Category Archives: Homesteading
Blow it out your Egg Hole!
The children were inspired to blow out eggs and paint them all pretty.
Sweet Yummy Goodness to Welcome us into Spring
Yum! Lookie what we found in our snow-covered garden…Easter Candy.
Two Pigs and a Rooster
We got a couple of Pigs this year! They are way too fun!
One pig will go to the Marquette County Fair and the other is the “family pig”.
We had a bit of time before we got our pigs to make a temporary pen in our hoop house.
We decided to build a temporary pen until the snow melts, then we will put up fencing and a moveable shelter elsewhere. Mojo and the kids got to work with pallets as walls inside the hoop.
Below is the piggy bed.
Seeds n’ Spores Family Farm went to pick up all the pigs…13 of them total and brought them back to the farm. Six of the pigs will end up being “Fair” pigs.
Morgan, Kiah and Niikah checking out the organic feed.
We brought our own bins, so we will dump the bags and weigh accordingly.
Kiah found the little peeps in the greenhouse!
Kiah wrestlin’ a pig out of the trailor and into the back of our truck. The kids are cheering her on!
Ziggy Maurice Stardust, our rooster, welcomes the pigs to their new home.
They love each other so much.
Checkin’ out their new piggy pen.
Good night!
It’s Time for Maple Syrup!
Maple Tree, Thank You.
Feeding us sweet, sweet nectar.
You shine in the sun.
Deep Fried Peeps
So, what do you do with those nasty left over peeps no one wants to eat after Easter anyway?
Well, if you happen to know a potter (which we do.), and if he happens to be firing his wood-fired kiln (which he was)…we highly suggest bringing the peeps!
Thanks to Ryan Dalman and his family with Dalman Pottery…They taste much better kiln fried!
Below are some of Ryan’s lovely pots. For further inquiries, he may be reached at dalmanpottery@gmail.com
Sugar Loop 2010 – From Sap to Syrup
From Sap to Syrup…
Mojo and Rad boilin’ down sap. This is an all day process of feeding the fire and adding sap. It takes a little over 40 gallons of sap to equal one gallon of syrup.
We bought a new stainless steel pan this year…it’s so lovely!
Thanks to Paul at
stainlesssteelcreations
for such a nicely made pan.
Thanks to Paul at
stainlesssteelcreations
for such a nicely made pan.
Sap at a rapid boil.
Kiah and Ona call it a day and make the trek home.
We transport the remaining sap to our outdoor kitchen. Here we boil it down on the stove. We take it to 119 degrees, then strain it from the faucet into jars.
The jar on the left is from the “first run” batch. The jar on the right is from the 2nd run.
This painting from our dear friend, Jen, sums it all up…Maple sap is such a blessing! Making your own maple syrup sure makes you feel “connected” because you know right where it’s coming from!Sugar Loop 2010 – From Maple Tree to Sap
From the Maple Tree to Sap…
Maple Trees are a blessing!
We tapped 70 trees this year beginning March 3rd and untapping April 5th.
Following are photos from our Sugar Loop Day 1 thru Day 4…Tappin’ Trees:
Make a hole in the tree at an upwards angle (about 10 degrees) with no more than a 2″ depth.
Hole waiting for a tap…the sap is already drip, drip, dripping.
Kiah digs in her bucket for a tap.
Milo hammers the tap into the hole.
Diggin’ out the arches.
Collecting firewood for the upcoming fire.
Don’t forget to taste the sweet sap right from the source!
Look for our next post “From Sap to Syrup” in the next few days.
Look for our next post “From Sap to Syrup” in the next few days.
An interview with…us!
Greetings! We are BirchLeaf Designs – a small family of folks near the Yellow Dog River in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We live off the grid…making handcrafted, natural playthings that inspire imaginations using wood, silk and felted wool. We live, work, homeschool, create, love and play nestled amongst the Hemlocks.
We like to reclaim wood and other pieces parts to make quality playthings for children. We are known to use recycled/upcycled materials like cereal boxes for the flower presses or wood cut offs from other projects; materials found in nature (like birchbark or acorn tops); and during a dying session, we use nontoxic dyes and keep water use to a minimum…with no “running” water, every drop counts!
We currently sell natural, whimsical wood and fabric playthings (like teething rings, bug boxes, flower presses, swords, playsilks and playclips to name a few). Our most popular items include our playsilks, swords, and bugboxes.
We are always looking for ways to improve our products! Comments and suggestions are welcomed! We also do custom orders…is there a product that you would like to see us make? We are open to ideas and challenges!
We work to live simple…off the grid, solar power, solar water pump, wood heat, bees (!) and in return for our work, we get to enjoy those simple gifts…maple syrup, honey, nature…sweet love, sweet life!
BeeKeeping 101
Bees and Honey and all things Sweet…May 3rd, we got our bees! We had ordered a “nuc” colony, which contains 5 frames of bees, brood, stores of honey and pollen and most importantly a queen…
Beekeeping lesson #1…it is safer than you think to travel in an enclosed vehicle with a box of approximately 10,500 bees! We chose to take the “back” way home from where we had to pick up the bees. This is a wonderful drive up a dirt logging highway, through some of the most awesome country, in this part of the world. We had to stop and pickup Kiah at the house of a friend, who is a wood fire potter. This all made for about 2 hours of drive time mostly on bumpy, narrow logging roads. Indeed our favorite kind of Sunday drive. Only 3 or 4 bees escaped from their closed box, and they stayed pretty close to the buzz and smell of the nuc box. The bees in the nuc were itchin’ to get out of that box though…it sounded like rain in there! We brought them home, took them up to the bee yard and opened the door on the box so thet could get out. They flew rather frantic like for several minutes them re-entered the nuc and settled for the evening.
Bees are Awesome! Pictured here is some of the equipment used to house a colony of bees…Deep super, wax frames, sugar water, pail for feeding , an inner cover and top cover.
Monday afternoon, when it warmed up, we put them in their new hive body, being careful to keep them in the same order, to keep them from being disoriented. We added five new frames, for a total of 10, so they should have a bit more room. In this photo, one frame is in the new box or “super”, and the second frame is being removed from the nuc. This frame contained the queen (always a happy thing to find your queen).
This is a smoker. Milo and Mojo experimented and found that the stuff that comes with the smoker smells kinda bad. Then they proceeded to try different materials…like birch bark with pine needles, pinecones, sawdust, and found the best stuff to use was wood shavings from the workshop…cherry wood shavings.
We didn’t use the smoker…but we had it ready just in case. To distract the bees, we sprayed the bees with sugar water and they spent a whole lot of time licking the yummy, sweet water off their bodies. They didn’t mind us being there a bit. Apparently, the smoke causes the bees to panic and so they immediately go grab their stores of honey. Spraying with sugar water is a much gentler way to distract…we shall see what Autumn brings, the bees tend to get a little more aggressive and protective toward their honey stores in the Fall.
Kiahzzzz entry (age 8):
“Bees are so fun. I love to watch them. I know they will not hurt me as long as I’m calm.”
Milozzzz entry (age 5):
“My best thing about the bees are watching them getting pollen. I love the bees’ fort. Bees knees. The End.”