Welcome to the Letters from the Homestead series where I share stories of our life on the homestead. I hope you can connect to these snippets from our simple life here in Wisconsin.
March 3, 2024
“You’ll never see another winter like this one,” my 86-year-old grandfather said to me as he walked through the door. As a farmer all of his life, he is used to studying the weather and its patterns. In his 86 years of living on this earth, he has never experienced a winter like this one. “A bare yard in February…” he said as he shook his head looking out the window.
“Maybe the winters will just stay this way from now on,” I suggested. Honestly, I hope this is not the case. This year without a winter feels off in some way- like something is out of balance. The winter is a time of rest and recharge. A time for cold and snow. It serves its purpose, and without it (no matter how much one might complain when the cold and snow is here), it feels like something is off. “Or maybe it will snow a lot in March,” I continue, hoping for the normalcy of winter to return.
This warm winter has already been impacting our first crop that we harvest from the land: maple syrup. It’s the earliest we’ve ever tapped, but the trees are saying that it’s time. This week on Monday we started a batch of sap that finally finished Saturday morning. We had continuously added to it through the week, and when all was said and done, we ended up with 5 more gallons of maple syrup. This time, the syrup has already turned to its late season dark, which makes me wonder how much longer the season will continue. We are at around 40-50 quarts made now, which is close to our goal of 52 quarts (one for each week of the year). More is always better, though, so we will gladly take whatever the trees have to offer.
The warmer weather has been calling the children and me outside more and more each day. As quickly as we can in the morning we do our schoolwork, then outside we go. Outside, we took some time to learn about evergreen trees. We all enjoyed taking walks and identifying the swooping, long and shady branches of the hemlock, the soft, flat needles of the balsam, the long and soft five needle clusters of the white pine, and the pokey and sharp needles of the spruce. Back inside the house, we painted pictures of evergreen trees and worked on writing out the differences between the needle samples we brought back home.
Later that night as we lay in bed, I started to hear a noise outside. “Do you hear that?” I whispered to my husband as I continued to try to place the muffled, but definitely existing high-pitched sound I was hearing close by. “It’s just the baby snoring,” he whispered back, but I knew it was something else. Right about that moment, he heard it too and got out of bed. Of course, curiosity also had me intrigued, so I followed him out of the room. As soon as he opened the front door, I recognized the yipping to be that of a coyote. And a close one too. Very close. Too close. The hairs on my arms stood up as I listened to the coyote laugh into the night in the yard and field where my children and I had played just a few hours earlier. “Get out of here!” my husband yelled and clapped, but the unfazed coyote just laughed and continued on with his song. We grabbed a light to shine out to see it, but the light was too much as the coyote finally silenced himself and ran. As we returned back to bed, we chatted about what might have prompted that coyote to be so bold to come so close to the house, each of us making up our own story.
A Sourdough Workshop
Another exciting part of my week happened as a result of one of you! I had a blog-follower reach out to me a few weeks ago asking me if I’d consider hosting a sourdough workshop for her and her friends. When I found out she lived fairly close and really was hopeful I’d consider, I agreed. So this weekend, I packed up 10 little jars of my starter and a freshly baked loaf of sourdough bread, and I drove over to her house to teach them what I know. I gave them their starters, and we worked on feeding it and recognizing the difference between an active starter and inactive starter. Then, I made a loaf of sourdough bread dough, giving everyone a chance to feel the ready-to-rise dough and watch the process of how to make it. Afterwards, we had some time to just talk and ask questions, and I did my best to answer. I really loved being surrounded by other women who were looking to learn a skill to use in their kitchens at home for their own families. What an honor to be a part of that! I hope to do another workshop someday for others.
This letter is getting long, so I supposed I’d better wrap it up. Thank you so much for following along on our journey. I hope you’ll take some time to hop over to the blog to check out some of my newest posts. I finally finished reading some amazing Wisconsin historical memoir books, and I put all of those together in a post for you. I also have the printable 2024 vegetable planting calendar updated and ready for you, too! I hope they can be helpful for you.
Thank you for reading. Until next time,
Sadie
Read last week’s letter here.
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