Author Archives: Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Sweet times on the farm

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I looooove maple syrup. Growing up, every spring my parents went to a Mennonite farm and bought gallons of pure maple syrup. Then they put it into containers and froze it, so we had it for the whole year. It was always a sad day late in the winter when we ran out of syrup.

Sorry, Aunt Jemima, you’re just not for me.

You can imagine how excited I am to be making our own maple syrup this year.

We jumped right in to tapping our trees with little thought to how we’d transform the sap into syrup. A lot of what I saw online talked about evaporators or cauldrons over fires. Pretty much everything said, “Do not boil sap indoors.”

We have neither an evaporator nor a cauldron, however. Nor did we have a ton of sap, so Matt and I threw caution to the wind and decided we were going to boil our sap inside on the stove. Daring, I know.

We selected some large pots–including our big roasting pan, dumped in the sap, set the burners to high and turned on the exhaust fan to suck out the steam. And you know what? It totally worked!

Boiling sap on the stove to make maple syrup

On an average evening, we found about 12 litres of sap was a good quantity. It fit in our pots easily and didn’t fill the house with too much steam. After boiling for about 3 and a half hours, the sap had transformed into syrup.

At first we just judged by colour and flavour, but Matt progressed to measuring the temperature. He found online that 218ºF (103ºC or so) was the magic number.

Tip to anyone who wants to try making syrup indoors, we used the soup pot as a finishing pot and transferred the sap from the roasting pan into the soup pot for the last half hour of boiling

Boiling sap on the stove to make maple syrup

The ratio for sap to syrup that we found online was 40:1, and that was our experience too. 12 litres (12,000mL) of sap made about 1 1/2 cups (375mL of syrup).

This picture shows another neat thing I’ve learned about syrup. I knew it came in different grades or colours, but I thought it was just the amount of boiling time that determined what grade your syrup was. It turns out it’s early versus late in the season. The jar on the left is from our second boil, and the one on the right is our fourth. See how the colour is subtly darker in the older syrup?

Homemade maple syrup

An aside about these old Crown canning jars. How perfect is the made in Canada label?

Homemade maple syrup in a Crown canning jar made in Canada

I’m loving having maple syrup again. It’s sweetened a lovely pumpkin soup, made a beautiful golden topping on vanilla ice cream (one of my favourite ways to eat it) and of course added just what was missing to my favourite meal of the day, breakfast.

Homemade maple syrup on French toast

I’m trying to be a bit frugal and not eat it all at once. We already have two full jars in the freezer, so I’m hoping to remember my childhood and make it stretch as long as I possibly can.

Are there any other maple syrup snobs out there? Have you ever made your own syrup? Any tips to share–whether for inside or outside boiling? Do you have a favourite maple syrup recipe?

Starting from seed

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Sarah may be in Illinois, but her mind is in the same place mine is–the vegetable garden. However, Sarah’s doing something that I’ve never tried before–starting her own plants from seed. She’s sharing the lessons she’s learned and the progress she’s made so far.

Every year Steve and his parents have grown a very large garden. And when I came along six years ago, I jumped right in to help and have become more and more interested every year.

I had always planted a few tomato and pepper plants before, but until I started helping at Steve’s I had never seen broccoli, or cabbage or brussel sprouts growing in a garden.

For several seasons I have tried to start plants from seed. And that usually starts off great and then fails miserably.

Steve likes to say that I have a “brown thumb” but that isn’t really true.

I just am terrible at hardening off the starts. I am impatient, and I am forgetful! So I push plants to be ready when they are not, and I forget to water them or forget to bring them in during the hardening phase.

This year I am going to use my “word for the year” that I mentioned around New Year’s and I am going to FOCUS on the hardening off process.

Starting plants from seed

This weekend I started my first seeds. I looked up online when the last predicted frost for my area will be and it said April 18. So I thought this was the perfect time to start some kale and lettuce.

Now I am going to make note here for the future that Steve says his farming sources predict a late frost for us and that we could get a frost up until May 5. That is a huge difference and I am really curious which source will be more accurate.

Over the next week or two, I plan to also start tomatoes and pepper plants from seed.

I found some plants on sale and used a black marker to label them. I was sure to not only write the variety of the plant but on the back I also wrote the brand of the seed. That way I can make notes of which seeds worked best and then I will have reference of where to buy my seeds in the future.

My mom and I had placed a small order for seeds and plants and those arrived last week. So besides the kale and lettuce seeds, I also had to do something with the strawberry and asparagus starts that I had ordered. Since I do not have my raised beds ready yet, I just stuck them in a bucket and pot temporarily. But now making those raised beds needs to be a priority.

Strawberry and asparagus starts in a bucket

While I was digging through my gardening supplies I found a grocery bag with daffodil bulbs from last fall. So when I say I am forgetful, I am not exaggerating.

Daffodil bulbs

I stuck them in the ground since they were still alive, and I reminded myself that “FOCUS” has to remain my theme!

Next post I will update with the progress of my seeds.

Do you have a green thumb or a brown thumb? Do you have any helpful hints for the hardening off process? Do you have trouble staying focused?

Good luck, Sarah. Funnily enough, plants are one area where I get impatient or forgetful too. I hope you find your focus this year. I’m looking forward to following your progress–and seeing who’s right about the last frost.

Getting sappy

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We have a new project for these last few days of winter. We’re tapping our maple trees!

Tapping maple trees

I picked up a basic starter kit at the hardware store. It came with five buckets, five lids and five spiles.

Backyard maple syrup kit

Thankfully the kit also came with instructions on how to get started. We selected trees that were the right size, drilled holes, stuck the spiles in, and watched the magic happen.

Tapping maple trees

The sap started flowing as soon as we drilled the holes. Matt was impatient saying, “Stop taking pictures! We’re wasting sap!” (Picture Kermit arm flailing). The maple syrup has totally turned into Matt’s thing.

Tapping maple trees

The spiles, buckets and lids all hook together in a pretty simple system. The sap travels up the tree, into the spile and then drips into the bucket.

Tapping maple trees

Tapping maple trees

Tapping maple trees animated gif

The sap run this year hasn’t been terrific. Last week temperatures shot up, and I had high hopes for a a lot of sap. However, the temperatures were so high that even night was above freezing. Apparently cold nights are critical for sap.

However, we have had a few good days where Matt had to empty the buckets several times.

Tapping maple trees

To collect the sap, Matt takes my biggest stock pot outside and empties the buckets into the pot. Then in the house we strain the sap to get out any dirt or bugs or twigs and put it in big containers in the fridge until we’re ready to move on to the syrup stage–which I’ll talk about in my next post.

Have you ever tapped trees? Are you trying anything new this time of year? What’s your big spring project?

The fireplace gets a German accent

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It occurs to me that I haven’t shown you our winter mantel yet.

This year is pretty similar to last year. The snowshoes, the candles, the antlers, the lantern.

But there is one new addition.

Courtesy of Matt.

Autographed Heino album on the mantel

I’m not sure why this has to go on the mantel.

Autographed Heino album

Apparently, back in high school when instant messaging was just getting going (oh Lord, I just did the math and that was 20 years ago… holy moly), Heino was Matt’s avatar.

I don’t think Matt was a particular Heino fan. I’m not sure he’s even heard his music. Don’t ask me to decipher the mind of a teenage boy.

Somehow, his oldest brother remembered this, and when he saw this autographed Heino album in a thrift store the other week, he bought it for Matt.

Autographed Heino album

And now it’s on our mantel.

Fortunately, spring is almost here, so I’ll be redecorating soon and the winter mantel (along with Heino) can move on.

In the meantime, I leave you for the weekend with Heino, a Hit Medley. You’re welcome.

Who else’s partner “helps” with decorating around the house? Do you remember IMing with your friends–way back before texting? Better yet, do you remember your avatar? Do you collect vinyl (despite appearances, we do not)? Is anyone a Heino fan?

Thisclose to a breakthrough

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I’ve had this whole “break-on-through” post that I’ve been planning. You see, all winter I’ve been working my way through our woodpile. It’s three rows wide, and I’ve been slowly using up the back two rows. (Matt, the official woodcutter in our relationship, would argue it’s not been slow enough).

Loading firewood into the washtub

Well, I was almost at the end. I had snapped some pictures showing how far I’d come, anticipating the day when I would break through.

Woodpile

Then I would take my final pictures and write a blog post where I talk about how happy I am that we have a fireplace, how nice it’s been to have fires all winter, how it’s almost the end of winter and how neat it is that this breakthrough moment coincides with almost the end of fire season, how we (Matt) will have to restock our firewood in anticipation of next winter.

I had it all worked out in my mind.

But then something happened. Cave in.

Collapsed woodpile

There will be no breakthrough.

There will be restacking, more burning (sorry, Matt). And instead you get this blog post, mourning what could have been, rather than triumphantly celebrating a milestone.

Okay, maybe milestone isn’t the best descriptor, but I’d worked it all out, people!

I blame the turkey.

Her footprints are all around that woodpile.

Turkey tracks around the woodpile

Close encounters of the turkey kind

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Matt has a thing for wild turkeys. So you can guess that this made his day.

Wild turkey looking in the window

For me, walking into the laundry room and seeing a turkey peering through the window was a bit disconcerting.

Wild turkey looking in the window

Teri showed up about two weeks ago. At first, we saw turkey tracks all around the house. Then we saw the turkey.

While turkeys are usually shy and private, Teri is social and curious.

She clucked around outside the kitchen window while I was making my breakfast the one morning. And then she walked around the house to pace in front of the dining room when I sat down to eat.

According to the footprints in the snow, she has even climbed right up to the kitchen window sill.

As I’m not inviting a wild bird in for breakfast, we’ve sprinkled some grain in the side flowerbed where she seems to spend most of her time.

Wild turkey tracks in the snow

Teri’s presence took a bit of getting used to.

Matt, Baxter and I each spooked her several times in the first few days after her arrival. Having a turkey erupt right in front of you and violently woosh-woosh-woosh her wings as she attempts to lift off and fly to the nearest tree is possibly even more disconcerting than having the same turkey attempt to help with the laundry.

She appears to spend her days doing laps around the house. We’ve gotten a bit accustomed to each other, and she doesn’t spook quite as much anymore. We’re also conscious to check where she is and try not to infringe on her personal space.

Wild turkey walking around the house

Baxter doesn’t have quite the same sensitivity and wants to get as close to the turkey as possible. There have been long staring sessions into the woods beside the house (where she sometimes retreats when we come outside) and lots of conversations about “no, you can’t follow the turkey tracks.”

I gotta say, there are moments when I ask, “Is this really my life?” Even though it’s sometimes disconcerting, I love living here.

“What do you mean ‘disconcerting’?”

Wild turkey hen

Blog-iversary 4

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Thanks everyone for celebrating our fourth farm-iversary with us earlier this week. I really appreciate all of you who follow along with our adventures. Today I’m going to go into a bit more detail about all of you, my followers and readers.

Along with this week being our farm-iversary, it also marks the anniversary of when I started my blog. My usual tradition for my blog-iversary is to take a look back at some of my stats.

In total over the last four years, the blog has had more than 191,600 views and 259 of you have signed up as official followers. I’ve published 632 posts–151 of them in the last year–and uploaded 2,394 pictures, graphics and videos.

Over the past year, this little blog of mine has had 73,924 views and 36,909 visitors. The average number of views each day were 203.

Here’s how things have developed over the past four years (WordPress didn’t track visitors back when I first started blogging).

Views in the fourth year of blogging

Visitors came from 153 different countries, mostly the U.S., Canada and the U.K. There were some surprises in the top 10 countries this year: Slovenia, Turkey and Uruguay. I still find it cool how the blog has connected me with people all over the world.

  1. United States — 46,408
  2. Canada — 13,068
  3. United Kingdom — 2,883
  4. Australia — 1,753
  5. Germany — 1,457
  6. Slovenia — 702
  7. Turkey — 689
  8. Uruguay — 451
  9. Switzerland — 395
  10. Netherlands — 391

Top blog views by country

The One Room Challenge strikes again when it comes to bringing visitors to the blog. All of my ORC posts from 2015 made it into the top 10 posts of the past year.

  1. One Room Challenge Week 6 – Master bedroom reveal — 1,000
  2. Making DIY dropcloth curtains – 8 lessons learned — 474
  3. One Room Challenge Week 4 – Update sliding closet doors with beadboard wallpaper — 427
  4. One Room Challenge Week 5 – Professional help — 243
  5. One Room Challenge Week 3 – Master bedroom headboard — 195
  6. “Wait-no-more” organizing challenge — 163
  7. One Room Challenge Week 2 – Master bedroom progress report — 151
  8. One Room Challenge – Master bedroom makeover — 141
  9. The Porch Jacking: Chad’s Crooked House — 139
  10. Scorched Earth — 115

Something new that I tried this year were inviting different bloggers to do a few more guest posts, including the My Favourite Tool series and regular posts from Sarah in Illinois. One of the things I really enjoy about blogging is connecting with other bloggers, and these guest posts are one way to do that.

The other thing I love about blogging is connecting with all of you–my readers. Thanks for being part of our journey so far. There’s more to come.

Farm-iversary 4

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As I write this the dog is asleep beside the fire. The cat is in the barn. The house is cozy. I look through the window and in the glow from the barn lights I can see the snow covering the ground. Beyond that there are trees, trails, fields, ponds, creeks. Together, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted when I thought of home.

Sunrise over the farm

Today is the fourth anniversary of the day the farm became ours.

Four years ago–actually long before that–we knew this is what we wanted. But the idea of a farm was abstract. We had no idea what it was to have a farm. Nor did we have any idea how much it was right for us.

So many people seem to share that dream of moving to the country. And it’s a beautiful dream.

The reality is also beautiful. In many ways it’s our dream come true. But in many ways it’s also more than we ever dreamed of.

While the reality is beautiful, it’s also hard–and we’re not farmers. This life, this type of property, this atmosphere isn’t for everyone. I think often that I’m so glad we’ve been able to hack it. We can handle the work. We can handle the drive to get anywhere. We can handle the winter… and the mosquitoes (summer) and the mud (spring) and the clean-up (fall). We can handle the complications and the scope and the challenges.

I don’t know how to describe quite what this farm means to me or what it’s like being here.

Matt and I in front of the farm

Matt and me on home inspection day 4 years ago

I’m grateful that Matt and I have been able to make this happen. That it’s turned out to be right for us. That we’ve made our dreams come true.

This is not the post I planned to write for our farm-iversary. And I want to add disclaimers about more work to do and renovations and landscaping. But tonight those don’t seem to matter. Four years ago, I started to live one of my dreams. It’s been a pretty amazing opportunity. Something I don’t take for granted and that is incredibly meaningful for me. And I guess I wanted to say that here.

Spring cleaning

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Sarah in Illinois is here to start off the week. Sarah’s looking ahead to spring–and beyond–and has a great tool to share with us.

I am the type of person that likes to be organized, have a plan, make lists, etc. It makes me feel more focused on the job at hand, and I am more comfortable when I feel I have direction. One thing I did to feel more organized this year was to sign up for a daily email from Spring Cleaning 365. Each day I get an email with one small job to focus on for the day.

Obviously I don’t need anyone to tell me that I need to clean my toilet, or put a load of laundry in, but these emails remind me of some tasks that get overlooked.

When was the last time you took out the bottom drawers of your refrigerator and cleaned underneath? Or the last time you disinfected your TV remote? If you’re anything like me, it has probably been a while!

So I like the emails because they remind me of the areas that I usually overlook. The goal from the website is to do one small task a day and then you won’t spend much time on it, but I find it is usually works out that I do one or two a week and use the weekends to catch up.

Tupperware

This weekend one of the projects I tackled was to sort my plastic storage containers. Between using them for leftovers and taking my lunch to work every day, we have a lot of containers. But over time many have lost their mates. So I took all pieces out of my cabinets and drawers and made matches.

Tupperware

Why did we have so many lids and so few bottoms!?

I couldn’t believe how many tops and bottoms had lost their mates. We had all of these extras left over. I am going to take the extras to my mom to see if she can make any matches with hers and then all the rest are going to be recycled. And now my cabinets and drawers close much easier.

I did do a little work on our home improvement projects this week. Steve installed baseboard and door trim in our hallway last week and I finally took an evening and primed them. Next, I need to prime and paint the walls and put a coat of paint on the trim.

Hallway before

Before

Hallway after

After

The hallway will lead to the addition on the house. So the drywall you see at the end of the hall is where we will extend the hallway to two new bedrooms.

I have drawn out the floorplan and started my list of materials, so I can prepare an estimate for us and for the bank. As I think I have mentioned before, we are doing all of the work ourselves, so we will be our own estimators, designers, builders and coordinators. I am nervous and excited all at once.

What have you been working on in your home? Have you started any spring cleaning? Have you ever tackled a large home improvement project on your own? Does anyone have any advice for us on being our own project manager?

Spring Cleaning 365 sounds really neat, Sarah. Thanks for sharing it. Funnily enough, Matt and I did a tupperware cleanout ourselves last weekend. Although I cannot remember when I last cleaned under the fridge drawers, and I don’t think I’ve ever disinfected the remote.

No till vegetable gardening

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The no till philosophy has gained traction in farming. The more I learn about vegetable gardening, I’m realizing no till also applies on a smaller scale.

If you’re not familiar with no till, it basically means undisturbed soil is healthier soil.

Our experience with our vegetable garden last year really brought this home for me. We built the garden in an area that hadn’t been touched–at all–the whole time we’ve owned the farm. I don’t know how long it had been abandoned before then.

Longe ring

Inside the fence, grass and weeds grew as high as they wanted. Every fall they died. Over the winter and spring, the dead grass was matted down by snow and rain. New growth sprouted in the spring and grew high over the summer. Rooted in the fertile soil, the new sprouts fed on the previous year’s plants which were slowly decomposing around them.

When we cleared the ring and planted vegetables in place of the weeds and grass, the vegetables went crazy. They sucked up all of the nutrients from the soil and were super productive.

Vegetable garden harvest

As the season went on and we harvested more and more from the garden, I realized that if I wanted to continue this productivity in future years, I was going to have to focus on the soil.

I’ve heard other gardeners say that gardening isn’t about growing plants. It’s about growing soil.

So that’s why I started a compost bin for all of our kitchen scraps and I spent three weeks spreading a thick layer of manure over the whole garden at the end of the growing season.

Manure in the garden

That’s also why I’m contemplating going no till.

I’m sure this isn’t entirely accurate, but I have this circle of life idea playing in my head. Whatever nutrients the plants take from the soil as they grow are returned to the soil as the plant decomposes (aside from the fruit and vegetables that we eat, of course). So leaving everything untouched and in place means we have complete soil, not deficient in any element.

Last year, I was quite excited to get our hand-me-down rototiller. But the more I learn about gardening, the more I wonder if we should be using it.

Matt and I tilling the garden

I’ve read a bit about the deep mulch method. It’s supposed to be good for weed control, retaining moisture and also for returning nutrients to the soil. (See The Prairie Homestead and Reformation Acres for some info).

We already have a deep layer of straw on the garden thanks to the manure spreading, so maybe we can build on that. My plan is to work towards something like the raised row method from Old Word Garden Farms.

Anyone have experience with no till or mulch gardening? Aside from the health of our soil, my biggest concern is weeds. Any tips for dealing with weeds?