Oak & Honey Farm

Brew Day! One of my favorite hobbies is crafting my own personal blends of craft brews, whether its beer, wine, or mead.  Today I'm pulling out my brew pot for science's sake and experiment with something different in beer, natural and sustainable hops alternatives. Beer, or something similar to beer, has been make as far back as we have history.  The hops that are found in beer provide an important role, they act as a preservative to the precious liquid and stave of mold and other contaminants. Prior to the 13th century, though, hops were rarely seen in ale recipes.  Instead, gruit was used to help preserve and flavor ales and beers of the time.  Gruit is a generic term for one or more of a combination of plants and herbs including mugwort, yarrow, and sweet gale when used for brewing. By the 15th century hops had made its way into brew pots thanks in part to taxes levied against gruit crops.  By the 16th century, hops had become the staple in br...

What came first beer or bread? I don't know but I do know that you need yeast for both. Brewing our own beer, wine, and mead is a hobby that my Love and I share. It is rewarding to craft something that helped make modern man and has a little bit of a rebel side. Many historians point to brewing as the turning point of human history. The grain fields that filled ovens with bread and tankards with grog required year-round care, transforming us from nomadic tribes to a settled society. By making our own we are being a part of brewing's long history. Making Alcohol Water + sugar + yeast + time = alcohol. That's it. Yeasties get comfy in a room temperature tank of water and binge on sugar. The sugar is converted into two waste products, carbon dioxide gas and alcohol. As long is there is no competition from other types of micro-baddies the yeast will reproduce and, over the course of a week or two, consume and convert all the sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol. You could...

Ever since I was nine years old, I want to have honey bees. I wanted to have fresh honey that I could say I helped make. I wanted to contribute to the garden and flowers in a positive way that let nature do it's thing and I get to witness. I wanted to be a beekeeper. After twenty years, I finally got my bees! I joined my local beekeepers club . They are all over and at the state level too, so if you are interested look for your local group. Through the club my nine year old daughter and I took bee keeping classes together, she may have been the youngest in our class but one of the most attentive. There is something wonderful about sharing a passion or learning a new skill with your child.  Now I gained the knowledge to keep them alive and they were on their way here I needed to have a hive to put them in. After lots of research I decided to use a Langstroth hive which is one of the most common and does well in our climate.  The Langstroth hive is a box that hold...

     Growing your own food is a major part of becoming self sufficient. But unless you are vegetarian, animals as food will have to be part of the plan. We have plans of having our land provide all of our food, fruit and nut trees, a large garden for vegetables, a dairy critter, chickens for eggs and meat, and a few other meat critters like cow, pig, rabbits, sheep, and maybe goat.  A wonderful goal but it will take some time and a lot of work to reach. Since we are starting from scratch this year and have lots of land that needs lots of work, we are starting with a garden, chickens, bees, and pigs.      Why pigs? Pigs are wonderful workers on the homestead. They can clear undergrowth to maintain a forest or make it easier for you to get in and cut the bigger stuff down. Pigs root by shoving their noses in the ground and digging up roots and bugs to eat, this action makes tilling the ground a job that pigs excel at. Just by having pigs on the ground ...

      Hello! I am embarking on a blogging journey, thanks for joining me! I will be writing about the day to day life and projects we do down here on land we call Oak & Honey Farm. Let me tell you a little about myself.  My name is Lauren and I love to cook and bake form scratch, crochet, sew, anything crafty, to can my own foods, and doing things the Old way.  I married my high school sweetheart and have three pretty awesome kids, if I do say so myself ;)  I was a stay at home mom before I went back to school and became a Registered Nurse.  I practiced for over a year until I became very ill and had to step away from my job and heal my body (I was on death's door!) I loved my job as a nurse and hope to go back to it in the future but until I am back to full health I am back to a full time stay at home mom.  Best Job Ever!!! We live on a plot of land in the northern Shenandoah Valley that was once a horse farm belonging to my husband's fa...