll continue to follow along in our journey!

~Tammy and David

How We Homestead: Real Food

Welcome to the third installment of our new five-week series, How We Homestead. Each Wednesday I write a post about a different homesteading topic to shed more light on where we are on our path to self-sufficiency and what homesteading looks like for us.

If you read the first installment in this series, you may remember that the documentary Food, Inc. was the catalyst for us in getting started on our homesteading journey. Since seeing the film, we have been focused on providing real, whole foods for our family. For us, that means growing as much of our own food as possible. I am somewhat of a control freak, so it is right up my alley to have a hand in each step of the gardening process, from seed to harvest.

Row of cucumbers.


This is only our second year gardening out here, so we still are in the planning and organizing phase. Last year was sort of a test run, and we made lots of changes to the garden area this year. The biggest change was defining a large spot for the garden and building raised beds. We are still working on it, but we finally see an end in sight! We just have to add a little more mulch in between the beds (this way we don't have to worry about weeds) and finish the fence to keep all the critters away from our veggies.

Radishes popping up like crazy!

Our first strawberry!

In addition to our large vegetable garden, we also took up beekeeping this year and are eager to harvest our first batch of honey. In the meantime, I buy local raw honey from the head of the beekeeping club in our area. I love to use honey in place of white sugar whenever I can (especially in my homemade granola and ice cream) so we tend to go through quite a bit!

My first time holding a frame full of our bees. I finally did it!

One of our girls foraging on sedum blooms.

Earlier this year, we decided to try tapping our maple trees to make our own syrup. While we found that we didn't feel the process was worth it for the time and effort required, we are so glad that we tried and learned more about how syrup is made.

If you've been reading this blog for a while now, you know that we also have a flock of chickens and guineas to provide us with delicious farm fresh eggs. At first I was only concerned with keeping chickens for their eggs, but along the way I have learned how much fun they are and what great companion animals they can be. I just love my chickens and the gorgeous eggs they provide for my family!

Our ultimate goal is to be able to grow and preserve all the food that we eat here on our homestead. I realize that is a very lofty goal, and we are nowhere near it yet, but it is what we are working towards every day.

Four other awesome bloggers are participating in this series as well, so don't forget to check out their posts to read more about where they are in their homesteading journey. You can find them here -

Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Meg at Little Homestead
Daisy at Maple Hill 101
Amber at Making A Home

Thanks so much for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions or comments. I'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to check back next Wednesday for the fourth installment in the series where I will be focusing on what a typical day looks like for us out here on the homestead.

~Tammy

Shared with Home Sweet Home, How Does Your Garden Grow  

Making Your Own Maple Syrup: Part 2 - From Sap To Syrup

Last week we wrote about tapping our trees to make our own maple syrup. This week we wanted to share our process for turning the sap into syrup!

Supplies
Outdoor burner or fryer with thermometer
Propane tank
5-gallon bucket of sap
Fine mesh sieve/strainer
1 quart measuring cup
Pot for finishing syrup inside
Cheesecloth or coffee filters
Bottle(s) for finished syrup

Process
1) Gather your supplies.
Place your bucket of sap where it is easily accessible. Light your outdoor burner and get it going. Grab your strainer and measuring cup for transferring the sap from the bucket to the pot to boil and keep them handy.

2) Begin boiling down the sap.
Start with 1 quart of sap (it's best to keep the sap shallow in the pan so it boils and evaporates quicker). Pour the sap through the strainer into the pot on the burner. Bring it up to a rolling boil and maintain the heat. While the first batch is boiling away, pour another quart of sap and get it hot (we just used the microwave) so it doesn't bring the temperature down too much when you add it in.

In just a short amount of time, you will notice a lot of the water evaporating. When the sap level has reduced quite a bit, add in another quart. We let one batch go for about 20 minutes before putting in another quart.

Follow this process until you have used all of the sap. We were putting in 1 quart every 20 minutes, and it took us nearly 5 hours to boil down 5 gallons of sap!

3) Finish the syrup. 
After all of your sap has been boiled down to about a quart remaining (basically the same level you started out with), you can finish it off indoors. Nearly all of the water has been evaporated off at this point so you won't make a sticky mess of your kitchen. Before you get started indoors, run the sap through a filter once again to make sure there is nothing in the sap you don't want in there. You will notice that having been boiled down quite a bit, the sap has turned from clear to a lovely amber color. It really starts to look like syrup! But it's not there just yet.

Finished syrup boils at 7.1 degrees above the boiling temperature of water, so you need to bring it up to the right temperature for it to be transformed into syrup (the boiling point of water is usually 212 degrees, but it can vary depending on your weather and altitude so test your thermometer with some rapidly boiling water to see where it registers). If you plan to store the syrup for a while before using, at this point you can pour it into a mason jar then turn the jar upside down and the heat from the syrup will seal the lid. Otherwise, let the syrup cool to room temperature then place in the refrigerator.

And there you have it! Your very own handmade maple syrup. If you've never had fresh, homemade maple syrup, let me tell you - it is out of this world delicious! It doesn't taste like any syrup I've had before. It is more like liquid candy! We did notice that our syrup is a little bit thinner than what we're normally used to, but that didn't bother us too much because the taste more than made up for the consistency.

After 5 hours of babysitting the sap we were pooped! We had more sap to go, but were honestly getting tired of the process. We were wondering if there was anything else we could do with the sap other than going through the whole process to make finished syrup. David got creative and put some sap on to boil for a few minutes just to sort of sanitize it, then put it in a cup with a tea bag and made some tea! It was pretty good, but needed a bit more sweetness for our taste buds, so we added a little honey and it was perfect.

All in all, we are very happy that we did this ourselves and learned firsthand how maple syrup is made. We definitely have a much deeper appreciation for it now! That being said, I don't know if we'll continue to make our own syrup in the future. We both agreed that it was A LOT of work for such a small amount of syrup (the ratio of sap to syrup is a staggering 40:1 after all) and we didn't really feel that it was the best use of our time. We don't use maple syrup all that much, so to be quite honest I'd rather shell out $7 for a bottle of pure maple syrup at the store than going through the long process of making our own (and spending much more than $7!). I know that's not very homesteady of me, but that's the truth. We are still learning which activities interest us and are good uses of our time and money, and for us, maple syrup just isn't one of them.

I would recommend that everyone try this at least once and see how much work it is for yourself. It is neat to see the process and have an understanding of all that goes into a tiny bottle of syrup. Who knows, maybe you'll love it and find a new passion! But for us, I think one time was enough.

~Tammy

Shared with Down Home Blog Hop, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Country Homemaker Hop, Farm Girl Blog Fest, Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop, Explorers Blog Hop, Sunny Simple Sunday, Eco-Kids Tuesday, The HomeAcre Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Homesteading Skills     

Making Your Own Maple Syrup: Part 1 - Collecting The Sap

Last year we really wanted to tap our maple trees to make our own syrup, but I procrastinated so we missed our window of opportunity. We decided about a month ago to get serious about it this year so we started watching the weather and planned our time to collect the sap. Last weekend conditions were favorable, so we made a trip to Lowe's for some supplies and set up our taps.

Since this is our very first attempt at collecting sap, we looked online for an easy way to tap maple trees and found this video to be helpful in planning out the process. We are total newbies and have already made several mistakes, but I thought sharing our experiences might help others who are wanting to tap their maple trees for the first time as well. If you are experienced and have suggestions on how we could improve our process, please let us know. We'd be happy to hear any advice you'd like to share!

Supplies
Screwdriver with 5/16" and 1/2" bits
1/2" metal (not plastic) taps
3/8" clear plastic tubing
5 gallon buckets with lids

Process
1) Find your maple trees.
This is kind of a given obviously, but if you don't know how to identify trees without their leaves, you could be searching your woods forever. We called our local resource forester with the MDC who we worked with for our logging this past summer. Marty has been such an invaluable (and free) resource. I called him last week and he came right out and marked all of our maple trees for us so we'd know which ones to tap (it is advised to tap a tree only when it is healthy and the diameter of the tree is at least 12").

2) Watch your weather patterns to know when it is the optimal time to tap.
The tree sap starts to flow the best when nighttime temperatures are below freezing and daytime temperatures are above freezing. The sap will usually flow for about 3-4 weeks, but the best sap is produced early in the season.

3) Gather your supplies.
You can buy tapping kits online which I'm sure work really well, but we didn't want to wait for anything to come in the mail and tried to keep things as cheap as possible by making a quick trip to Lowe's.

4) Let the tapping begin.
Using your 5/16" bit, drill a hole at a slight upward angle 1.5" deep at chest height on the tree (this is the hole the sap will flow out of). In the same spot, using your 1/2" bit, drill a hole 1/2" deep (this is the hole that you insert the tap into). David put blue tape on each tap as a guide to know when he hit the correct depth.

Insert the tap by "tapping" it in with a hammer. (This is where we made our first mistake. We wanted to go as cheap as possible, so we bought plastic taps and 3 of the 5 broke while trying to insert into the tree, so we went back and purchased the metal variety which worked like a charm.) You may see the sap begin dripping out immediately at this point, depending on the time of day.

Attach tubing to the spigot on the tap and feed it into the bucket at the base of the tree (we drilled a hole in the lid the exact size of the tube). Secure the lid on the bucket to keep out any debris. Our lid did not fasten tight on the bucket, so we had to put a rock on top to keep it in place.

And that's it! Now the waiting game begins. We had a pretty cold day yesterday and temperatures stayed in the 20s, so the sap froze and did not flow. The next few days should get above freezing, so hopefully we will  be able to collect more sap. We have read that the ratio of sap to syrup is 40:1, so if we are able to fill one 5-gallon bucket with sap, we should get about 16 oz of syrup once all is said and done. For our first year, I'd be happy with that. If it works out well, next year we will expand the operation, but this year we are focusing on just learning the process and working out all the kinks. Stay tuned for part 2 to hear about our method for turning the sap into syrup!

Have you ever made your own maple syrup? Did you find it harder or easier than you thought it would be?

~Tammy


Shared with Down Home Blog Hop, Wildcrafting Wednesday, The Country Homemaker Hop, The HomeAcre Hop, Farmgirl Blog Fest, What I Am Eating, Country Homemaker Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Homesteading Skills, Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop