Beam Making, The Bridge Project

When I started to plan the second bridge project, I took everything I learned from the first build, and applied it to this project planning. The first bridge, still standing and handling people and equipment traffic, had its flaws and bad approaches.

Nothing in Homesteading is perfect and learning as you go is a tough way to get things done. However, it sure makes for a learning curve that is not soon forgotten. Building my first bridge, I used lumber that was left here from the old home built saw mill that once occupied a space above the pond. When I dug the holes to put in the main supports, I used a string to aline the post and holes. Over a 20 foot span, I missed my mark by 3 inches, so cutting the lumber to fit properly took twice as long as it should have and the boards had to be custom cut and fit in.

Have the out building that I use to dry some of my food such as beans, onions and garlic has its advantages. Split in half inside, one side has woodstove and the other has a force fan which pushes heat to that side and has a electric 220 volt heater as well. The woodstove side also has a evaporation hood to vent out the moisture when cooking down sap during sugar season. As a manufacturer of copper range hoods, that skill has helped me along with the vent hood.

Sixteen months ago I fell a couple of Red Oak Tree's on my property. I set them on top of some other logs to season. Partially seasoned now, I have started to cut them and will allow them to un-stress and normalize as the seasoning process continues inside the out building.

Once inside, after I finish cutting the beams to 10 x 10 x 12, I plan to control the moisture level and hang the beams 7 feet off the ground to the ceiling to take advantage of the heat. I fire up the woodstove a few times a week keeping it going during the weekend, I maintain a temp of 65 degrees. The idea is to control the moisture and allow the beams to twist, crack and do what they will do before the final cuts and building with them.

The final cuts will be made using a tried tested method, using an Adze. So lets take a look at the preliminary cutting of the beams. You can see the quality of the wood now that I have cut into it. Although these are not yet seasoned all the way, I am using a approach that I have in the past that I know will work and produce a high quality beams that will be the running beams for the new bridge.

Although this project will be done in stages, I plan to blog and share lots of photo's in the future so that you can better understand what I am doing and my approach.

Free Organic Materials, Labor Free...

Keeping up with the Jones, well that has benefits that I like...

Most suburbs have little trees, then comes country suburbs where they have trees but have a desire to keep their lawns spotless and perfect. In my neck of the woods, where the Deer Tick thrives, get rid of leaves has medical purposes.

Often along the side of the road of the country suburbs you will see a deer that was killed, so we know they travel there. So bagging up the leaves might get rid of a few ticks or more as well as keeping your lawn and house looking good.

I like those large, cheap paper leaf bags sold by stores... They are a good way to condition my eyes in the evenings while rolling through the local suburbs, makes me look for that color in the evening sun. So as I drive around looking for bags sat on the side I think about how easy it is to gather these bags up than to offer to rake other peoples yards to gather the compost material up.

Trailer in tow, I ride out to fill and stack it with these brown bags filled with others leaves. I get a few dog turds from time to time, but generally just leaves. I always knock on the door and ask, but if no answer, I gather them up.

The second load tonight....

I even have then doubled stacked in the back part of the trailer.....

Most people dispose of the bags and buy them knowing they are a one time use thing... However some people would rather hang onto them and think they have something on you and want you to rake their yard to fill the bags, hold your breathe on that one.. Nope I just roll on and keep finding the ones that people set out on the street, and smile and wave at the folks who think their leaves are so badly needed by me...

However, there is a way to reach out to folks that are filling those bags. There are people now that email me this time of year to give me their leaves that they didn't sit on the side of the road, but saved them for me.

So I give everyone a free bag with a MP card and a little note about why I took/needed their leaves. I find that giving something back is generally a very welcomed and surprise for those folks. It is good because it helps build relationships/friendships, and I like networking whenever I can.

It's also a kind gesture....

Raw Milk Turns Into Many Homestead Products

As I sit here this evening, while the cool fall air swirls around the trees to pull off the dead leaves and floats them to the ground, today was a good productive day.

You might remember the other night I went to a secret location and got some raw, right from the cow, milk. Now before you start posting your thoughts of how bad raw milk is for you, I will not listen to your nonsense. Your wasting your time preaching to me about all the things bad with raw milk, and if I wanted to waste my time I would combat and debate the issue with you. But I am not going to do that.

As I used a method taught to me by my Mom, I had confirmed the technique of separating the cream from the top of the milk. So out of the milk I got I ended up with enough cream to make nearly three pounds of butter. You see I dodged that "how much cream did you get" bullet? I didn't measure my cream as I should have because I forgot to and just moved into butter production first thing this morning.

So, I know your ready to get into the whole butter production, but I wanted to let you know in my useful gadgets I have a Mixer Stand like the one I used to make my own butter. One of these days I am going to blog a list of stuff I make with my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

So I started out by allowing my cream sit overnight and then just chilled it a couple hours. I added some into the stand mixing bowl, and kept adding until the mixer was going on high and I always make a foil bonnet around it to keep it full.

 So as it starts to churn, it will thicken up and the milk and as you can see in the photo below, the level of milk has dropped compared to the one above. Generally I just keep adding cream until I get enough where I know my machine can handle the butter.

So by adding foil around the edge, tucking it in, I can fill my mixer up pretty full without spreading milk all over the kitchen.

Taking a peek in, can you see the noticeable change it texture and color?

Well it won't be long until my butter starts to clump and balls together. When it is at this point it is time to take it out and strain it.

Now it is time to start cutting the butter, if you don't cut it, it will become rancid very soon and you have wasted all your cream, time and effort. Cutting the butter with a pastry cutter and cold water will clean out all the residue milk that has been collected during butter making process. Ice cold water added, than cut it for a couple minutes, strain add new cold water, and repeat until your butter cuts clean in water. I use 1/2 cup cold water during my first cut and mix that with my buttermilk. The remainder several batches after the first one I toss out.

This is my last cut, clearly from the first photo you can see the water color get much clearer.

Now I will strain the butter one last time and begin to press it into containers for long term storage. Notice the water coming out?

Don't be afraid to poke your fingers down into the butter to remove the air pockets and the water will also continue to come out. Now it is time to smooth it out for long term storage...

Some advice, never share your source for raw milk by bragging about it, share with people you know if the farmer allows it. Make sure to visit your farmer and make sure they are a clean milker. If your lucky as I am, mine doesn't use hormones and mine grazers and produce organic milk for the market.

So tomorrow for breakfast I will have homemade buttermilk (made from my by product from butter production) pancakes with my homemade butter covered in my homemade maple syrup.... I feel pretty proud to say all those homemade words in one sentence....

Winter Grains For Green Cropping in The Spring

As the weather gets cooler, the leaves start to die, the trees begin to fall asleep for the coming winter months. Daytime temps are a hit and miss as the weatherman tries to get us ready for the day ahead. The morning sun beams through the early morning fog as the dew drops from the blades of grass collect and drip.

The garden has given up the last of her bounty, and it is time to take down all that garden art that served to allow plants to grow and produce its food for collecting. Reflecting back to this years harvest, it has been a good year and the garden produced plenty of food as I had planned during the early spring.

It is time for me to get it cleaned up and till the soil over to turn in the skeletons and the last of the vegetable plants and the weeds that I allowed to finally win their space in the garden as it didn't seem important to pull out any more. A time does come, as a gardener, to just realize the garden is at a point where weeds can be allowed to grow.

A custom mixture of my own Grains and Legumes have been mix together and are now ready to be planted and allowed to grow before the winter snow comes. It is important to plant green crops so that in the spring it can be tilled in and nutrients from the green crop like nitrogen will be present. Side by side with my brown leaf compost that I will start building this fall, my garden will have a wide range of organic food to base my garden off of next year. Along with Chicken poo and cow manure, my garden will grow well again next year.

Here is a great mix that you can purchase already made for you. 

Chicken Popsicle Hydrate Them With Water and Scraps

In the hot, dog days of summer, I am canning outside trying to keep the house cool. Nothing says farm work to me like a glass of cold Iced Tea, touch of lemon and just a tad of sugar to take off the bitter edge.

As a child we always had water and goats milk, but goats milk had it's place, and Iced Tea... Come in out of the garden, bailing hay, farm chores or fields, the cool glass of iced tea hit the spot. It still hits my memory buttons like it was yesterday.

Chickens are no different than hard working homesteader or farm hand. They aimlessly wonder to forage for bugs and find cool places to get a good dust and cool off. Their feathers keep the heat in and they need to keep cool.

So, you can keep your veggie scraps, chop them up, and add them with water into a flexible plastic container and freeze. I like to add a little scratch just so they know I love them. From green bean ends, swiss chard, blueberries, blackberries, squash and even tomatoes. Over rip strawberries in the mix makes my girls go nuts....

Dehydrating, Dealing W/ Bumper Crops, Secret Tip, The Recipe

This time of year most folks love to share the fruits of their labor with others. So many people bring in food from their gardens and give it to co-workers and such.

NOT ME!! If you now suspect that I am just a grumpy old man, that isn't true. However, I do like to share some of my food with others and love to fellowship and share with certain folks. I process all my own food, and I deal with my bumper crops differently than most people.

Some people do get what I am doing, and I gave a friend some Jam, only to find out they didn't use it because it was home processed. I know right? But it was the first time, and the last I shared my food with them.

This time of year, its Cukes and Squash... I know that mater time is just around the corner when bumper crops of these two veggies head for the dehydrator. Cukes have tons of canning ideas, my focus in this article is Squash.

Zuke and Yellow are two of the most produced squashes in gardens. People love to grow them with little to no care, plant the seeds and off they go. I find that most people give away squash and maters, and from time to time Okra. NOT ME!!!


You know by now I love to process and store my own food, and you want to learn from my adventures and share your own ideas. To prep my squash, I clean it, cut the ends, and set my slicer for 5/16 of an inch. Now it is not wise to dehydrate big squash without a little bit of work, but armed with an egg cup, you will now be able to store and keep more food than you ever knew.

Yes, for this article I am going to use the word pith, it is the only word I know that I can described the center of a squash that has mature seeds in it. Now, having seeds in dehydrated food isn't a crime. The criminal here is mature seeds. Seeds are self contained units, and if activated, will ruin mass amounts of food stores. Now if your storing them for seeds that is different, as the end use is much different.

 Allowing mature seeds to be left in can not only ruin food, but also contain natural chemicals that will off set the flavor of your food. So armed with a egg cup, I remove the pith and mature seeds so that I can continue to save the squash for dehydration.I put up 23 pounds of squash in one go using my Excalibur 3900.

Some will say this recipe has been in many families recipe book for generations, as for a modern pioneer, our methods of food storing do change when a new way allows for better food storing. With that, food recipes and the desire to make our own comfort food makes us change our recipes to adapt to our new ways.

I am positive some of you growing up on a farm have spent many summer nights at the table with a bowl of squash mess. I know this time of year it was a near staple fixed on the grill in a cast iron pan over hardwood fire. We never cooked inside unless it was early morning in the summer. So I gave my hand at making this recipe with dehydrated food. After trial and error, I have developed the recipe and process.

11/2 cups each of dehydrated yellow and zuke squash
1/4 cup dehydrated onions
dehydrated garlic to taste
2 1/2 cups of veggie stock or chicken
2 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of flour
salt/pepper to taste

Put stock in fry pan, add squash, simmer for 20 minutes over medium heat. Increase temp to high, cook off remainder of stock liquid, turn back to medium, add butter, when squash begins to turn brown add butter, when butter melts add flour and return to high heat until the flour is brown.

I tested this recipe throughout the winter making as many as 8 to 12 side dishes. From the first to the last, outstanding!!

The Grain Mill, A Rare Insider Look, Part 3 of 3, A Social Media House, Bartering Hub

John and I agreed to meet that day so he could give me a tour of the different working stations of the Mill. I was excited to go further into the Mill than just the place where I get my own feed at. The large engine outside was running, hulls fly through the air in town is always a sure sign that John is working with grain at the Mill. Its very little, but as you drive you can see them in the air. The single engine runs a shaft, and the different parts of the Mill are clutched in to drive that work station.

The following stations can all work together or not run while some others are. Items such as horse feed can be made in a 2 ton mixer.

Bird Seed is also mixed, and John makes different types of bird seed depending on which season it is, or which birds are most common. He admitted he can make 15 different types of bird food, but prefers to make only 5 different types. But if you buy 250 pounds of seed he will mix a batch for you.

Now its time for some pictures of the Mill and all her gears, spinning/humming. Inside are square tubes call elevators which move the grains from one operation to another until the end product is made. Buckwheat makes this trip up and down the three story building six times before its separated and the fine flour has been sifted and dropped in the bagging location.

But if you don't need hundreds of pounds of flour made, and want to make your own, and own a kitchen aid, this one is for you.

This one, if you want to make your own by hand, I have this one too!!

My friend has this one, and he uses it for all sorts, he loves it.

This unit is a bit cheaper, but isn't as well made judging by the looks of it.