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!!