Having lived on this little farm for 3 full growing seasons already, we are becoming more and more in sync with the tasks of the season.

In March, we tap maple trees, at least the very few we happen to have here.

This year that was a grand total of two.

Why even bother tapping two trees, you ask?

Because even with only two trees we manage to get many gallons of sap, which yields 6-7 pints of the most delicious syrup you're ever tasted, especially so because you foraged it from your own land, and because it's in limited supply so you really enjoy it.

And so the ritual begins with the gathering of supplies - (free) plastic buckets, plastic taps, plastic tubing, a 5/16" drill bit and a drill.  Oh, and my favorite farm tool, a black plastic ice fishing sled.

I use sleds year-round, over grass, snow and ice, and they are fabulous for hauling buckets or weeds or hay bales or manure.

If it were up to me we'd use old metal spiles and metal sap buckets, but we already had plastic buckets, and they do hold more sap and keep the sap cleaner.

{if any of you have a few of the old supplies you want to get rid of, please contact us}

The hardest part of the process is pushing the spile into the plastic tubing. Luckily I had Papa handy to do this task so I could just stand around snapping pics.

After drilling a 5/16" hole about 2" deep at a slight upward angle, you insert the spile (with tubing attached), tapping it gently into the tree.

Insert the other end into the bucket. Seal the bucket with the lid to keep out spiders and dirt. If the sap is running, you will see sap flow into the bucket almost right away, although at a fairly slow pace.

Why does our maple tree have red flagging tape around it, you may be asking?

Well that's because our property is full of oaks and very few maples, so we walk around in the fall looking for maples when the leaves are on, and mark the trees with red flagging so we can find them in March when they are bare and all look the same.

Yup, we're brilliant that way.

Depending on the size of the tree, you may be able to place more than one spile. You can find some guidelines, and more specific tapping instructions, here.

One your taps are set, don't forget to come back often and check the buckets.  You may have many days in a row where you get nothing, then suddenly you can have an overflowing bucket in one day.

It all depends on the temperatures, ideally freezing at night and warm during the day.

The trek out there makes for some nice "sweetie" time anyway, so I always look forward to it.

Cheers -

I am seriously in love with these sweet Holstein calves on my friend's dairy farm.

Remember these cuties?  Johanna, whom I had the pleasure of naming, and the Valentine boys, whom my tribe on Instagram named?

Yup, still sweeties.

Whiskers and eyelashes and freckles, oh my!

I still want to scoop them up in a big bear hug and bury my neck in their furry coat.

I doubt they'd get much enjoyment from that however, so I content myself with offering to bottle feed the babies whenever I can.

Sometimes the neighbor boys come over to help.  They know a lot about cows and farms already, even though they do not live on one.

They are thoughtful and ask serious, grown-up questions and they listen intently to your answers.

Additional supporting staff at the farm include Gypsy, our Border Collie who prefers hanging out with cows at this farm than hanging out with turkeys at our farm...

And a number of barn cats like this one, Sam, the sweeties little cat you ever did meet.

And if you're curious what the "cockles of your heart" means, I found this from here:

The cockles of the heart are its ventricles, named by some in Latin as "cochleae cordis", from "cochlea" (snail), alluding to their shape. The saying means to warm and gratify one's deepest feelings.

Cheers -

A drive to La Crosse to deliver CSA shares yielded some pretty spectacular scenery today.

I could have driven on I90 to La Crosse but I always prefer to take the back way along scenic highway 14 which yields much more interesting scenery, even if not perhaps the fastest route to the city. 

What you can't see in this photo:  The snow all up and down my backside, a result of sliding down into a ditch between the road and the pasture to get this shot. The horses only sniggered a little.

The wind up on the ridge was pretty ferocious.  I was thankful that I had my warm vehicle and did not have to make the trek in a horse-drawn carriage, like many of our Amish neighbors do, no matter how cold it is outside. 

After my stops in La Crosse, I stopped at Grandad Bluff for a few more photos. 

Breathtaking, in more than one way!

Cheers - 

The peeps are about 5 days old now, and as always I am enjoying them immensely.

Despite their diminutive size, they are full of personality and curiosity. 

They bring the spirit of new life, and hope, to a part of winter that I often struggle with, the part that seems to drag on forever, spring a distant memory. 

My daily dose of cheer, these babies. 

In case you're curious about what breeds we got this time, in Papa's hands are a Wellsummer (brown), a Black Sex Link, and an Ameraucana.

Wellsummers are a breed from Welsum, Holland, best known as the rooster on the Kellog's box. She will lay dark brown eggs.

Black Sex Links are a cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster and a Barred Rock hen. Differences in color of the newly hatched chicks are gender related, allowing for easy sorting of pullets and cockerels. She will lay light brown eggs.

Ameraucanas come in many colors, from light to dark. They lay light blue or green eggs. 

In the top photo on the page, two Buff Orpingtons exchange peep news. One of our all-time favorites, buffs are sweet tempered and curious. They also lay light brown eggs.

This is the earliest we've ever started pullets (young female chickens). It is our hope that they will be laying well before our older girls molt in the fall, a natural process that takes so much energy from the hen that she stops laying eggs for up to 3 months.

These little sweeties are our guarantee for non-stop eggs throughout that period. 

And non-stop entertainment for the next 9 months as they grow in feathers, size and individual personalities.

Cheers- 

I've become a bit of an expert on the "birds and the bees" in the barnyard.

{B&B. &B}


Tom turkeys work pretty hard to win the favor of the hens, not only through strutting and a "spit and drum" vocalization, but they also are gentlemen who wait to be invited for more advanced maneuvers (unlike chicken roosters who just "grab and go" with any hen, any time they can catch one).

In addition, once a hen accepts tom's favor, there is an elaborate dance on her back, the tom using his claws up and down the sides of her back to trigger her pleasure receptors.

Alpaca males "orgle" while mating, their vocalizations a key part of the process for female receptivity.

But nothing is as  funny as rabbits coupling.

If the doe is receptive, the male will not waste any time getting things done, grabbing the hair on the back of her neck in his mouth to hold on has he vibrates like a jackhammer then siezes up as if having a heart attack, then falling over on his side.

If you blink, you'll likely miss it.

So don't blink.

And have a Happy Valentine's Day!!

The newest batch of peeps has arrived from Cackle Hatchery!

One of my very favorite days of the year on this farm, right up there with hatching turkeys, new lambs and new crias. 

Hard to believe these tiny little fluffs traveled for two days inside this cardboard box.

Mother Nature has given them the gift of being able to absorb nutrition from their yolk right before they hatch, giving them 2-3 days worth of sustenance before they need to eat and drink.  

In nature, mama hen would stay on her nest with her hatched and unhatched babies for a couple of days, waiting for the rest to hatch, before bringing the chicks out of the nest for food and water. Absorbing the yolk allowed the babies who hatched first to wait around with mama until her siblings hatched out and they could all go out for a bite. 

Hatcheries have learned to take advantage of this little window of time in order to mail the birds to new homes.  

At about 8:00am this  morning I got the call from the local post office saying they had my chickens, and off I ran to pick them up and bring them home. 

And then the fun begins. 

After opening up the box and making sure they look OK, I take them out one-by-one, say a little "welcome to our farm" and dip their beaks in the water and food dishes. 

And then I sit and watch and sit and watch and occasionally think about all the other things I should be doing,... then sit and watch some more. 

All of these little cuties "should" be pullets, a term for a young female chicken before she starts to lay eggs.  Occasionally we do get a rooster in the mix.  The sorting method is not 100% accurate. 

I purchase new pullets every spring, because in the fall, all of my chickens will molt their feathers, a process that takes a lot of energy from the hens, during which they stop laying eggs for up to 3 months as they focus on regrowing their feathers again. 

If I can time things correctly, these new babies will be laying eggs by then, filling in the gap while my older hens molt. 

At least that's the plan.  I'm still tweaking the number of birds I need to buy each spring to get the right number of eggs for what we need and what people would like to get from us. 

I think we got it right this time with twenty new chicks.  

Then again, can you ever have too many peeps?

Cheers -