Visitors Welcome - Maine Maple Sunday 2011

Hello all, mark your calenders for Sunday March 27th, 2011 for Maine Maple Sunday. If you haven't heard about this before, its an open house for Maple Sugarhouses throughout the State of Maine. Since we now have a respectable sugarhouse we're going to invite our friends and neighbors to visit this year. Maybe next year we'll let the general public know that we're open if this year goes well.

On March 27th we should be right in the middle of sugaring season if Mother Nature allows and we'll have some free treats as well as some for sale. We'll have demonstrations on tapping maple trees, collecting the sap and or course boiling it down. We'll make it a kid friendly event, that's just the way we do it here.



Once you've looked around the sugarhouse you'll be invited to visit with the goats, and their baby kids, the sheep, hens, rabbits and maybe even some baby piglets will arrive by then (check out my last post). They look forward to seeing you.


So have faith on these cold winter days, Spring is coming, I'm sure. We hope to see you soon.

How to castrate a hog

Well, the Farmer continues to learn. If you don't want piglets, make sure your male pigs are castrated! The cute pig scramble pigs, caught in July are now 200lbs big, and eating a plenty. I failed to notice that the male pig had some strange large growths located just below his tail. I guess some would call them pig balls, or more correctly testicles. Yes, our scramble pig was not "cut" so we might have piglets for Easter, or before.

I've been told that a boar hog's meat would taste like urine, so he should be cut at least 5-6 weeks before he was butchered. Not to worry, I was assured by a couple of knowledgable hog farmers that he could be castrated, even at this late date. Here is how it would go.

1) Get a bucket loader tractor near to the pig pen.

2) Try to catch the male pig. This should really be split into a few steps.
2A) Get into pig pen with three 200lb pigs. (No I didn't count myself.)
2B) Try to grab the male by the back foot. Yes, that foot is kind of shitty and really slippery.
2C) Once you get a good hold on the foot, hold on for a few minutes while you are dragged around the pig pen on your face. Now you will be kind of shitty and really slippery.
2D) Get a strong rope around each rear leg and throw a loose end over the hook on the loader bucket.

3) Pick up the pig, just until his front feet are just touching the ground.
You'll have to stop now to answer to the police and assure them that you're not killing anyone and what you are doing is completely legal. Is it?

4) With the pig, head down, balls up, clean around the testicles with iodine or something similar. Don't spend too much time at this or someone might get the impression that you really enjoy it.

5) Now is the time to get our the razor blade, no not your Schick Quattro dummy, just a single old razor blade. Any sharp knife will do, but it must be really sharp.

Just about right now is where we seperate the men from the boys. You are right, the boys would have no problem going on, but most men are now having second thoughts. Do you really want to be a homesteader, do you want to become more self-sufficient, hell no, I want someone to do this dirty deed while I run into the house and turn up the radio.

I could describe the rest of the procedure at length here, but this blog is about the Farmer, not the Veterinarian, and I don't want to lead you astray. If I were to complete the procedure, I fear that it could go something like this.

6) As I began to cut the pigs scrotum, the poor bastard flipped his head up and took a big bite on my inner thigh.

7) In the struggle to take control of my pain I end up slitting my left index finger to the bone. Now we've got pig scrotum blood into my open finger wound.

8) I wrap my finger with a dirty towel from the barn and I'm determined to finish the job.

9) With one hand, and in considerable pain, I try to continue. But I find that the pig isn't holding still, his squealing is now louder than ever. Before I know it, we've got the county sheriff, the dog catcher, the local pastor and most of the neighbors in the barn yard. What a sight.

On second thoughts, maybe I'll sell the boar to another homesteader so he can breed a few more sows and find his way into a package of hot sausage. Yea, that sounds good.

In all seriousness, we had the pig slaughtered at our local slaughterhouse, and because he was only eight months old, his meat wasn't tainted or strong. The big boy just walked onto the livestock trailer, without any struggle. We'll keep the sows for a while to see if they are pregnant, and if they are, well I guess we'll be real hog farmers.

Old Man Winter flexes his muscles

The air is filled with blowing snow today as I look out toward the woodlot. Right now we've got about 10" of new snow, but it's being blown around so much, it is tough to say for sure. Old Man Winter has surely settled in for a while. The kids love the new snow, but I know it just makes my work harder, oh well.

We just turned the corner on the shortest days of the year. For the next six months our days will be getting longer. I know some people can't stand the short days here in the northern climates. I guess I'm kind of like an old grizzly bear, I just like to fatten up and wait it out.

I'm checking out the generator, just in case the power goes out for a long period of time. (Looking good is always important to the Farmer, here is proof) :-)



When the first days of spring come, we'll be out, collecting sap and making Maple Syrup again this year. If the weather allows, we're prepared to make 25-30 gallons of syrup. The sugar wood is all stacked away and waiting the warm sun of March.

The goats spend most of their days in the barn now, just going out to pasture when the weather is good. They like the sun, especially in the winter. The does are doing well and appear to be progressing quite well. I hope to have 6 does with kids this Spring. We've always just kept the milk for ourselves, but I hope to become a little more commercial in the next couple of years.

Here's hoping that this holiday season finds your family healthy and safe. Best wishes for a Happy New Year. Check back soon. I hope to spend these cold nights posting some neat stories and pictures that you might find interesting.

Goodbye and Good buy?

Yesterday we said goodbye to a nice old yankee gentleman. My Great Uncle "Bud" Wagg passed away on Thanksgiving evening, at the age of 89 years old. A WWII veteran, Bud landed on the beaches of Normandy, during the second wave of the D-day attack. I knew Uncle Bud to always be smiling and as such a great guy. Along with my grandmother, June Wheeler, now 90 years old, Bud and June were cast from the same great New England pioneer stock. We will miss him greatly.

On a lighter note, we recently celebrated Gideon's first deer, a button buck, killed with one perfectly placed shot. A quick kill, and hopefully the beginning of a love for hunting and for the outdoors. As his Dad and the "Hunter", I couldn't be prouder.


Well, just when I thought I was busy, we've done it again. We bought the farm! Here are a couple of "before" shots. I think there is a lot of potential here that we'll discover through the next couple of years.


You may ask "How old is the house?", well that is a good question. I'll call it an 1840's bungalow, rebuilt several times, with a touch of Craftsman styling. Now really the Bungalow style dates only to the 1920's, so I think that what we've got here is a classic New England home. Dating to no particular time, but before anyone can remember, and with hints of several styles. There was a house near here in 1854, but the current structure looks like a later reconstruction effort. It appears that the Attorney that owned it in the mid 1970's did some big changes, but there have been none since 1978. Before we rip too much, we're trying to study the whole house including talking to owners that lived here in the 1960's. We intend to restore this great old house to make it more energy efficient and to add some modern conveniences.

What you really can't see from the pictures is the land on which the house sits. At around 25 Acres, more or less, as the deed states, I think that by cutting a field to the west of the house we'll get a view of Maine's western foothills and beyond. That will have to wait for now.

Fall descends on Juniper Hill Farm

The last few nights have brought the first real frost to our gardens here at the farm. The carrots are dug and packed in damp sawdust in the basement, only the brussel sprouts are left in the garden. Overall the growing season was a success, but the tomatoes were cut short by a return of the "blight" from last year. We'll try our tomatoes in a different garden next year.

With the wood stacked neatly into the cellar, we are now using the wood boiler to heat the house and the domestic hot water. The recent trend for many country families has been the outdoor wood boiler. While it keeps the wood, the mess and, of course the fire, out of the house, it also seems somewhat inefficient to my way of thinking. All the "lost" heat in an outdoor boiler goes into wide open space, while our indoor boiler "looses" its heat inside the house, right where we want it. We have an old Memco boiler, but its in good shape, and it works almost as well with or without power. I like to hear the quiet hum of the electric circulator, without the roar of the oil burner. We'll heat our 2200 sq. ft house on six cord of wood, with the domestic hot water as a "free" extra.



The latest building project here at the farm is the addition of our first greenhouse. It is built from 20 recycled window sashes from our church that may date back to the 1830's. The door and vent window are roadside finds that have been put to good use. We may try some winter greens if its not too late to get them started, otherwise the greenhouse will be ready for next spring. You may notice a few young turkeys walking past the greenhouse, we've had as many as 40 birds foraging for acorns in the back woods. Its nice to see a new wild food source here in Maine, although I expect the coyotes like them better than most people do.

More progress in at camp

After several weeks taking care of things here on the farm, we got back to the County to install the metal roofing on our new camp. The tarps that we had put on in August were still holding up fine, but we wanted to put on the steel roofing before winter. We bought the roofing from an Amish shop in Fort Fairfield run by the Miller family. Sam & Norman have a real nice shop there right on Route 1A. The roofing was of the highest quality and the price was good.

We had a large crowd at camp this weekend. Our friends Scott & Terri came to help with the roofing and their son Brian came down from UMaine at Fort Kent to spend the weekend with us. My brother Lincoln and his three boys came up as well. If you noticed, Linc has an identical camp to ours on the same lot. Its sort of a joint venture with our own space. We had also had a moose hunting party set up in their own camper in the backyard. We all had fun.



All day saturday the wind blew steady and the temperature topped out at about 45 degrees. Not great weather to put on steel roofing, but we pushed through and got it done, thanks to the many helpful hands. By Sunday afternoon camp was a little quieter, except for our family and the moose hunters. We put in our camp windows and went for a nce ride on the ATV's. We saw five moose, including a beautiful bull. I wonder if he made it through the week?




The weekend in New Sweden was a nice distraction to the rush and pressure of our regular life. Call me crazy, but I really like it up north.

Back at the farm, breeding season is underway. I usually let the buck run with the does from mid September until the first of November. This takes the guess work out of whether or not the girls are bred. I'm holding back one of my milking does, to be bred in mid November. This should limit the time that we are without fresh milk this winter. I'm trying to limit myself to five does for the spring kidding. I usually feel overwhelmed each fall if I have too many head. It seems that I'll find good homes for a couple of young does. That will be good.

Angela & I are in the process of expanding our holdings again. This is a big leap, I hope it works. All I'll say now is it will be a lot of work, and I hope a lot of satisfaction. Just a hint, its a 1840's home on about 30 acres with a view of the White Mountains. Maybe it's just a way to test myself? I hope we're up to it. We'll post pictures for sure. Maybe we'll call it Oak Hill Farm, sounds good. Take care for now.

OK Back to Work

Well after resting for one, maybe two days, it was back to work for the Wheeler family. While my numb hands were still bothering me from so much building, I went back to milking the goats and doing all the other things that were needed bein' done. We finished the second cut of hay and split some more firewood with the splitter.

After being in beautiful Aroostook county for a eight days, I've been feeling a little "treebound" around our home lately. The wide open sky at the camp simply cannot be beat. We can see the early morning sun as it rises over New Brunswick, Canada and we can see the sun as it sets in the evening. At home, the trees that have been spared my wrath have grown well over the last 16 years and are now stealing the sky that I want to see. I do however have the cure, I'll simply gas up the Husky and start dropping next year's firewood. I hope to tackle about another two acres, I know a big task, but I want more field, I want a view of the eastern sky, and that is what we'll soon have. I am really a tree hugger in a way, I love to hug a big arm load of dry oak firewood and throw it into our indoor wood boiler on a cold winter evening.