The Harest Has Started!!!!!

Cherry Tomatoes are every where!

Fresh Eggs (Fully formed and not broken anymore)

Oh and chocolate dipped crickets too for the little ones!

Mid-Summer Re-Cap

So like most farms and farmers the summer is the busiest time and doing updates is sometimes put very low on the priority list. So here is my mid-summer update about everything that is going on at the farm

Garden

This year has been a total surprise! The ground I put the garden on was not the best to say the least and I had very little hope of it being productive at all. Add in the fact that I have never had any luck with grow my own starts I figured that this year would just be a mulligan. Turns out I was wrong on all accounts. First the indoor start did great! So good I gave half of them away and have accelerated my plans for expanding the garden for next year.

Also On a fun side-note I was able to get access to some neat tech. I have a FLIR camera on loan that I can use to see the heat and the effects of the sun on my garden. There is a lot of art and science that goes with reading these images but my hope is that I can use them to better plan my garden. But at the very least the tech is fun to use and makes for some awesome pictures.

Chickens

There was a close call with one of the birds but as of today all 8 birds are doing great! Still no eggs but if my calculations are correct they should start laying in the next week or two. I have come to an agreement with the people around me that if the chicken smell gets too much they come to me first to deal with it before going to the authorities. It will only cost me a dozen eggs every now and then.

  Brewing

Sadly this has become very challenging. Not the practice of brewing but finding the supplies. There really isn't any local sources and ordering online is time consuming and tedious. Not much I can do about this except stock up on supplies when I go to the "big" cities. (the joys of living in rural areas). On a positive note this weekend we are going berry picking so I might have enough left over berries to brew up some fruit wine and beer.

Family Fun!

"All work and no play..." I don't remember the rest of the quote but I do know that this summer has had an even mix of both. My two older daughters are in baseball and my Wife and I have been drafted as coach we are having fun but it really takes up a lot of our free and farm time. But for the smiles we get it makes it all worth while!

  

We have also taken to making a tree house for the kids on the island. This has been a very slow process because we are having trouble transporting lumber to the island. A few years back a forester friend of mine suggested that I set up a lumber mill on the island property. I didn't put much merit in

the idea at first but after this I'm going to take a much closer look and see if I can make it happen. (Side Note this photo is not up to date! We do have supports and subfloor installed but I forgot to get a picture will update when I can)


I think that is everything so far this summer that has been going on. I hope things will calm down so I can do more updates but I know that's a silly hope. So I wouldn't expect another update until the end of summer.

(Of course end of summer involves harvest, hunting, and canning so.... yeah... WINTER UPDATE???)

Where are the Eggs?

The chickens are doing GREAT!! We had only one minor hiccup when one of the chickens got run over while moving the coop. I thought her leg was broken and I was going to have to but her down but thankfully she seems to have healed up. Beside that one hit and run with the chicken tractor skies (lesson learned and corrected) the PVC works wonders for moving and protecting the coop. I still need to add some handles to make moving the coop more ergonomic and easier on my back, but hopefully I can get to that this weekend.

I let the people next door know that we have chickens and they seen alright with the idea. I asked them that if me having chickens does become a problem to talk to me first instead of the cops. They agreed if I gave them a dozen eggs every now and then they would agree to my terms. Now if they would just start laying eggs!

Every year it seems I get less and less patient for the birds to start laying. If I do have to start from scratch again with a new set of birds I'm tempted to spend the extra money to get older birds that are either already laying or will be soon. It's funny how as I get older I become more patient with some thing (my kids for example) and less patient with others (Chickens and Gardens). Thankfully with a batch of fresh cider all bottled and ready for drinking I might find an aid with my patients problem.  

The Girls Have the Green Thumbs of the Family

Well for the first time I finally have indoor starts that have made it all the way to being ready to plant outside. My two little girls help must have been want I have been missing. If all goes well and the rain can hold off I will  be transplanting these tomatoes tonight after work. Sadly the garden isn't as nice or set up as well as I had hoped but the only chance of getting a harvest-able crop before the first frost is if I plant now (The UP has a super short growing season and from what I heard it will be extra short this year). Nothing is funner than planning in the dirt after a long day at work!

Brewing Update!

The cider is doing GREAT!!! It had a little slow start but to be fair I used some old yeast I found while moving so that really isn't a surprise but now the air lock is firing like it is one full auto and it should be ready for bottling in about a week or so. If you might have noticed from the picture I have my next brew started. I have always wanted to try dandelion wine and thanks to a trip to sugar island I can check that off my list of wines to try to make. Not sure how it will taste but seeing that I have never had dandelion I will have to share it with someone who is an "expert". Anyone out there fit that bill and want some free wine to test.

Brewing Room Locked and Loaded

It took a lot longer than I had planned but its finally DONE!! (OK so I still have some clutter to throw out and a utility sink to install) I can now start brewing beer, wine, cider, yogurt, and cheese in my new set up. If all goes well and thanks to a meeting in Marquette this week so I could get the supplies I should be starting a batch of cider this weekend and bottling it by Memorial Day.

Chicken Eviction

So the time finally came to get the chickens out of the brooder (and our house) and into the real world. Normally I build my own coop but this year I got called away suddenly for a week long training and the only way to have someone look after the chicks was if they were outside. So off to Tractor Supply I went to buy a coop and $250 later my chickens have a new home. The coop is great and I have not complaints but as you might notice from the pictures I couldn't help but make some after market modifications to the coop. 

Every year we try to move the coop around the yard to a new location frequently. This cuts down on the chicken smell that can get us in trouble for the people on the other side of the fence, but it is also much healthier for the chickens. This year I decided to try something new. I made a PVC sled for the coop to ride on. To my surprise it works GREAT! It makes moving the coop solo possible and has the added benefit of protecting the wood on the bottom coop from rot, so in theory this should help my coop last longer. The only addition I"m going to make is some PVC uprights at both ends to give me a better lifting/pushing point. 

If all goes well I should be getting the raised bed gardens installed this weekend. Not planted mind you because even though it's the middle of May SNOW is in the forecast. But so far the chickens are happy, the kids are having fun and some day soon summer will get here.

Fingers Crossed it MIGHT Just Work this Time

Well it would appear that my two young helpers do have the green thumb that I lack in growing my own starts. So far they are sprouting well and it looks like only a hand full of them are duds. There is still plenty of time for something to go sideways or have an adverse non-preventable interaction (ie the dog knocks them over or a child waters them with juice and/or milk) But out of all my past attempts this one has had the best progress. Hopefully the weather keeps improving and I’m able to start breaking ground on the future homes for these starts. 

Chicken Crazy

Literally we were driving through town after finishing our weekly shopping. My wife and I were making small talk when the topic of my workshop came up and how I was finally able to get it unpacked and cleaned up. Not sure who said it first but one of us jokingly said “It’s clean enough that we could brood chickens down there” The rest of the trip is a blur but all I do know is we now have 8 chicks we are brooding out and a lot of happy children.

If it can't be mined it must be grown!

So after a 3 long years working at the mines my contract ended and it's time to move on (and move back). The time I spent working at the mine was AWESOME and changed my life and how I view the world. The U.P. was build on mining and logging and to be a part of that heritage is very humbling and eye opening to the struggles that it took to carve out a life here in Northern Michigan in the early days. I always have a much better understanding of SISU

But as a farm-boy at heart I'm excited to start growing plants and meat again. So back to my urban farm and hopefully a recharge to my post here on Yooper Farmer. With the snow melting and warmer temperatures coming we are already gearing up for this summers growing season. The three younger members of my family helped me get my indoor starts ready. I'm hoping that one of them has the magic green thumb because as I have learned multiple times from years past growing my own starts has NEVER been one of my strengths.

Keep checking back because with the warm weather and having more weekends off things should be happening rapidly and I'm going to try to remember to keep the blog current with all the excitement and activities on the Q Homestead.

Brewing more officially

I have owned the supplies to test my brews for a long time but have never really cared to find out what the percent alcohol my brews is. Well after having a few bottles explode I'm doing things a little more official this time. So for the record they batch has a starting possible alcohol level of 9% I will see where it is at in a week and report back!

Tomato processing is not my friend!

 So I have been wanting to try my hand at making some tomato products and after researching and planning decided to give it a try. I had some cards stack against me in the fact that I didn't have all the ingratiates I needed and was getting some conflicting information about canning the final products.

I was able to finish 7 jars of pizza sauce and 5 jars of salsa. Not sure how they really taste yet because they are still finishing the canning process and I'm going to let them sit for a week or so to age. I don't have high hopes for this batch though. One of the biggest reasons is the tomatoes I used weren't the best quality. But I was tired of just planning so I settled on what I could get at the prices I was willing to spend.

Another strike against processing my own tomatoes is the after effect of all the acid and spices. The salsa I made is a spicy salsa and my eyes and sinus are burning this morning and my wife informs me that some of my children seem to be having trouble as well. Plus my final mess didn't exactly get cleaned up before it was time for bed... no good will come from that!

Like many times when I have tried something new I have learned a great deal and if I try this again I will be altering what I do next time. I will keep you updated if all the trouble is worth the final product.

It finally happened!!

Well after years (almost 10) of brewing I had a blow up while carbonating. Not 100% sure yet but I think it was the bottle to blame and not over carbonation. I have had a few of the tops of my older and salvaged bottle break off. I tried on of the other bottles from this batch and it didn't errupt when I opened it so I think I'm safe. BUT just in case ALL the bottles will be spending the night outside to stop the fermentation process and than they will be moved into the basement where clean up will be a lot easier.

On a funny note we were in the middle of family game night when it exploded and to quot Savannah "THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!" It was a funny!

Hard Apple Cider Jelly!!!!

So I finally got around to making a 5 gallon batch of hard apples cider. This has been a project I have been putting and putting off for ever since I got the Large carboy. Well everything went great with the brewing, fermenting, and bottling until I realized that a math error left me with about a litter and a half of left over cider with no good way to bottle it. I really didn't want to dump it out because it was a lot of work and would be a HUGE waste. I couldn't drink because I was on antibiotics. So I needed to find something to do with. 

One option was to just leave it open to the air and let it turn to vinegar. It was a cool idea but my family wasn't impressed with the idea of the smell. So I left the liquid in one of the plastic fermenting buckets while I thought about what I could do. In the mean time my kids wanted to try and make gummy bears candy from scratch. We looked up a bunch of recipes (tried a few... they tasted great but gummies... no by the traditional definition) and one of them called for pectin. That's when it hit me! MAKE THE CIDER INTO JELLY!!! 

I figured that even if it failed epically at least I didn't just waste it and throw it out. Well the jelly turned out AWESOME!!!! This may become a tradition every time I make Large (and possibly) small batches of cider. It turned out that good!!

What do we want? Chicken Sh!t.... WHY?

It turns out for raspberries! So it has been a busy summer and as predicted once the sun melted the snow I stopped posting. Well I got 6 chickens this spring (more to come on them). Well I have my compost bid set up yet so I have been throwing all the chicken poop in the raspberry bushes. For the last few years they haven't been producing so I figured they needed to be replaced with some new plants and have a total start over. WELL I figured the chicken poop would burn out the bushes and other plants making it easier to pull them up this fall and by the time next spring comes the ground will be GREAT for planting new bushes.

It turns out that high levels of chicken poop DOESN'T kill these bushes! Instead there are so many raspberries that it looks like the bushes are on fire! So I guess the bushes will stay for another season at least. Good news for me. I have enough work I need to get done this summer.

FULL ON FEBRUARY BLUES!!!

As predicted February Blues is hitting hard this year. I was out blowing my driveway (which I love to do) and I took a hard look at my overfill area (the area I keep clear for blowing snow, piling snow and to allow of some extra winter parking). I cleared it but this might be the last time before my "give a damn gets broken!" I have already abandoned the mailman's path (the shortcut I was keeping open for the mailman to be nice and save him some walking). This blues is SO BAD that we are due for "Warm" (33-35 degree days) next week and I'm dreading it more than looking forward to it. Because I know all this is going to accomplish is push the frost-line deeper and ice up the road because the road commission is already out for lunch on trying to keep the roads up this winter. My goal for next week is to find something to get me out of this February induced SLUMP.

Evil Brew is now Bottled!

After one last test with the hydrometer confirmed that just about all the sugar was converted to alcohol I set about bottling the brew. I should hit my goal of 15% alcohol with this batch. I did sample some of it while bottling and it is sweet and a bit cloudy but I'm hoping that after some conditioning in the bottles that will decrease. I'm a little nervous that this batch may become over carbinated and I may even be risking some exploding bottles. Only time will tell! But to be on the safe side I'm going to start up a regular batch of cider this weekend.

The dreaded FEBRUARY!!!!!

So I'm guessing most of you are looking at me like I have a third eye right now. Some of you are even saying "WTF winter is almost over be happy!" Well unlike 80-90% of the USA in the U.P. February is on average the coldest month of the year (thank you Lake Superior!) Yes we are getting less snow by now but we have more ice, higher heating bills, and even though the days are longer we still don't see the sun much (and when we do it makes us snow blind)! To add some salt to the wound right now the rest of the USA is post and blogging about ramping up for growing season. Some people are even starting to talk about planting some of their starts already. Well not us! We are running winter carnivals and snowmobile races. This is literally 28 days of suffering. By now we have run out of place to put snow, wood piles are being rationed, stored food is being rationed, and cabin fever is starting to look like the "Shining"! Then throw in a healthy helping of tax season and company deadlines and it is amazing the December still edges out February as the most likely month to commit suicide! But I have lived up here for over 30 years now and.... ok I still haven't found a way to fully cope yet. Global Warming had such promise but thank you Al Gore for getting my hopes up (@$$hole).

Thankfully this year I have 3 kids that LOVE SNOW (the forth hasn't voiced an opinion yet) and their excitement is infectious (so are the colds they keep getting) PLUS this year I have to give a HUGE THANK YOU to my friend Kasey that is sponsoring a fun photo contest!

SO in closing RED RUM... I mean summer is just around the corner (some where) 

EVIL Brew Update!!

So I just went and tested the brew it is at 5% possible alcohol now. SO currently it is at 10% alcohol with another 5% sugar ready to be turned into alcohol (about). So I'm going to give it a few days and see what happens. I'm thinking bottling by Tuesday (ish). Of course after the taste test I don't know, that would make EPIC summer time wine and the timing is right. BUT I set out to make beer so I'm going to hold out (plus not having the chemicals to stabilize the brew so it could be wine also helps me make that decision too).

Evil BREW!!!!

IT"S ALIVE!!!!!!!!

So it was time once again to brew up some more hard cider. Well I was in the local home brew store and they had a new yeast in. The yeast can survive in alcohol concentrations up to 20% ! This is impressive because most yeast taps out and dies at about 10-15% (if that for some). So I had to get some of the super yeast and try it out. For a little added flavor I throw in some fruit I found in the back of the freezer.

I then set the hydrometer to 15% potential alcohol and set it out to ferment! I'm guessing it's going to take an extra week to ferment all the sugar. But because I'm not sure I'm going to risk contamination and test the brew while it's fermenting.



(yes it looks gross in these pictures but after checking on it today it looks a lot better! I will post some new pics of the brew soon)