Hen of the Woods

This is 11 pounds of Hen of the Woods mushroom. Grifola frondosa, which also goes by the common name Sheep's Head, is a fantastically good eating mushroom. Add to that the fact that it would be almost impossible to mistake anything else for it and you will understand why this is one of my favorites. This is the third year we have picked from the same area so if you find one remember to look again next year. Specimens over 100 pounds have been found but this 11 pound cluster is fairly normal. This one is safely dried and stored away, ready to add it's distinctive touch to many meals to come. I like to powder some of the dried mushroom and use it as you would use a spice in almost any meat dish. A Cream of Mushroom soup made with these has the unfortunate side effect of making any other mushroom soup you try bland and unappetizing. Look for Hen of the Woods near the base of  big,old hardwoods, especially oaks.

Wool Gathering

  Here I am with my trusty helper,Lily. Fortunately watching me type turned out to be boring so she has gone back to harassing the cat. The cat doesn't seem to mind that much as she only occasionally uses her claws to discourage Lily's interest.
   The most viewed post for this week was one I called, DIY Drum Carder. I have had several request for plans from that post and am sorry to say I do not have any. Most of my projects come about when a need runs into a pile of junk within the depths of my shop. I very seldom start out with more than a rough idea of how the thing is going to work. I just start building with what ever I have on hand that will do the job. Sometimes a project will stall due to lack of parts and sit for months until that  AH HA moment when something shows up that will work.The point I'm trying to make is that these projects are not necessarily designed all that well but were designed to work with what I had.
  All that said, I am perfectly happy to answer questions about these projects, just don't expect A to Z directions on how you should build them.

Here is one pic of part of our garden. Closest row cabbage, broccoli in next row, then Poc Choi, garlic in the back row. This years garden is doing very good so far. If we don't get a early frost it will be the best in quite a few years. The cucumber beetles have wrecked one variety of squash but the other varieties of squash and pumpkins seem to be more resistant and have not shown signs of wilt yet despite fairly high counts on the cucumber beetles. I will not plant that particular variety of squash again. Variety selection can mean the difference between a good crop and a poor crop when it comes to organic gardening. No sign of any blight on tomatoes and potatoes which has had me worried since it has been a wet ,humid summer. Those conditions foster blight and wilt problems.

These are black raspberries which are doing good this year as all the berries seem to be doing. I even have blossoms on my lingon berries which is a first. I re-acidified the soil around them and added lots of bark mulch/compost so maybe that's what they needed. I've also started building my perma- culture beds around the existing raspberry plantings. The idea there is to duplicate the conditions I see wild berries doing good in. I am mixing large amounts of wood, both solid logs and chipped brush, with soil in a mound around the canes.I give the whole thing a big dose of mushroom spawn to help start breaking down the wood.So far it seems to be working very well for the raspberries and I will be trying it on some of my new blueberry plantings this year. I'll get some pics when I do that and show a in-depth look at what I'm doing.

OK, Let's Try That Again.

I am going to try this blogg'in thing again on a more leisurely schedule, one a month or so. I was going at it there for a while with two or three post a week and just burned out. It is hard to come up with new topics constantly since homestead life tends to redo the same basic things each year. I choose the pic for this week cause pie is what's for breakfast today! Fresh baked wild blueberry pie to be exact.
  We did a short road trip north to the shore of Lake Superior this past weekend for some berry picking. This is turning into the best berry year I have seen for a while. The trip was very relaxed and laid back so we did not pick nearly as many berries as we could have but it was a great weekend. We will probably make another serious berry picking run this coming week and stock up on these blue beauties while we can. We also managed to pick a few quarts of nice Juneberries while there. The Juneberry crop near us was a fail this year. Nanny berries look good right now as do the hazelnuts. Our gardens are looking good,especially all the cabbage,broccoli, kohlrabi,and even those little green balls of death, brussels spouts.My new horseradish planting seems to really be taking off and the herb section has produced great.
  I will be getting some current photos uploaded soon and then I think I will revisit some of the more popular post and do a update on those.

Catch'in Up

Things are getting back to normal around here so I should have time to write a bit again. We have finally gotten into a more normal weather pattern and haven't had any snow or freezing temperatures for several weeks now. I managed to keep all my transplants in the greenhouse going and have started setting out all the cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi,and brussels sprouts. All of those can take cooler temperatures as can the onions which we are started on .Potatoes and peas will be on the schedule after that and then the warm weather crops like tomatoes, corn, and peppers. We took a few days over the last few weeks for some foraging. Ramps are up in all of our usual picking spots but we haven't picked any yet. Ostrich fern fiddle heads should be up this week if temperatures stay warm. Not much for mushrooms yet although morels are about due to appear. We have been busy with a bunch of new projects but I'll save those for later this week. If anyone in the northcentral Wisconsin area has a hankering for ramps we will be picking next week. Price will be $1.00 per ounce, fresh. Email us here or message us on facebook.

Done Sugar'in

We ended our maple syrup season with our best year ever, making a total of 35 1/2 gallons of syrup. After last years 7 quart season it was a welcome change. Considering that maple syrup makes up a big part of our sugar supply it was nice to see a reserve building up in our pantry for times like last year. We like to be as self sufficient as possible and having our own sugar is one more step in that direction. We have made actual maple sugar some years but just kept it all as syrup this year. I did slip a few gallons of partially finished sap into a

fermentor to try a maple mead recipe I found. Of course as with most things that are cooked, the work starts when the cooking is done. All of the buckets, bags, and barrels have to be scrubbed out before they are stored away until next year. Maple sap contains 2-5 percent sugar which means everything it was in is slightly sticky. If not washed up properly it will all grow a lovely coat of mold. I got that job done yesterday and every thing neatly packed away. I want to make those little sheet metal roofs for all the buckets before next season. Keeping extra water from snow or rain out of the buckets will mean less time cooking to get rid of it. I have about 125 buckets left which I am replacing with the bags as the buckets get damaged or break. The only problem I have with the bags is the fact that they only last a couple years so there is that added expense. With syrup season over I can now concentrate on catching up on a few other projects. I have gotten all my seeds in the greenhouse going but now they are forecasting freezing temps at night again! I really do wish the weather would cooperate a bit.

Took a little time off from our chores to take Lily for a walk. Here she is with Ann . We took her to a park where she had a chance to interact with a few strangers and  another dog. She really is quick to adjust to everything we have throw at her so far.  Here is one more pic of the high water at Big Falls, Jump River.

Modern Inconveniences

It is surprising how many everyday tasks we now use electricity to do. A good example that I never gave a thought to before we went off grid was making a slice of toast. Living with the amount of electricity that a couple of car batteries holds makes electric toasters out of the question. During cold weather the wood fire in our cook stove does the job in about the same amount of time an electric toaster would. The big difference is that when you put your bread on the stove, it is not advisable to walk away unless you like your toast very dark!

 Making coffee is another example. An old fashion percolator does that job easily, on the cook stove in winter and often over a campfire in summer. We also have a bottle gas cook stove which is fine for the percolator but does not work that well for making toast. It is easy to understand why our ancestors abandoned many of the traditional methods of doing some of these sorts of tasks when electricity became commonly available. Convenience. It is so much easier to push down the lever on the toaster and go about your business compared to standing next to a hot cook stove and watching that your toast doesn't go up in smoke.If I put on a pot of coffee and run out side on some errand and forget about it, I end up drinking very strong coffee. Using electricity is really about saving time. All of the automated appliances save time for you to do other things. Not using all that electricity makes you stay with the task at hand. Most times, getting that slightly smokey slice of toast fresh off the fire and spreading some home made butter or jam on it is well worth the time spent standing still and watching for a bit.

Lily, Our German Shepard Dog

Meet the latest addition to our family. This is Lily, a registered German Shepard Dog, who is nine weeks old. We got her from a friend of ours, Lisa Slattery, owner of Dirt Road Kennel. She is a sharp little pup, already comes to her name and sits for her treats. The house cats are not as impressed as I am!
  On the maple syrup front, it is full speed ahead. It is rapidly approaching our best year ever. Even though the sugar content seems a little low the trees are producing sap at a tremendous rate. If by some chance the weather forecasters are right we should have at least another week of good syrup making weather. I have several hundred gallons of sap waiting right now and haven't collected yet today. Fire wood has become my big problem. I did not have nearly enough cooker wood lined up for this years run so I am making it on the go. The reason we are having such a good year is the weather of course. While I love it from a sugar making direction , UGGGG! I am sick of snow! Here is the view when I went out yesterday.

 It was only a few inches but that was a few inches on top of the foot to a foot and a half that is still there. It has rained several times too and with that and the snow that has melted, when you step through the snow it is as likely as not that there is six inches of water under it. I've pulled over a hundred taps because the water is too deep to move around in easily. These were all taps that are a long ways from the cabin and it was too hard to get them emptied every day. I still have close to two hundred in so I won't run out of work .
 Don't even ask about the green house. The cabin is over flowing with seed trays. I will have to keep them in here at least until they germinate. By then maybe I'll be done with cutting wood for the maple syrup cooker and I can start cutting for the green house heater.