Maine Maple Sunday - Open House - Sunday March 23, 2014 10AM-4PM - Visitors Welcome

Welcome Spring with a visit to Juniper Hill Farm, 693 West Road, Bowdoin, Maine.

Despite the long cold winter, we expect that the right temperatures for Maple Syrup season are right around the corner. We have 170 buckets hung and are waiting for the sap to run. The sugarhouse is cleaned, the wood is ready and we are looking forward to a great season. For several years we have welcomed friends, family and visitors on this special occasion to enjoy a true Maine tradition. We don't attract the large crowds of the big operations, and we like that just fine.

Again this year you are welcome at the sugarhouse, along with a trip to see the goats in the barn. We plan on having free tractor rides in our "new" trailer, and along the way you can see the beginnings of our "tiny house village" and a demonstration on our band sawmill. The greenhouse will certainly be a warm place and you can take a walk on the Sugar Trail and help us collect sap if you like. As in the past we'll plan on having a few hotdogs and beans for sale to the hungry visitors. We also plan on offering homemade ice cream with a splash of syrup.

As we try to become more self-sufficient in our everyday lives, Angela & I and the kids love to share our ideas to inspire you and your family to do the same.

Hope to see you there.
Reuben & Angela Wheeler

Becoming self-sufficient - What does it mean?

A search of the web these days finds thousands of folks giving their two cents on how to become a Survivalist, a Prepper, a Homesteader and the like. Some folks have spent their lives living what they teach, while others simple blog about something that has just become a part of their life.

The Farmer is just one more voice. I don't have all the answers. I have experience, some bred in, some learned, lots still left to learn.

WHY BECOME SELF-SUFFICIENT?

1) The freedom to produce what I like. The freedom to work for myself, for my family.
2) The security of knowing how to provide for our own needs without relying on others.
3) The satisfaction of producing something, of gaining a skill, of providing.
4) The quality that can be found when the user becomes the producer, simply cannot be beat.
5) The ability to live richly without being rich.

What are your reasons? These are just a few of mine.

WHERE DO YOU START?

I like to look at our needs and see which of these I can provide. Let's list them and try to see which to tackle this first.

FOOD, SHELTER, CLOTHING, TRANSPORTATION, ENTERTAINMENT to name a few.

Start small at first.

FOOD Try making more meals "from scratch", not from a box, not from a can, and certainly not through the car window at McDonalds. At first your kids will think that you are crazy. My 8 year old commented recently that a simple meal of slow cooked kidney beans was "the best meal ever". Do you even know what kidney beans are. You've got to start somewhere.

SHELTER If you already have a home, then try to become more independent in maintining your home. If you are without your own home, try to educate yourself on building your own home. I built my first real "camp" when I was 12 years old. Dad's sawmill produced the lumber, I provided the labor.





When I was 20 I bought my first land, 20 acres of raw woodland. At 21 I was clearing the lot, sawing lumber, hauling gravel, pouring cement and building my first home. I'm now 41 and I still feel that building and shelter have been my life's calling.



I'm a Land Surveyor by profession, but a builder at heart. If you think a stud is the muscle bound guy at the gym, you've got to start somewhere.

CLOTHING This is a tough one for the Farmer. I simply don't sew anything but seeds. So on clothing I simply go without. Two new pair of Wrangler jeans and a few pair of socks and I'm happy. Maybe you can delay buying those designer slacks, do they still call them slacks?

TRANSPORTATION Once you stop buying fast food, stop shopping for that new blouse and enjoy your home more, transportation will become less a part of your life, besides driving is dangerous. Stay off the roads. Gas is expensive. SIMPLY STAY HOME! I am angry to see the roads clogged with senior citizens and the unemployed simply running the wheels off their cars. STAY HOME! The $0.49/lb sale on banannas or 5% off on Tuesdays at the G-store is not a good reason to risk being killed or maimed by a driver under the influence of their smart phone. Social Security is meant to provide assistance in your subsistence. Pounding your Subaru 20,000 miles a year to get a damn newspaper is a huge waste of resources. Yes I said resources, your, ours. So to become self-sufficient in the TRANSPORTATION department you can either go by foot or you can reduce your driving time by simply staying put. (Wow this is apparently an issue that I feel strongly about.)

ENTERTAINMENT If you are working on Food, Shelter, Clothing and Transportation, this is your entertainment. We host a yearly open house at our sugarhouse each year - this is our entertainment. We host goat farm tours and have become mentors to countless goat owners - this is our entertainment. We get together as a family to plant the potatoes in the Spring, put up the hay in the Summer and press the cider in the Fall - this is our entertainment. Try it, you just might like it.

Beans and Rice - Living Richly

Eating beans and Rice might make you feel that times are hard, but for merely a few dollars you can eat a meal fit for a king. Prepared, boxed and canned food will kill you. Look at the cemeteries, need I say more?

Project House Update

The project house has seen some attention this fall. If you recall from my Fall 2010 posts, the old house is basically a 1840's Craftsman Bungalow. To more accurately trace the roots of the old house, we have to start with what we know. In the 1840's the Alexander family moved to Oak Hill, and presumably took up residence in a home on the same lot. The core of the current house has a post and beam structure that measures 19'x24'. The joinery and construction methods surely trace back a long way. In the 1910's and 20's, Henry Bradford, a resident of Auburn, Maine bought the place and apparently undertook some substantial revisions. The little house was transformed into a 30'x30' Bungalow, with an ell. I would guess that in the 1920's, this house would have stood out as being particullarly modern and stylish. These features are what hooked me on the old place right away. It surely wasn't the wiring, plumbing, foundation or insulation that caught my eye. But then again I can fix all those things. Ugly goes to the bone, and many modern houses, while being practical, lack any style. As we have picked away over the past three years, I have focused on cutting out the rot and ripping out the old. Just this fall I finally attacked the foundation. First I dug out the old crumbling stone bulkhead. The bulkhead was the lowest point in the backyard and was great at collecting rain water and sending it into the basement.

After I dug to bedrock, which was close by, I poured new concrete footers, pinned to the ledge, and laid a new cement block bulkhead. After installing a new perimeter drain and waterproofing, the whole family helped regrade the backyard to shed water away from the house. Just days later the frost set in with force. With some new basement supports in place, I hope to get a start on replacing floor stringers in a few months. I have now removed the plumbing and wiring in the main house. It feels so good to know that the old place will keep it's heart, but will have new arteries and veins. Some folks have presumed that with this idea of fixing and flipping, we stand to make some good money. Actually I think the "fixing" in that scenario usually requires that you know how to remove wallpaper and install new receptacle covers. This place is requiring a "total rip", but the result will hopefully be a modern home with historic flare. I'm sure of one thing, the Surveyor, Farmer, Hunter, Father has become a backhoe operator, a mason and will become a Plumber, Electrician and Carpenter before this is over. As for making money, that isn't even the point.

Winter Fun on Juniper Hill Farm

The December snow, Christmas Ice Storm and frigid January temperatures are adding together to make a real old-fashioned winter here in Maine.In spite of the cold, we are having lots of fun here on Juniper Hill Farm.

On this January morning the temperature was -10°F as we went for a winter hike. Many times I have read historic accounts of the winter weather and I've felt as if we are missing out on the good stuff. When the first Wheeler's spent the winter of 1762-73, here in Bowdoin, I'm sure they had it tough. They likely had a simple shelter, probably with a dirt floor, leaking roof and barely any heat. We have it really good. The house is warm, most of the time, the roof doesn't leak, and there is only a little dirt on the floor when we don't vacuum.

Cold weather is bearing down here on the farm. The wood pile is shrinking fast, but the house is warm and welcoming even with lows at -12F this morning. I'll get some more wood ready in case we run short in late winter. The recent Christmas Ice Storm left us without power for 60 hours, but we had a great Christmas anyway. If you felt helpless, use the next few months to prepare for next winter. A wood stove backup or a generator can create a true sense of security. Oil heat has made so many people lazy. Lots of people don´t like the bugs or dirt, but how does cold feel when Old Man Winter knocks down the power lines? I'd say that most families could use a wood stove if they wanted one. For some, I would suggest burning some of their junk to keep warm. Move a few things, cut in a flue pipe and get burning. Wood is everywhere, you just need to ask and put in some sweat equity to put the wood away for later. Wringing your hands and acting helpless just doesn't keep you warm enough when the temps drop to 0F. PREPARE YOURSELF!

Black Friday Rant - Mature readers only - Warning

Black Thursday and Friday has come and gone and this year and again I decided to stay out of the madness. Instead I strapped on several loaded guns and several layers of clothes and headed for the deer stand. The tree stand was frigid, but it surely beat being killed at the mall. I have watched videos of those absolutely crazy people fighting over electronics at where else but Wal-Mart. The average Wal-Mart shopper is apparently willing to go two rounds over a Sony TV to take back to their stinky apartment. Really, is the Toshiba that you fought over last year ready to be replaced? Get a life, or on second thought why don't you just jump off a bridge. I am saddened that a day of Thanksgiving is replaced by just another day to fight over junk you can live without. Just imagine the joy on Christmas morning when your girlfriend's stepson opens the crumpled box under the tree. You can sit in your Lazy Boy and tell him how you spent a night in the local lock-up so he could watch the lame excuse of a sitcom "Two and Half Men" on this $98 piece of s*** Chinese flatscreen. Instead, why don't you take a few minutes to explain to him why he doesn't know his real father and why your teeth are rotting out of your head. Don't be surprised when he celebrates his seventeenth birthday by taking a bath salt trip that ends with an arrest after his midnight skinny dip in the overused highway rest stop porta-potty. On the bright side the poor lad might have a career in the pharmacutical industry when he discovers that marijuana soaked in a mixture of Drano and dishwater detergent will make your throat close up just like being strangled by a Burmese python. Instead he can reminisce about the bargain you got on his X-BOX 360 when he is in the hospital suffering from 3rd degree burns to 90 percent of his body when his basement Meth lab explodes. By the way, why is the hair on your cheek so black and curly? Nothing good can come from throwing bargain priced electronics into a group of over-weight ladies hell bent on saving a few bucks. Look out. Wow I didn't know I was so wound up about this. Really, are we such a consumer society that just the mention of "saving" will make us kill our fellow man. It is no wonder the kids these days are so screwed up since we have taught them that a traditional day spent with family is now spent running-up their credit card on under-priced computers that they are too stupid to use. To most of these Black Friday brawlers they think that WIFI is short for "WIfe FIghting". If you get between two ladies and one flatscreen you had better hope that your Health Insurance Policy hasn't been canceled due to the Obamacare nightmare. By the way, if you happen to want to take a boot leg video of one of these Wal-Mart throw-downs, NO WAY. Wal-Mart has a strict "NO VIDEO" policy when it comes to people getting killed in Electronics. If a video does slip through to YouTube you can bet that most of the hits will be on your face. Actually, I did get a jump on the third big shopping day of the season. The one day that I can support is "Small Business Saturday". This day we are directed by our government to shop at the local merchants, and we had better do it, because if Wal-Mart has their way these local "Mom & Pops" won't make it another year. On Saturday morning, after listening to the "dear leader" lying to us in his weekly radio address, we are to get into our Prius's and roam the countryside with our E-10 gasoline in search of a small rundown local merchant. We are to then go inside, dust off the American Made Stanley Thermos and pay the $138 dollars that they are asking. How quickly we forget that this Thermos was made while Reagan was in the White House. When after years of abuse at the hands of management, the Stanley workers were allowed to join the local "Thermos Makers Union", which led to increased wages, right up to the moment the plant closed and moved it's operation to Malaysia. Boy, unions are great for the American worker, now the rigors of the 8 hour work day are replaced by hours on the couch watching "General Hospital" and checking the I-Phone for our food stamp account refill. Work is so overrated. So, seriously, I stopped by a local merchant today and bought a huge pack of toilet paper. No High-fructose corn syrup laden soda treat for me, no electronic cigarettes, but just plain old American Chinese made toilet paper. 24 mega rolls of 1000 sheets of bum kissing softness, enough to last at least three days at our house. This paper is made of the best American wood fiber, harvested by a Chilean wood cutter, using Swedish made chainsaws, trucked to port in a Mexican made trailer and shipped to China, only to be carefully processed into something that will wipe last night's left-over turkey supper out of my butt. But, just as I was paying, with inflated American dollars, I spotted one of those "energy hogging" incandesant light bulbs casting it's ugly warm light down onto the cashier. I immediately dropped everything and called the "light bulb police" to respond and to drag these criminals off to jail. Once the government mandated mercury curly lights were installed, per government regulation 632, I finished my toilet paper purchase and headed home, happy that I had got the jump on those Saturday morning deal brawlers. If I'm lucky, while the shoppers are being trampled and the doors are being busted down on Saturday morning, I'll be sitting at home, next to my wood cookstove in the kitchen and listening to Tom & Professor Hill on their radio show. By the way, Merry Christmas.