Hello friends! It’s been so long since your last visit, but we’re so glad you could stop by in light of the current goings-on. We’ve been so busy here on the farm, so it’ll be nice to sit and chat a while- pull up a chair next to the fire!
So to address the current state of world affairs, the Covid lockdown really hasn’t affected us much at all here. We’re doing great, and staying healthy and fit. We live a simple, quiet life here, so outside of not going to church or seeing friends, it’s life as normal around here. Well, except that our daughter Allison is home from college a couple months sooner than expected. We picked her up to bring her home for spring break, during which time the college moved to online classes for the rest of the semester. We do enjoy having her home, and outside of having to share our very limited internet access, it hasn’t been a challenge at all. We enjoy spending this time with her, and having her around again. She does miss school and her friends though, but she’s kept busy with her job at Subway and her schoolwork. She even took on a new job at Target, so she’s doubling up!
Allison is a bit like her mama, however, as one day I came in from the woodshop to find she had demo’d her stairs. The stairs to her attic suite were old (the treads were old but not original), broken, and had been covered by a second layer, which were then cracked. When you would step just right, the cracks would open and pinch your feet, and being broken, some were loose, and would shift. She took off all the old treads, and we cut and installed new ones using some old salvaged floorboards so she would have nice patina. She finished them with boiled linseed oil, and painted the risers a nice, crisp white, so now she has a beautiful “new” staircase!
Since Allison’s stairs looked so good now, I thought I’d restore the hardware on her door. The attic door features the last remaining original hand-forged thumb latch handle, but someone at some point had tried to pry it off, and the metal was torn. Since it was nailed on with forged nails (which were “clinched”, or bent over on the back side, locking them in place), I had to work it in place on the door. I was able to work it back flat, cleaned it of any paint, and oiled it to preserve it. Then I started working on the original forged hinges, which were covered with so many layers of paint, that the nail heads holding them in place were just lumps. I was able to strip them in place, then once cleaned to their original forged patina, a coating of oil was applied to preserve them.
Since your last visit, we’ve had “sugar season” here. This is when the maple trees are tapped, and syrup is boiled from the sap. We started small, tapping five trees, and boiling sap in an old lobster pot over a fireplace we made from concrete blocks we salvaged from the old chimney (which we removed last summer). It quickly became apparent that this was not going to work, as it took forever to boil the sap, and the sap buckets were filling faster than we could boil it. We stepped up our game, invested in an evaporator, and tapped more trees. The new evaporator was so efficient, that we needed lots of sap to even fire it up (30-40 gallons), so we picked up a couple of food-grade storage barrels we buried in the snow on the shady side of the barn, so we could save it up until we had enough to boil, which really only took a day or two. With eleven taps and the evaporator, we were able to make a bit over five gallons of beautiful maple syrup!
Once sugaring season wrapped up, we turned our attention to the upcoming gardening season. Homesteading, or growing as much of our own food as possible, was one of the large parts of why we wanted to live this lifestyle. Since the yard and area around the house was so torn up the past couple of years with all the structural and grading work, we were looking forward to getting some gardens started. We put in two beds next to the barn, and built three raised beds nearby. We filled the raised beds with soil we dug from under the barn during the structural renovation, which was rich with generations of manure from the barn. So rich, in fact, it was completely depleted of nitrogen, so we’ve been working on amending the soil before we plant. We also cleared some more of the hillside to plant an orchard- we planted six heritage apple trees, and two pears. We’d like to add some cherry, plum, and peach trees at some point. Like everything else around here, we’ve accepted that this will be a process, and may take a year or two before things are just right.
As part of the whole homesteading/historical farmstead theme we’re building here, we wanted to start having some livestock. Thinking a cow would be a steep learning curve, we decided to start with chickens. We picked up some chicks (seven hens, with a rooster coming next week), and when they quickly outgrew the tub we were keeping them in, we built a brooder to house them until they’re big enough to go outside. We have a Light Brahma (Celeste), a Wyandotte (Beverly), a Rhode Island Red (Ginger), two Black Sex-Links (Lulu and Ruth), and two Barred Rocks (Josephine and Edna). They’re extremely friendly, love to sit in our laps, and even Tennessee wants to go out to see them constantly.
We also began building them a coop under the back barn, where they’ll have protection from rain, snow, wind, severe cold or heat, and all the neighborhood predators. The coop has a run (wire-fenced area) built on, so they will have room to be outside, but still be protected, and can get into the coop if they want. The coop has nesting boxes (with a door to collect eggs), roosting bars, windows for light and ventilation, and a large door on the end for cleaning. We even used some panes of tempered glass we picked up for free, along with some barn board scraps, to build some windows we can close up when it’s cold. Channeling our frugal inner Yankee, and Jenny’s tree-hugging, environmentalist hippie side, with the exception of the plywood coop floor and hardware cloth, everything used in its construction is recycled. The boards, screws, hinges, and latches are all recycled from previous purposes, or our stash of repurposed and found hardware parts. Not much goes to waste around here! You’ll even note that the drop-down ventilation door on the back of the coop can be seen in the earlier post about Allison’s stairs- it’s one of the broken tread boards!
We will lock the girls into the coop at night, but will let them into the run during the day- we do plan on letting them out to free range when we’re outside and can keep an eye on them. We’ve planted the area between the stone walls with clover, buckwheat, and grass, so they’ll will have plenty to forage on. We’re hoping the hens will be ready to move to the coop in another week or two.
Every day brings something to do, whether it’s bucking and splitting logs stacked up from having some dead trees taken down, or taking the pup out for a hike on one of the many nearby trails. We really love our simple life here.
With spring in full-swing, even though we had a dusting of snow this morning, there’s life popping up all over the farm. One of our favorite things here is watching the cycle of nature- the crocus kicks things off, then the daffodils and bloodroot, then as the daffodils fade, the phlox are coming up. The trees and lilacs are leafing out- everywhere you look, it’s just beautiful.
We hope you enjoyed catching up as much as we did. We treasure your visits, and look forward to the next time. Feel free to share, comment, or let us know if you have any questions.
Take care, be well, and God Bless!
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