Sorry, I'm a bit giddy and had to share.

The folks we buy the Highland beef from just gave us five lb or so of it. And dh discussed buying one of their pregnant mamas this spring.

Squee! I have desperately wanted a Highland cow/calf pair.

I'm very excited. :) I think between this, the meat birds (50), and 25 new layers (keeping the getting-elderly girls too of course), we have our plan for the year. Oh and a big ol' veggie garden...we are growing all local seed, heirloom varieties. Oops, and of course all the land work - clearing it (the Highland will help with that, they are great browsers), mowing around the orchard, trimming the orchard and trying to revive it.

Just :cuc: :cuc: :cuc: This makes working totally worthwhile. :D Hopefully I can take a bit of time off/scale back this summer to be able to get down n dirty in the garden. ;)

On another note, I'm going to get some taps and buckets and a roasting pan so we can do just a "ceremonial" amount of maple sugaring this year. Next year, we're looking at doing all 50 or so trees if possible - it just takes infrastructure to do it on that level (even backyard/scavenged/built infrastructure - we will do it on the cheap, but we need time and to have access to the trees - tractor helps w/that).

"browsers" :hahaha:



yeah Lauren!!! Living a dream. . . it's a wonderful wonderful thing. I'm so proud of you for making it happen.

OH! and reading on my homestead board about sugaring got me itching to try it just for fun w/the children. Not long ago we tapped a maple and got around 2 gallons! WAY down here in southern NC, just 15 minutes from SC! Of course, cooked down we got just a few tablespoons of syrup, and it tasted like marshmallows, but hey, it was fun! :lol: When you start sugaring for good, i'll start begging to buy some.

Sounds great!

I went to a maple sugaring event, and the guy had some nice budget-oriented ideas for how to make taps from dowels and using milk jugs for pails. Just in case you want to go ahead and tap all 50 this coming winter. :)

Sounds great!

I went to a maple sugaring event, and the guy had some nice budget-oriented ideas for how to make taps from dowels and using milk jugs for pails. Just in case you want to go ahead and tap all 50 this coming winter. :)

Well *right this minute* is when we'd need to do it for this season. We are planning to tap all 50 this winter, and yep that would be our plan, to do the taps as cheaply as possible (but honestly, if we can swing it $wise, we might use line and have it all drip into a large collection bucket aka a huge food grade pail of some sort - all our trees are in a line and that would make it much easier).

The time-consuming part is not the taps but the sugaring arch and stove setup. We need at least a 3-sided pole shed to work in, plus have to build a setup so that we can boil off large quantities of sap at once. A few trees = you can sugar on your stovetop. 50? Not so much. You'd have gobs of steamy, slightly sticky evaporating water everywhere and it would be overwhelming (and not good for the lungs). The steam generated is intense.

Mother Earth News has a great article from 1975 on cheap backyard sugaring - that is what we're using as a guide. :) In fact for real homesteading flavor we will cut dowels from our elderberry bushes when we trim them this spring. ;) They have hollow stems and when dried are perfect for taps. Lasagna pans, firebricks to build an arch, scrap wood underneath to fire it. (That's the other obstacle for this year - we don't have tons of wood left, or any scrap wood gathered, to fire up a stove for weeks at a time. And we have 4 feet of snow cover over any potential spot for a sugarhouse/pole shed. We just basically, *have* to build all this before the snow flies in the fall so we're ready to go next March.)

I so wouldn't want all those animals (I'm good with the trees--not so much the animals), but I'm so glad for you! You're one of the mamas or whom I can say, I remember when... Your life has been through a lot of changes in the past 8 or so years!

Marina - I tried to quote you but it messed up - but that is so cool about the syrup! :D

Yep that is what they call them, it is a "technical" farming term - browsers. :) Meaning they eat small trees and thick brush, not just grass.

I so wouldn't want all those animals (I'm good with the trees--not so much the animals), but I'm so glad for you! You're one of the mamas or whom I can say, I remember when... Your life has been through a lot of changes in the past 8 or so years!

I know...I am kind of floored myself. It has been a wild ride. I remember sitting in my air-conditioned house in the suburbs in Florida, *dreaming* about this.

It has taken a long time for me to get dh on board with the animals. It has been a slow process, believe me, and we have thought long and hard before committing to the bigger animals. But we feel ready now and it is what we both want. I would not have wanted to get into this without him fully on board. He has really come around. We had cast about for whether we wanted to raise for profit - some sort of value-added, niche business, not big-time farming, or "just" homestead, and I think we're feelin' it for homesteading. :D The focus on our "big picture" goal has made the little pieces and steps fall into place now.

Sorry! I'm going on and on. I'm really just very caffeinated and excited this morning. I need to get back to work so I can pay for that preggie cow. :D

It *is* cold up there, huh? Sugaring ended here a few weeks ago. :D

it snowed here last night, lol

That's cool lauren! Sawyer is trying to talk his dad into doing some major tapping at his place next year. We do about 6 trees here and get enough syrup for ourselves for the year. He uses milkjugs and a little tubing at each tree and then collects it all in a 5 gallon bucket each night.
we let it get going on the woodstove that is going all the time anyway and finish it off on the regular stove. A window fan in the kitchen keeps it from getting all steamy in the house. :)

it snowed here last night, lol

That's cool lauren! Sawyer is trying to talk his dad into doing some major tapping at his place next year. We do about 6 trees here and get enough syrup for ourselves for the year. He uses milkjugs and a little tubing at each tree and then collects it all in a 5 gallon bucket each night.
we let it get going on the woodstove that is going all the time anyway and finish it off on the regular stove. A window fan in the kitchen keeps it from getting all steamy in the house. :)

Cool! That sounds like a perfect plan. :) Our woodstove doesn't heat its top enough to steam water this time of year - we'd have to keep it at a roaring blaze to do that, it'd be roasting hot in our house, we barely use the woodstove as is in these temps, and I'm worried about too much sap boiling and J's lungs even with ventilation - so other than having one panful at a time going on the stovetop (maybe? would it take days and days? could I set it on the woodstove while I go out so I can turn off the burners?), I'm just not willing to do it this year. But next year... :D look out. It just seems to make sense if we're gonna do it, to do a line along the 50 trees that are in a perfect line going downhill, set up outdoors for boiling, and do it.

I can't wait to hear if you guys can do more tapping next year. :D That is great. Thanks for sharing how you do it! I wish we had a wood-fired spot hot enough to boil it, then I would just try it and see how Jake did - if he started coughing I'd stop.

We're in the suburbs of Florida now and it is killing DH. He wants to be out on the land so much.

Congratulations on pulling the dream into reality.

It *is* cold up there, huh? Sugaring ended here a few weeks ago. :D

Yeah...sigh. This is "early" season. We could still run taps. It's barely above freezing during the day right now. But, our local news is full of how hard this year is, with sugarmakers on stepladders to get to the taps they ran in early winter, because of our four-foot plus snow. Yes, we have over four freaking feet of snow on the ground in most spots. So, for us to snowshoe in to do taps, snowshoe out with buckets - it would be hard. It's a ton of area to clear with the tractor now...but next year maintaining a trail to the downhill part of the trees will be easy. :) Hard to explain without being on the land here...but basically - it's hard to get to our trees right now! :D

Well, you'll be all set for next year, at least! I'll be all jealous and want to help you skim the boiling sap and add wood to the fire. It sure seems like a cool hobby.

Wow how exciting! that's a lot of chickens to take care of, but I realize to have a chicken a week like we do now that is what is would take :) Ahhh, maybe someday.....we're still in the dreaming phase ;) (and I want a Jersey!)

Oh man. I didn't want to start a whole new thread. But a white weasel/ermine got our chickens - 3 of them - and ate their heads off. Dh shot it with his 4-10 shotgun which I no longer resent him buying. That m-f'ing weasel! It ran off then ran back around to the woodpile and just looked up at dh. Dh woke to hear some sort of funny noise, then ran out and found that they were being attacked. Poor things are totally freaked and clucking right now.

So he is out there right now mercy killing one that wasn't quite dead and butchering all 3. Ack. But better than wasting the meat. They'll only be good for stew.

This is when I hate having chickens. Every freaking thing comes and tries to eat them.

I'm so sorry Lauren. :eyes: Do weasels carry rabies? We had a (insert explicative) raccoon. They eat the head off too, and it's a horrific sight. And raccoons around here are known for carrying rabies, so we didn't even touch the chicken without gloves. (though animal control, from whom we got a trap, might have just been overly cautious) We ran electrified wire around the bottom of the chicken's area and the raccoon got zapped one evening and thankfully never came back. Was it any of your special girls? Well, they're all special, but I mean special special.

I'm so sorry Lauren. :eyes: Do weasels carry rabies? We had a (insert explicative) raccoon. They eat the head off too, and it's a horrific sight. And raccoons around here are known for carrying rabies, so we didn't even touch the chicken without gloves. (though animal control, from whom we got a trap, might have just been overly cautious) We ran electrified wire around the bottom of the chicken's area and the raccoon got zapped one evening and thankfully never came back. Was it any of your special girls? Well, they're all special, but I mean special special.

I just read up quickly and it seems that weasels, mink and ermine very rarely carry rabies. It didn't seem rabid. Maybe we'll have the ermine's body tested by the extension service before we eat the chickens. I wouldn't eat it if it was a raccoon because of the rabies thing, I think.

It was our smallest Red and a Buff who had an egg in her. The Red was not the best layer but the Buff was a good one. And the third, who Matt gave some time to see if she'd recover, then put her out of her misery, was Tiger. :eyes: One of our Ameracaunas and a very sweet and friendly chicken. So that's super sad. I haven't told Katie yet.

ETA: Cooking kills rabies.

Wow how exciting! that's a lot of chickens to take care of, but I realize to have a chicken a week like we do now that is what is would take :) Ahhh, maybe someday.....we're still in the dreaming phase ;) (and I want a Jersey!)

50 chickens is not really different than 25 IMO...and the meat birds finish out in 8-10 weeks, so it's a quick process, kwim? To have 50 layers - I think we're ready. It will mean processing 40-50 eggs a day but that is manageable to me. Feeding and watering are not a big deal once you have the setup; it just means doing it more frequently (and we'll probably buy a used grain storage bin and look into buying it in greater bulk and organic).

Here's a little bit on the Highlands. I'm in love. :hbeat: Our farmer friends know we want a pregnant cow this spring and it sounds like it's really going to happen!

"Highland Cattle: A Breed Apart" by Victoria Vargas (http://www.homestead.org/LivestockDirectory/VictoriaVargas/HighlandCattle.htm)

I'm so sorry Lauren! :(

How very cool! It is amazing when your dreams come to reality. Our cow just freshened yesterday. Such a blessing!

n/t

Sorry, Lauren. I meant to post a separate thread. Editing to fix this.