It’s rare that I get a whole day to spend on homesteading tasks, so I was looking forward to tackling a few things on Saturday. With the last-minute shift in the weather forecast came a shift in the to-do list – suddenly, everything was about battening down the hatches to prepare for what could be the worst storm in a decade.
So often the focus of my labor is on maintenance rather than progress towards my goals, which can be frustrating. I am working on finding peace in the familiar monotony of repetitive tasks.
Food Production
My foray into collecting maple sap has not been without errors – I have several taps that are currently producing nothing, others with sap leaking from around the tap – and yet I still have amassed nearly four gallons of sap. It’s stored in canning jars in my fridge. I am rapidly running out of both fridge space and canning jars!
Last week, I purchased new equipment that has been very helpful: tap kits with tubing and food-grade 5 gallon buckets with lids. I drilled holes in the bucket lids that are just large enough to accept the tubing, so there should be minimal rainwater (or snowmelt) diluting the contents.
I assumed I’d boil it on my kitchen stove when the time comes, but I’ve since read that doing so is ill-advised as it will leave a residue on everything in the kitchen. The fact that I have lost sleep over this should help to illustrate why it is so unusual for me to start a process without having first researched it in full.
My plan at this moment is to construct a temporary boiling station, although more research needs to be done to finalize the design. The old antique wood stove sits by the barn as part of a future outdoor kitchen, but I would need to build up some safety mechanisms around it lest I set the entire barn on fire; maybe that will be done in time for next year’s boil.
Resource Acquisition & Preparedness
I’ve made it this far with a $5 yard sale Hults-Bruk felling axe serving as my main splitter. Lately, it has been splintering at the head, and the head itself has been shifting quite a bit when I swing it. I intended to re-hang it, but found I couldn’t get the head off the nub of handle in the end.
With the blizzard coming, I caved and purchased the Fiskars x25. My hesitations were that I didn’t want to spend money and I didn’t want an axe with a plastic handle… but this thing splits wood like nothing I’ve used before, and it doesn’t get lodged in the log. It behaves like a maul, but it’s not as unwieldy. Ultimately, it was money well spent.
Aesthetic Utility
It is really easy to add some whimsy to a kitchen by attaching an outlet cover to a small piece of art. I love subtle seasonal decor and have always wanted to find a way to display my mom’s Lillian Vernon seasonal trivets. The “Winter” edition has served as my outlet cover for the past couple of months, but despite the blizzard in the forecast, I decided it was time to transition to “Spring”.
I love the functionality of this because I only use that outlet when I’m utilizing the pressure cooker, at which time I just set the trivet-turned-outlet-cover to the side. These little touches are what Aesthetic Utility is all about.
Energy Independence
Firewood. Next year, I need more of it.
Moving Forward
As for that blizzard, I’ll tell you about it in Week 36.
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