A beautiful thing…

Samuel Phillip

 

Fishin’ in the dark…

This isnt the same pond, but a good picture of my boy fishing.

There is nothing better than coming home after a long summer days work to your 4 yr old running to your arms saying “Now we can go fishing!” He had called me earlier in the day to ask if we could go and I was glad to tell him yes. I had a job to do after my normal job and it went longer than I expected. On my way home I was feeling awful. Like one of those dad’s you see in the movies that always promises his kids something and never follows through. This was the first time it would have ever happened, but was still as awful a feeling as it could ever be.
I got home about a half hour past his bedtime to find him and his brother still outside playing on the swings. He ran into my arms so excited to go fishing. I was very happy to hear that Momma was ok with a special late night fishing trip. SO without even eating dinner or getting a potty break, I took him to the neighbors pond. He was so excited..and so was I.
When we got there, the pond was lined with thick cattails. I was a little disappointed as I thought he would never be able to cast out through them (he is only 4).
After about three casts that landed smack in front of him in the cattails, he was able to get the lure out of the cattails with ease and then began casting clear over the cattails and out into the MIDDLE of the pond…if not further…consistently!
As he reeled it in, he learned how to finagle the lure through the cattails without getting seriously hung up. I tell you I was, and am, so proud of my boy! He has natural talent. I am excited to have such a capable fishing partner at such a young age.
We stayed out till dark and he got to see lightening bugs and 3 deer to boot!

 

The Homestead

Our house

I thank God most everyday for the home he has given me. Not just the house itself, but all that encompasses our Home. The house is a large part of that. But add in the location, neighbors, the wife and children that fill the house, the animals in and around our home, and Gods presence in the midst of it all. Nothing is sweeter!

 

Entrepreneurial

It seems that as I get older (even by the month), I get more and more business ideas or ventures that I want to pursue. Just over the last three years I have wanted, or have pursued a window cleaning business, having goats, chickens, coffee shop, maple syrup making, and teaching a course on hunting and venison preparation for Foodies
These all seem to be well and good, until you add into the mix that I am a full time dad with a wife, job, house to maintain, family to visit and so on. When all these ideas start pouring into my mind, I often step back and say “I CANT do all of these!!” But I so want to.
Where does it come from?

 

Thanksgiving….

This is my favorite time of the year. The air is cooler, potential for snow is in the air, wood stoves are burning, and hunting seasons are in mid-swing.

Thanksgiving seems to me to be tied to a wonderful heritage of self-sufficiency that has been all but lost in most Americans. The idea of growing your own food, hunting for your own food,  or raising your own food is mostly an interesting oddity to most Americans these days.  People are just so used to ordering food from a restaurant menu or seeing it all neatly packaged in plastic at the super grocery store down the road.

The personal interaction with agriculture is lost. The appreciation of a sacrificed life, or the toil of the earth is distant. I am thankful for being able to live where I do. It gives me plenty of opportunity to appreciate healthy homegrown and harvested foods. These foods not only cost less, but are much more healthy for your body as they do not contain all kinds of hormones, antibiotics, or chemical sprays.

I also love this time of year because my family is together under one roof. The conversation that fills the air is wonderful. Watching the kids play with each other, some excited about hunting in a few days, puts a smile on my face.

I will be traveling a few hours to my brothers house for the thanksgiving meal, and then returning with  another brother and his children and another one of my nephews. My home in North central PA turns into “Deer Camp” for the next few days after thanksgiving. Its a time of year that I favor most and just wanted to share my thoughts about it with you.

Hunting Success

 

 

Baptism

Baptism by a good friend and brother.

A few weeks ago my wife and I gave a public testimony of being born again and being a new creature that has been cleaned by the blood of Christ. Though we were saved some years ago, neither of us had had the believers baptism. My wife had been baptized as a child in the Presbyterian church. But all that is, is some commitment thing of the parents to raise their children in a Godly home. It says nothing about the individuals salvation. In fact, to my knowledge, there is never a mention in the Bible about infant baptism. It is rather a practice held over from the Catholic church rituals. Some may argue that it was a compromise in the early church days since the Catholic church was persecuting those who got re-baptized, which basically was a statement saying that the Catholic church baptism was of no value.

 

How much…..

Chubbs with nephew

…do you spend on a family dog? This is the question that has come to mind recently. We have a family dog named “Chubby”. He is a very healthy and friendly 5 yr old lab/GSP mix. He is great with the little kids, loves to hunt, and is very handsome!
We got him for free from my brothers dog. We brought him home when he was 6 months old. He had already received the name Chubby from my nephews who noticed that he was the fattest of all the puppies in the litter. He was also the last one to be born and the only all chocolate colored one.
Up till about a week ago it has been relatively easy to take care of him.

 

Future Fiddler

Charles playing the fiddle

So anyway, pictured above is me and my son Charles. We were listening to some bluegrass and he really liked the fiddle sound. He is able to pick out the different instruments when he hears them: Banjo, Fiddle, Mandolin (that one is hard for him to decipher), Guitar, and the Bass. He always says “Can you hear that bass?”

I decided one evening to break out the fiddle that I have allowed to collect dust. His eyes lit up. I played as many tunes as I could remember for him. I was also limited by a missing “A” string.

He wanted to try so I let him hold it and showed him how to hold the bow, how to work the bow across the strings. I’ll just say, this is not a wise thing to do right before bed time! His shirt is off because he was getting so hot from dancing to the bluegrass music that was playing. =)

 

My Little Helper

Charles helps center the log

I had a great weekend.  Saturday morning started with a pancake breakfast with bacon from our local market down the road.  Then Charles and I went to go split wood for a few hours. He enjoyed watching the wood split apart with the swing of a maul. He also tried to pick up the biggest pieces he could carry and take them to the trailer.  He also enjoyed the bluegrass music being played from the van while Dadda worked. I truly enjoy these moments spent with my son.

For lunch, we all had a picnic at a local park.  Before dinner we all worked outside around the house. The weather was beautiful all day.

Like I said, I had a great weekend with my family.

 

Tap-Tap-Tap-Tunk

Sap leaking from tap hole.

Sap leaking from the tap hole.

“Tap-tap-tap-tunk”, that’s how it was described to me by my friend Jim about what sound to listen for when hammering the taps into the trees. I remember last year on a wet snowy day, I was helping him tap the trees in front of his house. This was my first experience in the sap collection work. He gave me a drill, hammer and a few taps and showed me where to place the hole, angled up into the tree so the sap runs out, and then how hard to hammer the taps in.

He said to listen for that change in sound when tapping the taps into the hole. If you hear the “Tunk” then stop, don’t hammer anymore! If you do then the hole will split ever so slightly and then the sap leaks out. Well, I did remember those words this year, but  I was so sure that the taps weren’t seated firmly enough. So I went and tapped a few more times, just to be sure. You can see for yourselves the result.

It reminds me of a good proverb that my son actually just memorized: “Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, And give attention, that you may gain understanding”

 

A Mudroom Conversion Part 1

Cluttered Mudroom

This actually should be titled “Mud Room Clean- up”. But  I will stick with Part 1 instead. As you can see, our mudroom has accumulated with a lot of “stuff”. It is just an easy room to toss stuff when it needs to be hidden, or if there is work going on inside the house and you need to clear out a room, or for those things that you don’t want to get rid of but have no where else to put it…”just put it in the mud room” is the most common phrase for all those situations. So you get what we have here.

Our plan is to clear this room out and then bust out our family room wall into the mud room and finish off the mudroom. But first the daunting task of clearing out the mudroom. I was a bit overwhelmed when I went in to the mudroom this afternoon to start. The question that immediately popped into my mind was “where do I start?”

If I can quote Maria from The Sound of Music without losing any manliness by doing so, “Let’s start start at the very beginning! A very good place to start!”

I will keep you up to date with my progress.

 

Sugar shack

The Sugar Shack

I have been delightfully pleased by the output of the 15 taps I have. Two or three of my 5 gallon buckets have been overflowing by mid day! I just wonder how much I have lost because it filled over. I also had one hose back out of the bucket, and again the same tree, this morning the bucket had blown away. Fortunately, that tree isnt a huge producer, but every little bit adds up! I just went to my friends house and dumped 25 gallons into his bulk tank.

As I stated before, I am just tapping and collecting. He has the time, equipment and experience to boil it down. So I get half the maple syrup that my sap produces as a trade off for not having to boil it. So anyway, I went to his sugar shack and no one was around. I was hoping he would be home, so I could have gotten his picture in here. Maybe when he starts boiling I will run over and get some pics of the process.

I posted a picture of a sugar shack that looked like his a few posts back. Today while dumping my buckets, I decided to snap a few pics of his shack for you to see. He has a stainless bulk tank that is really just an old  milk tank from a dairy farm. He has hoses from tapped trees all leading to this tank through one final hose. Then out the back he has another hose attached at the bottom with a shut off valve. This hose goes straight out the back as the hill slopes down the hose stay straight and meets the shacks roof where it enters the shack. Quite ingenuous if you ask me!

Bulk tank for sap storage

Hose entering shack through eves

Then in the shack he has an evaporator. I believe his set up has evolved over the years getting more and more efficient with better equipment. As you can see there isn’t much room inside, and my flash doesn’t work, so its a bit dark.

Evaporator

The shack is built into the hill so that the back side provides a wood storage place to keep the wood under roof. If you are outside, you can see at around head level, there is a trap door to feed the wood insede the shack. This is a very efficient way to feed the stove under the evaporator! inside the shack. As you can see, it takes a lot of wood to make the amount of sap that they make. The more efficient your evaporation the less wood you need. My friends set up is quite efficient…he just makes a lot of syrup!

Wood

Dry wood and trapdoor

 

Sugarbush helper

The sweetest drip!

I was finally able to take my boy out with me to go tap some maple trees. He was so excited. He loves taking walks out in the field with “Dadda”. We got to the sugarbush and he really wanted to use the drill! So I started drilling and had him stand in front of me and help push the drill and then clean of the bit and then drill some more. It was a perfect day for a sap run because the sap was just gushing out as we tapped! He was so excited and wanted to taste it all the time. I got a tap in and a hose connected and he started drinking it like a straw! I told him not to touch the tube to his mouth because we wanted to keep things as clean as possible (he had just finished eating cheesies and had an orange mouth and hands!).

Our sugarbush

He was a big help, fetching lids and taps and hoses. I let him hammer in the taps with me. Overall I think it was a great first experience for the both of us. Towards the end he was done with it before I was finished getting all the taps in. But he stuck it out.

In the creek, next to a nice clump of maples.

 

Trees are finally tapped!

My first tree tapping!

Ok folks, the big news today is that my neighbor called back and gave me permission to tap the trees I had asked about, and even suggested I tap more around his house!! So this morning I got up early and walked out to a few trees and tapped them. I am making use of some hosing and “T”‘s. I have 5 trees tapped so far with 6 taps. I would have done more but I stopped for 3 reasons.

1. My battery for my drill ran out on the third tree. Yeah, so I was twisting the drill to get holes in the last two trees!!

2. It was getting late and I had to get to work

3. I want to tap the rest of the trees with my boy, Charles.

Today it is supposed to get up to 39 degrees, so this will be a great test to see how much comes out on my first ever sap collection!

Some more tapping

 

My Son

I tend to plunge into these posts without thinking through them Much so I apologize for the randomness. I am trying to be disciplined to keep fresh content on here, so those few of you actually reading this don’t get bored!

My thoughts have drifted to my son, as they often do throughout the day. It is unbelievable how much one can love something, rather, someone else. It is quite a thing to see my boy and know that he is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I don’t think I could love anything quite as much as I do him…..until I have another. Then it will be yet another miracle of being able to love 2 people so much! To not be able to say you love one more than the other, yet love each one more than anything else. It baffles me.

My boy is now 1 yr. and 8 mo. old. He is trying to get the most out of his mobility. He moves those little legs as fast as he can to “run”. Sometimes he half squats as he walks, or takes over sized steps just for fun. It is so cute, and I think he knows it! I can’t express how my heart melts when he looks me in the eye and talks or snuggles up to me or runs and tackles me. This is my boy! Many people compliment how much he looks like me and I love to hear it!

I know that more days of enjoyment are coming as he gets older. Our time together getting sweeter as we both mature in our own ways, lessons that we will be learned and taught by each other. I can’t thank God enough for this precious gift! There is no greater gift aside from God sending His own son to die for me. And thats just my point! I believe that having a son has really shed most light on the value of my salvation. I now know the love of a father and the great sacrifice that was given to “bring many sons to glory”.

There are no strong enough “Thank you”‘s that can be given to Him that would equal the action of genuinely turning from your own ways, coming home, and falling into His open arms!