Looking at options and opportunities in Maine, and really amazed at the amount of resources for those wanting to farm in Maine... apprenticeships, classes... organic, local, and small scale is the norm! From large scale to 1 acre operations, I am just SO impressed with the community of farmers!
I will be looking for work situations where they'll provide experience and learnin'. :)

So, of the horrible winters in Maine is the one thing no one ever fails to reminds me. Woodstoves. Propane. Oil, electric... how many ways are there to heat a home? Large, southerly windows for sunlight?

Everyone thinks, well, just buy some acreage with timber, and cut firewood... but a great deal of the timber there is white pine, too soft for firewood. So hardwoods are precious resource. A woodstove for cooking sounds lovely, but primary heat, but maybe starting off with propane or oil, supplement with wood for awhile... plant a lot of trees with the intention of harvesting. I'm thinking that Black locust is an easy, renewable and fast growing hardwood, and after planting in succession, in 5 years, we could start to get serious about using that as our primary source of heat.

By then I'm guessing we'd also be more familiar with the quirks of our particular woodstove(s), the localized climate, and the "final" amount of space we need to keep heated since we'll likely start with a cabin and add on... so it's hard to depend on wood I guess is what I'm getting at. To heat my mother's 30 x 60' space, it takes one little wood stove and about 4 cord of wood a year. Based on that, I'm going to start off guessing that a space half that size will require twice that much wood in Maine's climate.

I want a cookstove, for day time use in Winter. Summers, I really love to cook outside...and A propane gas stove for indoors...

3 off grid ways to cook, = woodstove / propane gas oven / outdoor firepit
2 off grid ways to heat = wood / propane
2 off grid ways to obtain water, = Rain water catchment cistern / hand-pump well)
2 off grid ways to obtain vegetables = garden / greenhouse
2 ways to obtain sufficient "protein" hunting / livestock (eggs, milk, cheese)
2 ways to preserve a harvest = canning / drying

Just my thoughts on these things... :)

On the hunt today....

Nik was up by 5 this morning, 

it's so odd that he seems to be becoming a morning person... 

We've already finished a pot of coffee

and it's not even 8 am yet!

It's a beautiful, clear day and it's expected to get up to around 75f.

The Blewets are up this time of year 

so we're heading out to find some in a little while... 

Who knows what other wonders await us!  :)

Here they are on the cutting board...

They look shiny because they've been washed.  

We ate these in omelettes, and quiche and with pierogies!

They're very mild and delicious!

The larger they become, the more they turn the rusty color.  Once they're about 3"across, they're too overgrown to have much flesh.

 ~Here's what a cross section looks like of a nice, small fresh 2" cap.

I hope we find 100 of these today!

And finally, the grand-daddy Blewet of them all....

 This was the largest one we ever found, the cap was 6"  across!  

Too overgrown for eating, but really impressive!