Excerpt from book “Six Kids, Four Months and One Camper”:

Erik somehow convinced me to go out hunting opening morning. Nuriel would watch Earen when he woke-up until I came back in. Erik had set-up a small pop-up blind on the edge of the woods behind the house for me. That way, I wouldn’t have to waste precious time walking far into the property. He would hunt in the back part of the property  . . . with the cougar. We had set-up a new blind way back on the back 40 acres. It was on the edge of our property next to a field of corn — the perfect place to catch hungry deer. Seeing all the tracks, Erik was certain he’d catch at least one back there!

We both woke-up at 4:30am and donned our camo as quietly as possible so as not to wake the baby. Then by 4:45am we kissed and parted ways – Erik traveling down the two track road towards the hayfield and back 40, myself walking directly behind the house.

Now I had a choice of course. I could go around the first finger of woods and come around the back of it to my blind, or I could walk straight through it to my blind. I didn’t have a flashlight, but the soft glow of my slide phone helped a bit to watch for sticks that might trip me. It did not, however, help me see my way!

I was much too excited to take the extra few minutes to walk around the woods, so I just went right through them. I was so convinced that today would be my lucky day. I was going to shoot a deer! The blind was on several intersecting deer paths, so SOMETHING should walk past me.

I crept through the woods slowly and carefully. Holding my breath, trying my best to balance precariously on small logs as I came to water holes, unsure of how deep they might be despite my rubber muck boots. I thought I had finally found a pathway through the woods when I began to shiver violently.

Ear-piercing howls erupted just 50 feet away from me. My heart stopped beating and the blood drained out of my body. More eerie howls erupted on the other side of me.

Now I began to pick my way through the woods faster. The howls seemed to grow closer. They seemed to be following me. Would a coyote eat me? Sure I was bigger, but so were deer and they ate deer. I was more defenseless than a deer!

I pulled an arrow out of my quiver and held it in my hand ready to stab anything that might come close. I was almost out of the woods. I began to run! I tripped over a branch on the path and stumbled, catching myself before I could fall. I had to find my blind and fast! Maybe they wouldn’t eat me, at least not right off. Maybe they’d just attack me, wound me . . . then decide to eat me!

I finally cleared the woods and was out in the open field. But somehow I felt less safe, more exposed. I heard a growl in front of me and several loud “yips” and “yelps”. The blind, it must be here somewhere! I swung my pathetically glowing phone around trying to locate it. The problem was, it was camo. It blended right in!

The light from my phone caught an orange reflective glow. An eye! It was a coyote eye! I stopped dead in my tracks and held perfectly still. It was straight ahead. It must have been waiting for me near my blind, it must –

Oh. It was the orange reflective sticker on my deer blind. Some smart person had already had the same problem as me and thought to add a reflective sticker to the top to make the dumb thing easier to find! By this point I was no longer concerned with hunting deer, just more concerned about NOT being hunted by coyotes. I ripped the zipper open, dove into my blind and yanked it back shut again. Then I sat listening to grassy steps whispering around my blind. Or was that the wind? I couldn’t tell anymore. I sat huddled on my chair, perfectly still. So much for opening day. I was NOT about to open my blind’s windows in preparation for dawn so I could shoot a deer walking by.

I didn’t exactly know why I felt safer in the blind. Sure they couldn’t see me, but they could definitely still smell me! It would only take them 2 minutes to tear through the thin material and drag me out for breakfast.

After not hearing anything for 30 minutes, I was finally beginning to calm down. Birds began chirping and frogs croaking to life. Sure signs that dawn was on it’s way. Time to get ready for my deer! I carefully and quietly slid open 3 of the 4 zippered windows – enough to see and shoot from.

Suddenly I could hear branches breaking behind me and a loud snort. There was a deer in the woods behind me, but it was still too dark to see! I desperately prayed that it would hang out around me and wait for dawn. I knew it wouldn’t. By the time dawn began to slowly roll-in, I no longer heard the deer. By 7am it had been light for 30 minutes. I got a text from Erik “Bring the tractor, I shot a deer.”

I sighed. I probably wouldn’t get to shoot a deer. Ever.

When I first met Erik and all of his kids, I was in a real shock as to how picky they all were with food. Some worse than others.

I was used to cooking healthy, fresh dinners with lots of fruit, veggies and fresh herbs, and Erik wouldn’t even eat salad!

It’s taken a few years, but now I can get them to eat more foods (and Erik loves spinach salad).

Now that we’re living the country life, there are many more foods for the kids to refuse to try to eat. The first one was venison (deer meat). They swore up and down that they’d never eat it, so I only let them eat the hamburger the first year, then served them up steaks the next year.

When they began exclaiming how tender and delicious it was, that’s when we told them what hey were REALLY eating, a year later.

Then there were the rabbits. I had always wanted to try them, so Erik and Eian went out with the shotgun and killed a few wild ones. I excitedly brought them into the house and tossed them onto the counter, then went to dress them, only to realize in horror that they were covered in fleas!

I threw them outside and covered them in snow for 20 minutes.

I cut them up like a chicken and put them into a stew with veggies to cook. They were pretty tasty, and the kids more or less ate their plates.

The Guennia hens were another story.

NO ONE wanted to eat them. Erik had bought them for insect control and to guard the chickens. But after dogs ran through the yard and killed 8 chickens and one guennia  hen, we realized it was time to shoot the other two and turn them into dinner (they were extremely loud and obnoxious).

I roasted it like chicken and it came out terribly tough. I cooked it for someone’s birthday over at Randy’s house (Erik’s Dad). Since no one wanted to eat it, I didn’t tell them it was a guennia hen! I still have one in the freezer I need to think of how/when to cook!

MUSHROOMS ARE FUN.

Mushrooms are our latest adventure. The easiest of course is the Giant Puffball. We had found several out in the yard last fall, and I decided to cook it up like eggplant. I dredged it in eggs and covered it in breadcrumbs and fried them. Then I doused them with a seasoned tomato sauce, mozzarella, diced tomatoes and fresh basil then threw them under the broiler.

They tasted JUST LIKE EGGPLANT!

So the next night . . .

I was making chicken burgers, and Erik told me to secretly cook-up another puffball mushroom patty and give it to Eian.

So I did, and told him it was a fish patty. He wolfed it down eagerly and was just finishing his plate when I asked him about it:

(Video will be uploaded later, sorry!)

He denies liking it. He insists it tasted terrible but he ate it anyway. Eian NEVER eats things he doesn’t like.

I still chop-up mushrooms into tiny pieces and stuff them into dinner. The kids never know it.

Someday they’ll realize they like them . . . .

Until then, it’s back to making dinner and not telling them what’s in it!

A bit off-topic here since the blog is usually for farm and writing related ponderings.

My daughter (just turned 13 yrs old) has decided she wants to play baseball. She practiced all summer with her step-brother (6 months older) and it was discovered that she has a wicked throwing arm and good hand-eye coordination. Erik joked again and again that she should play baseball . . .

So I signed her up this year, and instantly Erik began complaining that she’d fail. The league was putting her into the older division which meant farther to throw and to run.

However, my daughter is much taller than her step-brother who is going on his SECOND year playing baseball, plus she runs every day (he does not). So while both kids will be in the same league (heck, maybe even the same team), my daughter has a good chance at DOING BETTER.

WAit . . . . girls can’t play baseball! They play softball!

Incorrect! Baseball was originally played equally by men and women when it was first created in the 1800’s. Softball was created as a way for everyone to stay in shape and play indoors with shorter bases and a larger ball. When the Major League was created in the mid 1900’s, they banned women from the sport, so they picked up softball as a way to still have fun. Not until the late 1900’s did softball officially become recognized as a competitive sports league, but men AND women both play.

We had ability assessments last week for all players. My daughter had no formal experience, and hadn’t thrown the ball since last fall. She had very little batting experience. She was nervous and shifty. While everyone eagerly partnered up to warm-up, no one would partner up with her.

She stood awkwardly, trying to gather her courage.

When the coaches called everyone out in small groups, the boys (and Dads) were surprised by her solid throwing arm.

I stood tall and proud, feet spread, ready to defy anyone who uttered any word against a girl playing baseball.

A small group of  nerdy-looking dads stood watching her, lamenting about why girls shouldn’t play, “she shows too much emotion. That’s why girls don’t play, they are too emotional. She’s having trouble catching it . . . .”

Looking at these dads I doubted any of them managed to practice much with their own kids. One was lamenting he threw-out his back filling-in a hole at the ball field . . .

I held my tongue as long as I could, choosing my words carefully, “Or maybe what you are seeing has nothing to do with her being a girl, but her being a bit self-conscience because it’s her first year playing . . .”

The dads got quiet, and ushered themselves  a bit further away from me.

The results are coming back today as far as her skill levels and what team she will be on. Erik called last night to double-check her division (we signed her up under the younger division since her birthdate was right on the edge). They commented that she had a great arm on her and was holding her own pretty well.

I think that cheered both my daughter AND Erik up. Both were secretly worried that she’d fail miserably.

Erik’s been taking both kids out to the ball fields to practice, and bought a pitching/catching net for them to practice with. She stands a very good chance to come into this better-skilled than her brother.

Now I just need to help her keep her self-confidence in check . . .

Last week we had some freakishly heavy winds — rolling through at well over 75pmh!

Heavy winds are not uncommon, however, the heaviest ones typically happen in April.

And, while this isn’t actually part of the memoir, this happened months later that same proceeding year.

So, we’ll call this:

“MEMORY MONDAY!”

After we moved into our doublewide house, we ended-up with about a dozen or so rubber maid bins left-over from storage.

Eager to jump right into doing something productive with the land, Erik announced we’d be tapping maple trees. He’d done it as a kid for fun, how hard could it be?

He already knew there were several massive maple trees on the property. We’d collect the sap into the large plastic bins, then cook it down at the end of the season.

We drove to Family, Farm and Home and gathered 12 taps, plus a book on how to make it, “How to Tap My Trees”. We bought plastic tubing to fit over the taps, and ran the lines down into the large plastic bins.

For several weeks, we let them collect sap.

Finally on April 12, 2014 the weather suddenly warmed and Erik knew the season was done (plus the sap would rot). We decided that Saturday to cook it all down into syrup.

Erik had decided to make a massive cooker pan out of a metal barrel cut length-wise. The barrel had a coating on the inside, I was skeptical about that. Erik argued that it would be fine. I argued it’d come-off in the fire! He tried buffing/sanding it out, but this seemed to make the barrel worse.

It was Earen’s 1yr old birthday, and Erik’s Dad suddenly called us up wanting to go out for his birthday. We figured we’d be done cooking syrup by that evening, so we agreed.

We cooked the sap alllll day!

I don’t remember how many gallons of sap we had, maybe 45?

Finally it was getting close, so we kept checking the temperature. It refused to push past 217. It was 6pm and we had to leave. They were forecasting rain later, so Erik took the other barrel half and partially covered the syrup cooker half.

And we loaded-up the fire and left it to cook.

While we were busy eating, our neighbor called to let us know she had our dogs.

Our dogs?

Apparently a freak storm had run through the few hours we were gone and tore everything apart — or at least the dog kennel.

We quickly rushed home, mad that we had left in the first place. We didn’t know what to expect when we got home, but the very least a ruined dog kennel and our syrup dumped-over.

Strangely enough, when we pulled-up the driveway, the first thing we noticed was the FIRE STILL BURNING and the syrup UNTOUCHED.

The wind was still gusting and rain was pelting us in sheets, so we quickly dumped the syrup into a giant stock pot to finish-up inside.

We cooked it to 219 and ran it through filters into mason jars. It tasted pretty good! I had never really had real maple syrup before, but when I tasted this stuff I was amazed!

We ended-up having some major property damage. Our soft-sided round top had been torn out of the ground and tossed into a mangled heavy several yards away. Everything inside either tossed into the neighbor’s field or soaking-wet. Erik’s 1,000lb lawnmower was flipped onto it’s side . . . but the empty plastic 300 gallon water tanks sat un-phased.

The camper had been turned slightly (that’s 12,000 lbs), the dog kennel blown wide open, and the pigeon coop (300+ lbs) had been PICKED-UP and THROWN 75 feet.

My pigeons were loose everywhere.

We managed to flip the cage back-up and drag it back by the dog kennel (or it’s flip over again in the heavy winds) and I called the pigeons down and they happily dove back into the safety of their house.

We were still finding scattered debris many months later.

As for the syrup? Well, despite the filtering, it still ended-up with at least in inch of junk in the bottom. A mix of maple niter, and primer paint from the barrels.

I’m pretty sure the stuff is toxic. I have one jar left of it as proof of our experience. But despite the yucky stuff in the bottoms, we were hooked on maple syrup, and each year continue to improve our craft and make the best syrup possible!

And now it’s crystal clear!

After a short conversation with the neighbor yesterday, I find out a bit more about our property’s history, namely, that a previous owner also made maple syrup from the same trees we now had tapped. I didn’t know it had an owner before the family we bought it from.

More curiously though, is that the guy lives . . . right behind us!

While this might seem great to some, it poses some unique issues. Namely, the guy’s family have been the ones trespassing all over our property, and poaching deer. This is also the same property line where all my “No Trespassing” signs have somehow disappeared.

I can understand a certain loyalty to the land, however, the guy has not owned it in well over 20 years.

There is also a very good chance its HIS dogs running amuck through my property.

While my first instinct with a previous owner is to go knock on their door and glean all the history of our property I can, this one leaves me hesitant. If I go over as a friendly neighbor, I lose any chance of holding them accountable for disrespecting the law and respecting our ownership of the land (I don’t make waves with people I’m on good terms with).

If I continue on current terms of not being happy about trespassing and eventually confronting them about it, I lose all chance of happy relations with previous owners, and any history involved.

Sigh. I might just have to go talk to my other neighbor down the street who also knew the guy and get his thoughts.

For those who have never been in our main woods, let me explain.

Our main wooded chunk is about 30 acres. On two property borders, the woods run-into the woods of our neighbors. Both these sides have the remains of a barbed-wire fence right on the property line. On another end, our woods run into a guy’s over-grown field (with same wire fencing), and the back-end runs into our scrappy, brush property of 10 acres. I have “No Trespassing” signs plastered all over these property lines.

It’s not like we have a random chunk of land stuck on 300 acres of woods. The total wooded area might be 80 back there.

After 4 years, we have finally managed to carve out the access roads going through the front chunk of our woods, and this is how we get to our maple syrup buckets.

Since we are doing syrup, I’m out there pretty much everyday (unless it’s very cold, then the sap does not flow), and since I’m out there the most, I notice EVERYTHING.

Especially if it’s in an area I’m always visiting . . .

Last week I went out to empty buckets, and as soon as I was on the main trail, I saw it straight-off: a massive white line on a small sapling.

Funny, I thought. I KNOW I would have noticed THIS before!

There are other lines marked on trees from previous owners — but these are either spray-painted in blue, or painted-on with thick red paint. When I rubbed this white mark, it felt waxy or oily. Like an oil pastel, or maybe those crayons used in construction. I could tell it was recent, it easily rubbed right-off with my finger.

Weird. How had I not noticed THIS right on my main access road? So I erased it.

I didn’t go back there for a few days thanks to cooking down the sap over the weekend, so when I went back out yesterday (Monday), I stopped the side by side dead on the trail . . . .

There was another white line!

This time, it was on the other side of the trail, but still right smack in front of me where I could see it. It was plastered all over another small sapling, RIGHT NEXT TO MY SAP BUCKET!

There’s NO WAY I could have missed this before! The tree was right at the end of the fork in the trail, and that bucket was one I always made sure to check!

I vigorously rubbed the new mark off, then went to work dumping buckets. Slowly. Lost in random thoughts of who was marking my trees . . .

The kids I knew had NOT been back here. Heck, the kids hadn’t even left the house!

Finally I came-up with a plan.

I would bring a few Taco Bell sauce packets back with me Tuesday afternoon and leave a message on the last tree that had been marked. You know, the ones with the cute little messages on them? Yeah . . .

Obviously whoever is coming back here knows someone is here a lot, the buckets are full of sap, and then the sap disappears, so very clearly someone is back here tending the sap buckets.

I’ll leave a message, and see if I get one back (and hopefully not with a knife stuck through it)!

Back in the early years of farming, men did most of the work. That’s the way it’s been for just about 200 years (previous to that, early American settlers both men AND women had to work newly established farms).

Roll around to the new agricultural boom of micro-farming and now women do all the work.

Back when we first bought the property, and nothing had been developed, plotted out, or planned, we knew one thing: we were going to farm hay. Not that we knew anything about hay — the land we were buying was covered in several hay fields, so it made sense. We also knew that I’d be the one running the farming activities. After all, I was the one home all day.

Fast-forward four years, and now hay is a side issue. The bigger issues being taking care of animals (we now have cows, chickens, more horses, more dogs and barn cats), outside chores (mowing/weed-whacking or snow plowing), trying to clean and organize a tiny house, running the dog breeding business, doing maple syrup (175 taps), building various items, putting-up fencing, improving the land, building paths/roads in the woods, putting-up deer stands, putting-in and maintaining a garden, butchering deer, tanning deer hides.

Erik is making sure I know how to operate the farm entirely by myself. “In case I die,” he says, “you’ll know how to do all this stuff.”

So here is a list of all the things I can do decently well:

-Build a fence/pasture start to finish.

-fertilize a hay field

-attach and operate all farm equipment (except the backhoe)

-general carpentry

-changing the oil on the side by side and tractor

-plowing snow with a tractor

-grading with the tractor

-using a chainsaw, plus installing new chain, adding gear lube and mixing the gas

-splitting wood with an ax into tiny pieces

-building a roaring fire without gasoline

-hunting deer

-gutting deer

-skinning deer

-quartering deer

-turning deer meat into tasty pieces for dinner

-making jerky

-mushroom identifying and hunting

-all yardwork

-horse training (when time allows)

-All aspects of making maple syrup from selecting the right trees to cooking it down and bottling it

-All aspects of hay-making including how to cut for the right sugar content and selecting horse-safe grasses to plant

-Taking apart the plumbing to find a clog

-building a website from ground up

-photo retouching at a master level

-marketing

-writing

-cooking

-sewing (by hand or machine)

-veterinary

-doctor

in addition to housekeeper and nanny.

My main job title? Master problem solver.

My biggest pet peeve is when people ask me “What do you do all day?” It sounds condescending to me.

Better to say “What does a day with you on the farm look like?” Maybe because Erik is always asking me “what did you do all day?” and I can’t pull-up an explanation each time.

So here’s yesterday’s schedule:

5am wake-up

5:15 head out to dog kennel to write

5:35am finally begin to do computer work after feeding and watering the dogs and trying to fix heater (stopped working).

5:40am-6:15am  paw through literary agents online, check e-mail and website info, retouch Nuriel’s head shot photos for her movie audition. Temp drops 10 degrees down to 40 and my hands freeze, so I move inside to the house.

6:20- 6:40am: discuss head shots with Nuriel, nearly finish photos.

6:42-6:55am make Erik breakfast

6:50-7am sit on sofa

7am-7:45am make Earen breakfast, make myself breakfast, research more on which seeds to plant for vegetables, chase child down to get him to eat.

7:45am-9am at some point I did other things, but then got all the animals fed

9am erik tells me I can’t take EAren to his scheduled playdate since the At&T guys are coming.

9:30-11:00am round up child and do whirlwind grocery trip to Meijer with 3/4 yr old in tow.

11:30am begin to put groceries away, Erik comes home.

12pm to 1:30pm: deal with At&T guys, tidy house like crazy, vacuum, put 3/4yr old down for nap and deal with kids home from school (early release day).

2:00-2:30: sit down for quick cup of coffee and a doughnut

2:30pm: run out to empty 54 buckets

2:45pm-5:00pm chops holes into 1in of ice in sap buckets, drain into large container. Chop trees with machete to clear trails.

5:15pm return to house, talk with Erik

5:30pm feed animals, make sure all heaters are working. Put blankets on all 4 horses.

6:15pm drag myself into house to make dinner. Erik announces we are going to Big Boy for dinner (yea, no dishes!)

7:30-9pm clean mess 3/4 yr old left everywhere, tiny bedroom again, fold massive pile of laundry.

9-9:20pm Get 3/4 yr old ready for bed.

9:20-9:35pm clean bathroom kids were told to clean and only half-assed it (we had company scheduled the next day).

9:40-10:00pm: empty dishwasher, sweep floor, tidy kitchen

10:00-10:10pm watch Erik watch YouTube videos on newly installed internet, and complain that I’d really like to sleep (computer is in bedroom).

10:10pm opt to sleep on futon in other room due to noisy/bright YouTube videos of dumb stuff.

5:00am wake-up . . . .  cycle repeats, but with different activities. Day, after day, after day, after day.

No days off, no vacation time, no sick days (if I’m sick I still have chores to do that no one else will do)