Category Archives: Farm

Homemade Maple Syrup Hot Cocoa

Posted on by under Maple Syrup, Recipes

What a great recipe for a cold and wet day! We made this up one time we were out collecting sap and got caught in the rain. Hope you enjoy it.

Homemade Maple Syrup Hot Cocoa

  • Servings: 5
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

3 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
3 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk

Blend all the ingredients together with a whisk or in a blender. Heat in a saucepan. Ladle into cups. Enjoy!

Righteous Oaks News

Posted on by under Family, Farm, Garden, Homeschooling, Hospitality, Maple Syrup, Pastured pride, Picture posts
Broccoli and Peas Should Be Ready Beginning of June
Young Appretices 4/3-4/6
1st Bottle Baby
Finishing School Strong
12 Piglets Born 4/11
Dairy Heifer Arrives 4/12

This is the time of year to be on the farm. There is so much excitement and so many new babies to see. Here’s our highlights from this month so far:

  • April started strong with sap flowing full swing. We’re still collecting and will likely continue until Wednesday with our final boil down Thursday and Friday.
  • We had two amazing visitors. Jaeden has been here three times now and this time brought along her friend Olive. We met Jaeden during  J(une)-Term 2015 through AFSA high school. She and eight others came for a whole week of farm experiences. Her second visit was this last fall when she helped us harvest honey, harvest garden veggies and make jelly. April 3-6, her and Olive enjoyed lots of newborn baby goats, feeding our lone bottle baby, collecting sap, planting onions in the high tunnel, and playing games with our boys. We enjoyed our time with them and hope we didn’t work them too hard.
  • Our first new experience this April is our little bottle baby, Prancer. The boys run, jump, and frolic in the yard with him each day and he stays close to our farm dog Ruby at nights. We’re hoping to bring him out to pasture once he’s on two feedings a day. Right now he is 15 days old.
  • Peter turned 10 years old this month, yes double digits. He’s an amazing boy and becoming quite the farmer himself.
  • Home school continues. My boys are motivated to get our studies done before summer arrives.
  • Our second batch of piglets were born yesterday! Mat counted twelve that seem to be thriving. One didn’t survive and one is half the size of the others. Peter can’t wait until they get big enough to ride.
  • Our second new adventure arrived on the farm today. She is a Dexter-Jersey heifer calf. Even though she isn’t a year old, she’s likely over 400 pounds. We’re hoping to breed her and have a calf and fresh cow milk next summer. Silas cannot wait. It will be fun to get to know this new addition over the next months. Please comment with any name ideas, for she doesn’t have one yet.

Not even half done and we’ve had lots of excitement. We’re excited for more goats babies, more visitors, more planting, and lots of action as the month continues.

SapperJacks

Posted on by under Farm, Homeschooling, Maple Syrup, Picture posts
Maple Syrup Evaporator
Crazy Wood Pile
Boiling Down Pans
Sap Storage
Sapping Setup
SapperJacks

Today we had another adventure on the farm. Yes, we’re full steam ahead again. I suppose you could say it started yesterday. Mathew started boiling down and stayed up all night and all day adding wood to the fire and sap to the pan. After emptying our storage container we stopped around 3pm Thursday and started filling up our bulk tank again with the sap from our two 50 gallon barrels. Then we took those two barrels out to the woods again. It was a beautiful March day at 53 Fahrenheit. After taking a quick look at our new goat babies, we drove through the pasture and to the woods on the other side. Just as the first barrel was filled, a strong wind blew, the temperature dropped about ten degrees within minutes (I’m serious. It got cold quick!), and the rain and sleet started to fall. We were soaked once the second barrel was full. It took about twenty minutes to fill the first barrel and only fifteen for the second since we were cold and hasty. I’m so glad I had prepared a snack at home. Being cold and wet made the rewards waiting for us so much better. I had made some chocolate zucchini cake with maple syrup instead of sugar and promised to mix up some homemade maple hot cocoa. What a treat! Continue reading →

In the News

Posted on by under Family, Farm

Page A01

Our Greater Mille Lacs Sustainable Farmering Association was featured in the Aitkin Independent Age this past Wednesday on page 4 of the Progress Edition. Click the picture to the right or on “page 4” to read all about it. There were lots of pictures from our farm. I think Peter took pride in being on the front page of the paper and full page of the Progress Edition.

Mat has also been working on a farm to institution event that will be happening March 29. We hope to promote connection between local producers and institutions like schools and nursing homes. Local foods promotes health and local economy. Click NEWS to see the link to that article.

Time To Tap

Posted on by under Farm, Maple Syrup

It’s February and it looks like Spring might just come early for Minnesota this year. Yes, March is known for abundant snow. Could we get 66 inches like they did back in March 1965 (wikipedia fact)? The way our weather has been this year, it would be rain instead. Spring isn’t just rain and flowers for us anymore. This will be our fourth year tapping maple trees and harvesting the sap for something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to live without. Using syrup instead of sugar cane is wonderful in all the recipes I’ve tried (just use the correct ratios). I’m fortunate I don’t have to use sugar beet sugar anymore due to the fact GMO variety make up approximately 95% of the crop.

Tomorrow, we start tapping. Eighteen days earlier than last year. It is likely to be warm (50F is shorts weather in Minnesota), sunny and wet in the woods.

Continue reading →

High Tunnel Success

Posted on by under Farm, Garden

Celebrate with us friends. We have raised a high tunnel. Thank you to all our friends that came to help. We have a great community of farmers around here and many of them were here to help as well. With this hoophouse we hope to raise plenty of nutritious veggies for ourselves, our community and our animals (the pigs are so happy), surely leading to greater health all around. We knew one couple in our area that was still harvesting tomatoes at Thanksgiving this year. We are feeling blessed with this new addition, our community and friends, and the beautiful weather God has given this fall.

A Month Gone By

Posted on by under Bees, Family, Farm, Honey, Maple Syrup, Pastured pride
Sweetie is not my milking goat, but I just couldn't resist sharing this picture

Sweetie is not my milking goat, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this picture

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve updated you all on farm living. Some new developments have us excited.

  • Our newest increase is that we will be getting a female Great Pyrenees today and hope that she and our male will do well to guard our growing goat herd. We also hope to offer livestock guardian puppies in the future. We’ll let you know if Furry and Juniper (Juni) get along well together.
  • Another cause for elation is that we have chicks hatching today. Yesterday, Moe and Fiesty were born. Last month, we had seven born in our incubator. This has been such a fun process for us and we hope to get some good laying hens for future egg production for our own use. Last months chicks; Hawk, Big Goldie, Little Pepper, Cookie, Little Goldie and Speckled Head, are doing well and love following me around the yard.
  • I have also taken up the challenge of milking our Alpine goat, Ivy. She has been providing us with over a quart of nutritious raw goat milk each day. In early June, we will likely start milking twice a day (a whole new challenge). This weekend, we may even make goat milk ice cream. We have enjoyed the flavor and our many guests have enjoyed a little taste too.
  • Mat’s new chicken tractor design is complete. As a result, moving our pastured chickens twice a day is now enjoyable. A smaller number of chickens has resulted in cleaner, healthier birds so far. If a chicken can be beautiful, I have to say that these are. I have actually said it to them more than once as I’ve seen them this year. Maybe I’ve been on the farm too long.
  • Our pigs are growing strong enough and big enough for our youngest boys to ride them. These two boys have become more daring with age.
  • I don’t think we’ve mentioned that we have three bull calves born last month. They were a surprise since we were told our Scottish Highland cows were bred to give birth in June. We are happy with our healthy and fluffy and soon to be steers. They are growing fast.
  • Mat split one healthy bee hive yesterday and has another out there. Hopefully, this will be the year to brag about when we actually get honey to market.
  • Lastly, our maple syrup season went well. We weren’t so sure at first and it was hard work. At $.25 an hour, Mat doesn’t get paid much for his time with this product, but we enjoy the stuff so much that it’s worth it.

That’s it for now I suppose. Hope you enjoyed hearing about our busy lives. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I guess you’ll just have to visit and pick up some fresh food from the farm if you want to see this stuff for yourselves.