Filed under: April 2023 | Tags: firewood, maple syrup, maple syrup season, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
April 2, 2023
I have no idea where March 2023 went! We were crazy busy with Maple syrup and all things farming. I made a rookie mistake and calculated the due dates of our two mares wrong. They are due in April…not March. They did enjoy a couple extra weeks of maternity leave. I got up a few extra nights for foal watch checks…but then I figured out what I had done. So, we are now making preparations for the new arrivals.
The maple syrup season finished up for us on March 23rd. We boiled until almost midnight that Thursday. We are in cleaning mode now as we get everything disassembled, cleaned and stored for next season. We are happy with the 2023 season, even though we missed the first sap run. We were busy processing our pigs, but we rallied and made it happen. It did add a bit of chaos, but it all turned out well.
We had a couple photo sessions with our stallion Hank. We want to advertise him a bit in the future. He is a handsome fellow!
We think the photos turned out well. Hank will have babies on the ground very soon. Our mares are just days away from foaling and we are very excited. Hank is a registered Suffolk stallion. His full name is Ridgewind Atheling Hank of Indian Mound … Hank for short.
The biggest things we will be occupied with in the coming weeks are the babies of course, but completing the maple clean up, working on next years firewood for syrup, plowing for spring crops and working/training the young horses. Things are settling down. My sister’s house is complete and she is moving in to it. I still have some follow up there, but the intensity is over. So, yes, no fooling, it is indeed April already!
Filed under: March 2023 | Tags: firewood, maple syrup, maple syrup season, memories, Small Farming, Suffolk Punch horses
March 11, 2023
We have been crazy busy here! We completed the hog butchering on the day that hindsight would tell us we should have tapped our maple trees. We missed the first run, but did scramble and have been on track since. The photo above shows a sample from our first boil of 2023.
The contraption sitting on our evaporator with all the pipes, is a preheater. It preheats the sap using the steam. The heated sap enters the evaporator at 180 degrees F. A byproduct of this is hot water from the condensed steam that is collected in the round tank to the left of the picture. Having hot water and plenty of it, is a wonderful thing.
The preheated sap helps me burn less wood too. The steam from the boiling sap, usually just vents out the building, but this allows us to make use of the BTU’s that would otherwise be lost. It has upped my efficiency too, allowing be to boil faster, using less wood. There is still plenty of steam to fill the sky and make me remember my grandparents sugarhouse steaming away in my childhood memories.
I am using our son’s horses to gather sap this year. Our main team Amee and Abby are both on maternity leave. These youngsters have been doing a great job. We haven’t had much snow, but the mud has been plentiful.
A quick shot of our midseason lineup. We are about halfway through the season I think, but Mother Nature will let us know for sure. We got a little “sugar snow” this weekend. “Sugar snow” is a term I grew up with describing a snow while we made syrup in the late spring. We have seen buzzards, robins, a wandering ground hog and just today, red-winged blackbirds. These are all signs of the coming spring. The season will come to a close for us when the maples start to bud out or when I run out of firewood. I am pushing the wood pile to the limit. I want to completely clean out the stored wood. I will fill it all again with wood cut last fall and split when we fill the woodshed. Good dry, well seasoned firewood makes a very hot fire, the very thing needed to boil maple sap.
Our mares, hanging out waiting for their babies to arrive. It looks to me like they are ready for the big day. They are both just due, so in a couple days, we may have pictures of foals to share. In the meantime, I will keep working in the sugarbush and around the farm, waiting on the warm greener days of spring. Tonight we “spring” ahead with our clocks allowing for more daylight in the evening… I think I’m ready.
Filed under: December 2022 | Tags: firewood, maple syrup season, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses
December 31, 2022
The end of the year is here. It is hard to believe that it has flown by.
In the photo above, our four grown up Suffolk horses enjoy their supper before turn out. I gave all of them haircuts and trimmed all the tails and manes. They were due!
Left to right; Hank, the new horse Rosie, Abby and Amee Quite a bit of power on display.
We are sitting through a rainy day. The bitter cold temperatures have left us. Now, we are having unseasonable warm days. Today was 55 F
We have plenty of work to do, but the mud and rain makes for a day off for us all. We will ring in the new year in a few hours. We will make our plans and resolutions and hope that we are blessed for doing it.
Maple days will soon be here. Firewood jobs are plenty. There are many youngsters to keep training and spring work is right around the corner. Instead of looking forward, I will take a minute to look back and reflect on a successful year that was 2022. There were sad days, mad days and glad days. I will hold on to the glad days.
Happy New Year everyone!
Filed under: November 2022 | Tags: firewood, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch horses, Wood hauling
November 26, 2022
We took advantage of a warmer day yesterday to haul wood. The sugarhouse woodshed is filling up. We have a ways to go but made a good amount of progress again yesterday. We set the log splitter up right at the woodshed. We can cut and split as we go, stacking the wood as it comes off the splitter.
A wagon load like this makes for quite a bit of split wood. I would say that we have less than a third to go. I hope to finish up this coming week. The mares had a good day and did a great job as usual. They sure are good working partners. I am glad to have them for my work…especially wood work!
Filed under: November 2022 | Tags: firewood, Small Farming, Suffolk Punch horses, winter preparation
November 12, 2022
What a fabulous November we have enjoyed so far! The temperatures here were in the lower 70’s F. It dried out enough for the harvest to continue at a rapid rate. Our corn crop is in and all the summer hay tools have been stored away. Yesterday we received almost 3 inches of rain. Today snow is in the forecast. Gone are those 70 degree days…boy does that stink.
Many of the outside jobs at my sister’s house are wrapping up too. The siding is the biggest job that remains, but it too is on schedule. There is a lot of planning and work to build a house. I have been reminded of this fact almost daily as I chase materials, parts and manpower. It is coming together and completion looms on the near horizon.
I have quite a few people watching my progress. Many have lent a hand and I appreciate it very much.
The woodshed filling for the sugarhouse, though well started, is still progressing. The hope is to have it full by next week. I just made more projects than I could complete during the good weather, but no worries, I will get it done.
The snow and winter will come if we are ready or not. I can do a lot of work on cold days, as long as it isn’t raining. I hate getting wet, especially working in a cold rain. I would say that stinks too!
Happy Mid-November everyone. Get your outside water hoses in, the air conditioners inside, your tools put away and your firewood finished up. The winter winds will soon blow hard. It will be nice to be able to sit inside on those nasty days, looking out the window drinking a hot beverage, while smiling because all of your work is caught up.
Filed under: August 2022 | Tags: firewood, freezing and canning, gardening, Small Farming, speltz, Suffolk Punch horses
August 2, 2022
The garden has started to reward us for our work of tending it. The harvest season begins slow, but soon we will almost be overwhelmed with fresh produce. My wife works steady canning and freezing so that we can enjoy the taste of summer all year. I do help, but once in awhile I am told to go do something else… I think I might cross the “bossy” line now and then. I am a great production guy. My wife is great in her kitchen. I found out that she doesn’t need me pointing out the obvious. We work well together. We laugh together and we love together. I think the yearly discussion over how the kitchen will be used allows us the reset needed in every relationship. It works for us! It has been working for 30 years this month and I wouldn’t change a thing!
Our young Suffolk filly is now 4 months old. She will get weaned by the end of the month. She is growing well. Her lessons come easy to her. She is shedding her foal hair out and becoming a big girl. She will be separated from mom and left to run with her sister and cousin in a big pasture. She is an independent lass, so I don’t see any real distress in her future. She is eating very well on her own and mostly nurses for comfort these days.
Once the main garden harvest commences, the last of this year’s hay will be cut. So the haying tools can be put away one by one. Then plowing and soil preparation for the fall planted spelt crop will begin. In the meantime, pasture mowing and wood cutting for the maple syrup woodshed fill our time. Training the young horses continues but that is more fun than work. It is hard to believe that the last month of summer has arrived, but the heat and humidity keeps it real! Enjoy the warm days…winter is coming.
Filed under: December 2021 | Tags: draft horses, firewood, maple syrup season, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses
December 30, 2021
I enlisted a little help, but the woodshed is now full! I am ready to boil maple sap for the upcoming 2022 season. This is much later than I usually complete this job, but I will celebrate anyway. It was muddy when we got off the driveway, but Abby and Amee handled it all in stride.
We have more wood that has been split, so a good start on the wood for 2023 season. It is my plan to fill the woodshed at the completion of the 2022 maple season. Once the woodshed has been filled, I want to continue with the cutting and splitting. The goal is to get to the point where we will be almost 2 years ahead on the wood supply. I already have the next 2 years worth of logs piled in a sunny place making this goal easily attainable.
After a day of wet, cold, rain and snow, it feels good to bed down. I don’t care if you are two-legged or 4-legged a warm dry bed is a beautiful thing!
We here at the farm hope all of our readers had a wonderful Christmas. We are also wishing you a Happy New Year. We look forward to each day gifted to us. We make plans, prepare and execute work, but first we ask for our endeavors to be blessed. It is hard at times to wait for things to fall into place, but thankfully they usually do. If things don’t go well, it is best to pause, examine our plans and even our hearts. One thing that I know for sure… God will make a way where there is no way! We just need to focus on the destination and not the journey…. for the journey rests in God’s hands.
Filed under: December 2021 | Tags: Christmas, firewood, home butchering, labor of love, maple syrup, Suffolk Punch horses, Suffolk stallion, woodsplitter
December 24, 2021
It is here, Christmas 2021. This month has been a whirlwind. All sorts of things were out of sorts. My wife got Covid. We spent two weeks away from folks and her under the weather for many days. Thankfully, all is well, but man did it shorten the “getting ready for Christmas” time. I am very thankful that we were healed. I lost two friends due to this illness in the last couple of weeks. My heart goes out to those families.
Our three “main” horses that power our farm, all got their shoes reset. This makes sure their feet are trimmed and they are ready for the coming icy drive and laneway. Hank is coming along good. He took his shoeing and feet trimming all in stride. He will turn 3 next April. He is growing well and fills up the shoeing stock pretty well already.
He continues to be a gentleman who works well with his mares. He is still a youngster, but will soon be a very valuable part of the inner workings of the farm.
We are working our way through the animal harvest, as we butcher and store the meat we have raised this past year. Beef, pork and chicken grace our shelves. We are thankful for those blessings. We even butchered our old laying hens. They gave us eggs for over a year and now will continue to keep us healthy with chicken soup made from their golden broth.
One of my last remaining jobs for 2021 is to finish filling the sugarhouse woodshed with wood for boiling. In most years, I am done by mid summer. This year however, due to all sorts of excuses, bad weather including lots of rain, I am nearing completion of the job. Hats off to a couple of friends who helped me this week to finish the splitting.
This will more than finish filling the shed. It will also give me a head start on next years wood. We use 12 to 15 cords of wood to make our maple syrup. Wood cutting, hauling and splitting takes a while. It is just part of our labor of love to make great Ohio maple syrup, but to me it is worth it!
Our horse-drawn dump cart works very well for this job. The horses and I will get the shed full and this job finished before we ring in the new year. They are all ready now for sure, sporting their new shoes!
Merry Christmas everyone from our farm to yours!
Filed under: September 2021 | Tags: family, firewood, hay making, haying with horses, small farm life, Small Farming, Suffolk Punch horses
September 14, 2021
Last Saturday, 9/11/21, we finished up our haying season. That morning as the dew dried off the hay crop, I watched the tributes on TV of the brave souls who lost their lives 20 years ago during the terrorist attacks on our civilians. My heart was heavy as I watched and waited. I will not forget.
In the week prior to my last round of hay making, we were visited by our daughter and her husband from Maryland. You have to make hay while the sun shines, so even with visitors present, the hay making rolled on. I simply included our guests in the project. They got to drive the horses, even raking some of the crop as they learned about the process first hand. The horses worked well for the novice drivers and my visiting teamsters gained experience and understanding. The smiles were big and the workload was made smaller.
The hay tools have been gathered and will be cleaned and stored in the coming days. It is a bittersweet time as one season ends and another begins. Summer is a fleeting thing and autumn looms near. A few jobs that were delayed by wet, then very hot weather, still wait to be completed, but I’ll get them done soon.
We found out this week that we have been featured on the draft horse desktop calendar for 2022. There are so many teams and teamsters to choose from, gathered from events all over the country and only 12 months to display them. We are humbled to represent the Suffolk horse breed and thank Mischka Press for the privilege.
The little filly in the picture has now been weaned. She is learning all sorts of new things. She has bonded well with her stablemate. Those two young ladies have become great friends. Momma has returned to full work and all is well. The job of preparing the soil for our fall planting of speltz is at hand. Once that job has been completed, corn picking will commence. In any of the days not filled up, we will work on the last of the firewood needed for the upcoming maple syrup season. It sounds like a lot of work when I write it all down, but it is simply a great life!
Filed under: September 2020 | Tags: firewood, harvest, small farm life, Sugarwood
September 10, 2020
Many people think that working in the tree tops requires a person to be up in the air, at the top of a tree. I am working in the tree tops that are laying on the ground from my recent tree harvest. I am salvaging firewood to be used to boil maple sap, to make maple syrup.
I am cutting everything three inches or larger, that didn’t make lumber logs and hauling them out to be cut to length and split. The brush and smaller limbs are being left for homes for small woodland creatures and to rot to enrich the forest floor.
Our harvest consisted of about 60 mature trees. The trees were removed to allow the growth of many smaller trees, predominantly maple, both hard and soft varieties. The trees removed, also allow for mature maples to have more open canopy for crown growth. It also lets in light and air to the forest floor. I can direct some water puddles towards the nearby stream, allowing the water to runoff through the existing leaf litter. This drys the forest, but assures that water quality is improved by the filtering effects of the leaf litter.
Bree is learning lessons as we work towards her weaning. She is not always happy with me. Here she learns patience. I tied her to a fence post far from mom. She did not like it, but soon realized that she would have to wait on me. This was a short lesson of about 35 minutes. It was good for her. She can be strong willed, but yields fairly quickly. Her training continues.
The garden harvest continues. Our animal corn harvest is starting, as I build shocks. Hand picking will begin soon. I picked a few random ears last night. I am happy with what I see so far.
A busy time is coming, but we look forward to the dash to winter!
RicelandMeadows 