Did you know that one tap can produce up to 80 gallons of sap in a good season? That means about 2 gallons of home made Maple syrup right from your own yard!! Wordhouse Farm is having their first Maple syrup class next weekend, Sunday, February 24th at 2pm. (weather permitting) What will you learn?   The history of Maple syrup. Cooking with Maple sap. Health benefits of sap/syrup. What trees are good for syruping. How to tap your own tree. How to reduce and build an outdoor reducer. Sampling sap and syrup. Other ways to enjoy Maple syrup/sap. Cost of class $10 per person, $25 per family, Groups..email. We will have some tapping supplies available for sale after the class. This is a fantastic lesson for home schoolers or scouts!!! 734-219-3745 https://www.facebook.com/events/484315181618460/

Tears on her pillow

So my oldest daughter came home after a rough day at work.  She was exhausted, frustrated, and hungry.  She often works too hard and doesn't eat which leads to tears and I HATE to see her cry.

I sent her to her room (She's 22) and told her I would make her a cup of tea and something to eat.  I just want everyone to know that I love her THIS MUCH!!!

Braised pork from two nights earlier. I covered it in mashed potatoes and fried onions and popped it in the toaster oven to crisp while I sliced up the avocado and Piave. I served it with a small grilled cheese (Herbed Havarti) The sandwich on the end was corned beef, roast beef, smoked liver sausage, cheese, and 3 quail eggs. The bread is a lovely whole wheat, honey loaf that a friend of mine brings every time she picks up milk. I couldn't find a tray so I took it to her room on a cutting board.

Vanilla Maple Cream

My daughters and I are addicted to coffee.  Not that strong, manly, black coffee.  We are addicted to that sweet, creamy, really high calorie, covered in Cool Whip kind of coffee.  We simply love the fake french vanilla coffee creamer and I buy it in bulk.  

Is this odd?  Only when you have a dairy cow out back and try really hard not to eat any processed food, AND, eat mostly organic.  So I decided to try my hand at making a sweet vanilla cream from our home products.

I have to say that it's pretty good so here's the recipe~

1 Pint of cream

1/4 cup of Maple syrup

1Tbs of vanilla.

Delicious!!!

Smoking the kitchen

I'm a really good cook.  No, really!  Today, not so much.

I woke up this morning and my son asked me to warm some pork for him.  You see yesterday, when I could still cook, I braised this beautiful piece of pork.  It was delicious, mouthwatering, and all the things that pork should be.  Because my microwave decided to go on strike I pulled out a sauce pan and tossed the meat in, stove top.  This is when my skills as a farm cook when downhill.  I walked away.  Not for a second, or even a minute, but for several minutes.  Tra la la....

I happened back to the kitchen just in time to witness the nightmare of burned meat destroying my lovely pan.  I ran it to the sink and managed to create a really awesome cloud of smoke.  Thankfully the weather was beautiful today and I popped the windows open and kind of laughed it off.

Until....

I make maple syrup every year.  When I put it up, I make it a little thin so the syrup doesn't crystallize.  When I'm ready to use it, I simply put it on the stove and bring it to a boil for about five minutes.  It's warm, sweet, and sticky.  I LOVE it.  So a mere 45 minutes after ruining my pan, I put the syrup on the stove.  Again, I walked away.  Far far far away.  Ok, I was in the garage for about 20 minutes which was long enough to not only boil the syrup over but turn it to candy as well.  My stove top was COVERED in Maple sap candy.  What wasn't covered in candy was covered in maple charcoal.   It took me nearly an hour to clean it up.  UGH!

And then...

Same son asked me for Ramen noodles.  Ha!  I can't screw THAT up...right?

Boiled those silly noodles, poured that silly packet, served that silly bowl.  Finally feeling accomplished, my son pulled a piece of paper towel out of his bowl and asked me what it was.  I told him it was my white flag of surrender.

NO MORE COOKING FOR ME TODAY!

Cooking and Canning

I've been cooking and canning A LOT!  Our cow, Dottie, is providing us with five gallons of fresh milks each day.  The chickens and ducks give us six or eight beautiful eggs and the quail are still laying about 40 every day.  We've butchered several hogs and lots of chickens.  Our cup runneth over!  Here's a lovely sample of morning breakfast on the farm. Quail egg breakfast pizza. 

So busy. SSSSsooooooo soooooo Busy.  I feel like time is slipping by at record speed.  We've had goats kidding, the cow calved, animals have come and gone and I've not mentioned a WORD of it here.

Bugger...I'm going to fix that!

The killer chicken

One of the older laying hens has recently decided that she likes being in the barn instead of the coop with the rest of the birds.  She doesn't really bother me much and she not laying eggs right now so I just let her stay.  No harm, no fowl. (get the chicken joke???)


Soooo....


I brought Dottie over to milk.  I tied her in the center of the barn "like always" and she only took a slight interest in the bird.  I brushed her, cleaned her utter and she just stood there "like always" until....THE KILLER CHICKEN decided to flap her wings and squawk.  I already had the bucket under her and she jumped about a foot high and tried running from the barn.  Of coarse she was tied to the stall door so if you can envision a cow trying to run while still tied then you can totally see the humor in all this.  I decided that this was NOT going to be a fun time milking if there was a killer chicken on the loose so I chased it into an empty stall and closed the door.


Meanwhile....Dottie calmed down a little and I started over.  Even though her milk had already let down, I wanted her to feel the comfort of the routine.  I brushed her washed her teets again, and the STINKING bird flew up to the bars of the stall to see what was going on out there. REPEAT previous paragraph!!!  


I grabbed a milk crate and with a TON of flapping and ruckus I managed to catch the culprit and take her out to the coop.  I LOCKed her in solitary confinement with the goats. (They have a temporary apartment in one of the coops) I went back to Dottie who is now in FULL panic mode over the entire chicken event and is standing as tense as I've ever seen her.  It was almost as if she had become 3 feet shorter in length.  She was all bunched up and ready to bolt if another crazed chicken came after her to bite her neck and turn HER into a chicken too.  It took nearly half the milking for her to relax.  It took me until this morning.


So I've learned that startling a milk cow is a BAD idea and I've also learned that chickens are CRAZY!