DIY Guitar Wall Mount Made With A Deer Antler [instructions]

Did you have a successful shed hunt?  (Click here if you don’t know what I’m talking about).  Play guitar or know someone who does? If you have an antler with the right point positioning (or are willing to buy one), you might be able to make a super easy and fantastic looking wall mount for a guitar, bass, banjo, ukulele, etc.  

How to Make Sugar on Snow (aka Maple Taffy) [infographic]

It’s safe to say that we’ve got maple syrup on our minds! Between checking our taps daily and our daughter’s love of maple sugaring themed books, we have it covered.  And we’ve been eager to try Sugar on Snow, aka Maple Taffy, aka easy, fun, and delicious treat!

Upon Awakening

Each morning, I wake, without pause to the sound of my daughter’s voice.  I move through slumber with the sounds of doors opening and closing.  Her small whispers of a voice talking to her stuffed animals asking what they want to eat with their cereal and oatmeal and milk. Then in the same breath, turning the volume up and calling out to tell me her requests for the morning meal.  Can I have cereal and oatmeal and milk and tiramisu? The conversation continues rapid fire and speed unknown to me until my feet hit the floor and I rise up.

Our Inexpensive and Easy DIY Maple Syrup Evaporator

The sap collection has been slow here with winter holding on tight with below freezing temperatures and deep snow covering our land.  So far we’ve only pulled about a half gallon of sap per tap.  But hey, at least we collected enough to warrant a boil!  We build our own evaporator instead of shelling out big bucks for the fancy ones, read on to see how we did it.

How to Give Your Farm a Unique Name

When we think about how much we debated over Ferrin Brook Farm as a name, we remember the care and deep conversations about how it makes us feel, how a new customer might feel, how it rolled off the tongue.  We also can immediately picture the sweet little brook that runs down the property, and how when we first walked the land with the real estate agent, we imagined our children barefooted running through the woods and splashing in the water, building little wood boats with leaf sails.  This water is also what feeds the land around us as a tributary brook, joining all the other little streams around us into the lakes and rivers nearby.  It is strong and sound and gives us freedom to continue practicing our homesteading without any bounds.

5 Common Misconceptions About Raising Chickens for Meat

It is nearly time for us to order the chicks for fryers and broilers, and I couldn’t be more excited.  The meat supply in the chest freezer is dwindling and I will rest easy knowing it is on its way to being replenished.  That’s right, we raise our own chickens (and if you’re local to Madison, NH, you can buy some from us, click here).  I know a lot of people out there think we’re nuts, but we’re here to set you straight.

Doing it Yourself Doesn’t Mean Doing it Alone

Dear Fellow Homesteader, Beginning Homesteader, Farmers, Backyard Gardner, and DIY-ers,

I wish we could live with our yards and our acres back to back.  So that the proverbial cup of sugar (or maybe you would prefer a spoonful of raw unfiltered honey) was just a snow path away, rather than texting or driving or connecting virtually.  But here we are. And there you are…miles and miles away.

Shed Antler Hunting

You know deer and moose lose their antlers every winter, right?  I’ve known this for a while but until last year it never occurred to me that these antlers don’t just disappear.  Once I discovered “shed hunting” (cool way to say “finding antlers in the woods”), I was hooked.  As the snow starts to melt in the coming weeks and months, you might want to take a walk in the woods to see if you can find these beautiful natural treasures.