Some Thoughts on Pollination and Honeybees.

As we have mentioned in some of our previous posts, we are going to be keeping bees on our property starting next year.  It’s going to be a lot of work and time consuming but having bees on our property will be well worth it.  The benefits of beekeeping go far beyond having an abundant supply of honey and wax for your homestead.

Currently there is a worldwide honeybee crisis that is not fully understood or even cared about by common folk.  Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) remains a giant mystery to researchers and beekeepers even to this date and it appears that wild colonies are becoming all but extinct.  I often ask people near where I live if they ever see any honeybees around their crops but most of them can’t recall the last time they have seen a honeybee pollinating their plants.  This is a serious problem because honeybees are the most efficient pollinators; if you keep bees on your land you can see an increase in crop yield three fold!  It has been said that if all of the honey bees go extinct that human life will cease to exist within four years because there will not be sufficient pollination of crops to support the agricultural industry.  

We thought it would be a lot of fun for our son to have a pumpkin patch on our property so we planted a row of pumpkin vines and we look forward to harvesting them this fall with friends and family.  But one thing I didn’t know about pumpkin vines is that their flower only remains open for twenty-four hours meaning that it only has one day to be pollinated to produce a pumpkin before the opportunity is lost.  Next year when we keep bees this won’t be an issue but right now I’m not sure if we will have a good pumpkin harvest this fall as I haven’t seen too many honey bees on our property, only the occasional sighting.  As a gauge I frequently check our butterfly bushes for honeybees but I haven’t seen any lately.

If you own land or a homestead I encourage you to keep bees on your property.  Doing so will increase your crop yield and you will be a part of saving the bees.  We plan to write a lot about our experiences with beekeeping next year and I hope that you will join us and/or chime in with your advice or questions.  Thanks for reading!

A Table Top Fit for a Lumberjack

There is something to be said about building something from start to finish and doing it the old way— that is, without screws or nails.  A lot of people talk about doing a project from start to finish but is it truly “start to finish?” Where did the lumber come from?  Who milled it?  Who cut the tree down?  I can’t say that even the project that I am about to introduce you to is truly 100% start to finish by me, but it is as close as I could get.  Someone else made the stain in a factory, along with the glue and dowels (I will buy a dowel cutter one day!) but everything else so far has been cut and milled by me.  I would like to encourage you to do at least one true “start to finish” project in your life if you have the opportunity and resources.  It really is an amazing experience and the product is a true reflection of “you” and what you can accomplish.

Also, I must say that I am a little ashamed to admit that I am not done building with this table yet; the table top itself is complete and finished but I still have to attach the legs.  Not to make excuses, but moving and starting our homestead has placed this table on the back burner. Still the project is far enough along that I can share with you the process of building a beautiful table top from scratch from start to finish.  Before we get started I would like to thank Mike for letting me cut the tree down on his property and to Chris for helping me run the mill and haul the lumber— thank you guys!

I’m going to try something a little different here and use mostly pictures in this post rather than words.  Words can sometimes complicate things and I think that the pictures we took are good enough to show you the whole process.  Go ahead and head down to your workshop and sharpen up those saw chains; you will be doing a lot of work with the chainsaw and a good sharp chain is necessary for this project (please read our post on files).  After sharpening go out to the woods and select and good, solid and live tree to fell and mill.  This particular tree was a red oak and had a severe front lean to it which is why Mike wanted the tree removed.  The lean on the tree was so severe that it fell a little faster than I expected it to, despite having a lot of hinge wood remaining as you can see here.

Next, cut the tree into sections long enough for you to mill boards out of.  My table ended up being five feet long and I cut my logs eight feet long.  Red oak is real bad about checking (splitting) and even with the boards at eight feet long I only was left with five feet of usable material.  Keep this in mind when you mill lumber for your table.  Checking occurs when water rapidly evaporates out of the wood and about ninety percent of the water evaporates out of the ends, not the top.   I did not do is paint the ends of the lumber, I should have.  If you paint the ends it before the drying process it will greatly reduce the amount of checking in your lumber.

After you are done bucking (cross cutting) the tree into sections, move the sections into a good flat area where you can mill them and begin milling the lumber.  Set your mill to the proper thickness that you would like your table to be— just remember that the thicker the lumber the heavier the table will be.  I milled this tree at one and a half inches, being it was solid oak, to cut back on weight.

Once all of the lumber is milled, store it so that it will dry evenly; if you are lucky enough to have a lumber kiln then the drying process for you will be much quicker.  I used four chainsaw milled boards for this table; three for the table top itself and one to rip cross members out of for additional support on the bottom of the table.

After the wood was dry I selected the three best boards for the table top.  I left the live edge in tact for the outside edges of the table but I ripped down the adjoining edges using my Milwaukee circular saw, using a ripping blade.

A table saw would have been better but I don’t currently own one and the circular saw did just fine.  Next you will glue and dowel the lumber together using a dowel jig and clamps.  Remember to take your time here when drilling the holes for the dowels; if the dowel holes are even just a hair off the pieces WILL NOT go together.  I spaced my dowels six to eight inches apart and I used 3/8” dowels. 

Then glue and clamp two boards together.

And then three.

Next, flip the table over and dowel, glue and clamp the middle cross member to the bottom surface of the table.

Once this is complete, trim off the edges of the table with your circular saw and attach the two remaining cross members near the edges using dowels and glue; clamp them in place and let them dry.

Now you are ready to sand the table down and smooth out the edges with your sander or router.  Here the table’s final shape is achieved.

After you are satisfied with your sanding job apply the stain.  A hand rubbed stain is best, finished with several coats of polyurethane or Liquid Glass/Bar Coat.  This completes the table top itself and the legs will be attached to finish the table.  I’ll show you how to do this in a later post when I am ready to attach the legs.  I know that I didn't go into too much detail in this post but this post builds on some of the previous ones and if you have any questions about the process please feel free to leave them in the comment box.   Thanks for reading and I hope your project turns out great!

Building Work Ethic and Firewood Racks

Lady winter is on her way and if you are like us and plan to heat your home using a wood burning insert or wood burning stove then your firewood preparations should be well under way.  But storing a winter’s worth of firewood requires a lot of space and proper firewood racks.  A firewood rack not only has to be strong enough to support the tonnage of wood that will be supported by it but it also has to be stable and safe; a heavy stack of firewood falling on someone, especially a child, could result in a serious injury.  To accomplish all of this you don’t need to spend a lot of money, however.  A lot of companies sell firewood rack kits ranging from thirty-five dollars to fifty-five dollars but even then you still have to purchase the 2x4’s for the frame rails, further adding to the cost.  I don’t know about you, but spending sixty dollars on a wood rack is a lot of money and I don’t have money to burn, just lots of firewood.  The one my wife and I built, featured here, costed about thirty dollars total and was simple to build.

First, start by cutting the 2x4’s that will determine the width of the rack; I call these boards runners because they run from end to end.  You can make them as wide as you want them to be; obviously the longer the boards are the more firewood you will be able to store on the rack.  I cut my runners to five feet because I had a space in between my garage doors that was just over five feet wide and it was the perfect spot for storing firewood.  To increase the amount of firewood that this particular rack was able to store I constructed a double-rack, consisting of two sets of runners.  This rack design allowed us to stack two sets of firewood in the same area.

Next you will cut two 2x4’s that will screw onto the ends of your runners.  We will call these “end” boards since I don’t haven anything cool or creative to call them.  But how do you determine how long these boards will need to be?  Well, a properly cut piece of firewood is approximately fourteen to sixteen inches wide so your runners should be spaced about ten inches from each other (interior surface to interior surface) which will provide for a couple inches of over hang for the firewood on each side, creating a stable platform.  If you build a double-rack like ours then you will also need to add about eight inches in between the two sets of runners to provide ample space in between the two stacks of firewood.  Once you determine what length to cut your 2x4’s, add four inches to that measurement.  This will allow the 2x4’s to extend past the outside edge of your runners by two inches on each side, which will help stabilize the rack.  For extra stability you can cut your end boards even longer, allowing for more extension.

Once you have figured out all of your measurements and you have completed all of your cuts, pre-drill the holes for your screws.  I always use galvanized deck screws in my exterior projects and I also countersink/recess all of the holes.  Additionally, for anything that I build that is going to be seen by a lot of people I go the extra mile to finish turning the screws by hand such that all of them are facing the same direction.  It’s the little attention to detail things that separate the men from the boys when it comes to working with your hands and you can tell a lot about a man’s work ethic when you look at his finished product.  Is the work sloppy?  Are some screws recessed deeper than the others and are they all facing different directions?  Or is everything built with precision, pride and attention to each little detail?  Maybe it’s my OCD kicking in but small things like that mean a lot to me when I buy or build a product.  Anything I build or put my name on is 100% my best work.  It may not be perfect, nothing ever is and we all make mistakes but it is always the best that I could do, no less.  I would be ashamed to build something for myself or someone else that I didn’t put 100% into.

Now then… go ahead and screw the runners onto the end boards, leaving the two inch overhang at each end.  Once that is complete you will cut two 2x4’s (or four if it is a double-rack) that will screw into the rack vertically and will prevent the firewood from falling off the ends of the rack.  These can be as high or as low as you want them but do not stack the firewood any higher than these boards as it will create a safety issue.  Once again pre-drill your boards and screw them into the rack such that they are centered in between the runners.  If this is a double-rack you will screw these boards to the outside of the end boards and if it is a single-rack you will screw them into the inside edge of the end boards.  If you are screwing them into the inside of the end boards then you will need to account for this when you are cutting your runners as you will be loosing about three inches off of your width and you will need to compensate for this by cutting your runners three inches longer.  You will notice some play in these vertical 2x4’s even though they are screwed in tight.  You can stabilize these by adding some bracing- essentially blocking the them in by screwing in additional 2x4’s around them.  This is why it is important to secure the vertical boards to the inside edge of the end boards if it is a single-rack because it is a lot easier to properly brace the vertical boards by simply running a brace board in between the two runners, which will lock in your vertical board.  I realize that this is a bit wordy but it will make sense when you are building it and you see what I am talking about.  Also, if you scroll back up to the first photo in this post you will see how I braced in the vertical boards by adding a 2x4 in between them (bottom of the photo) and by adding an extra end board to each side.

Now the only thing left to do is to stack all of your firewood.  They say firewood warms you twice.  Once when you are splitting it and the other time is when you are burning it.  I don’t think this is true.  I think it’s more like three times because stacking it is hard work too!  As always, thanks for reading.

Crabapple Jelly!

Let me introduce to you crabapple jelly, yes you heard me, crabapple! That beautiful tree that blooms these wonderful blooms in spring and produces these tiny TINY apples that taste like the most awful, sour, disgusting apples you have ever tasted.  Yes, those horrible little apples make a wonderful, delicious (can't stop eating it) JELLY!

My neighbors are amazing, the best neighbors you could hope for.  They keep their yard and house clean and tidy, updating it as needed.  They have taken us under their wings and love us like family; my little rugrat even calls them Nana and Papa!  They keep a garden and fruit trees and love to share the bounty of their labor (yay for us).  They helped me put up tons of apples for the fall and taught me a lot about canning, preserving and being extra frugal.  After helping them install a garage door one morning they asked the rugrat and I to stay for lunch. She made fresh biscuits and gravy from scratch, scrambled eggs and cooked sausage, all in under 20 minutes, a real pro!  Well mid way through the meal she pulled out a can of this beautiful pink jelly saying she made is the past summer from the apples from her crabapple tree.  I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't apprehensive, after I tasted a very small bite (to be courteous) I was over the moon in-love with this jelly!! I almost ate half the jar! I kept an eye on her tree this year waiting on the apples to ripen and when they did the rugrat and I helped pick the tiny apples and our neighbor said she would set some aside for me to make jelly for myself!  I was so eager and excited, I wanted to plant a whole orchard of crabapple trees!

So here is how we did it...grab the canning and preserving book from 1991(ish) and flip to the crabapple jelly recipe....don't have the book? Me either...

What you will need:

Apples
Water
White sugar

Wash and de-stem your apples and cut off the blossom bottom and cut in half, no need to core, deseed or skin the apples, leave all that!

Dump the apples in a large pot and pour water just covering the apples and bring to a boil. Cook apples till soft, and mash them just a little.

Strain apples into a bowl or jar (I prefer a jar, that way you can see how it seperates).  Compost or discard mashed apples.

Measure 4 cups of apple juice and 4 cups of sugar and bring to a boil, stirring frequently (to get clear and pretty jelly allow apple juice to sit overnight and the thick pulpy water will settle, don't use it and don't shake, your jelly will be cloudy, if you don't have time this will not alter the taste. Pour from jar only the clear pink juice from the top).

Bring apple juice and sugar to a boil and cook until it "sheets" from the spoon. (If you are a beginner like me, and don't really know what "sheets" means, I'm with you. The mixture will thicken after 10-15 minutes of boiling and should slide off the spoon like a sheet.  You will see it start to thicken after about 10 minutes, keep cooking, otherwise your jelly will be soupy.)

Once it sheets off the spoon remove it from the heat and pour into the canning jars. Seal tightly and can in a water bath for 5 minutes.

Enjoy! I made two batches and got 3 pints and 4 half pints. Wish I had more apples, I'd make 6 more batches!

*only make one batch at a time, otherwise it might not set right or at all!