Tarsha Homestead is a place for us (Alex and Emily Tarsha) to share videos of our interesting projects around the "homestead."
We live on 6 acres in Southern Illinois where we raise our two kids, our Black Lab Josie, our Retriever Nick, our barn cats Jazz and Jinx, our 20 something hens, 3 goats, a pig, multiple bee colonies, and our garden. Alex enjoys woodworking, building things, tinkering in his shop, playing with his tractor, improving the yard and gardening. Emily enjoys crafting cute projects out of wood and fabric and spends most of her time sewing and embroidering things for her Etsy stores.
What an awesome combination of maker's playground, a nice WFH setup, plus a blank canvas to keep building & settling into--amazing progress so far, well done!
This is a fantastic idea for me! I've been wracking my brain on how I could some wood flooring on the cheap and this is the ticket I've been looking for!
Hey, Alex & Emily! I just found you guys through Sue at Get to the Farm. What a great store you have! I just started checking out your videos and subscribed. I see you do some embroidery, do you see a lot of demand for it? I've been interested in doing some of that as well. Looking forward to some good content! -Dusty
Oh Hey! Thanks for being here! Emily does a lot of embroidery, but we have been really bad about making videos. It’s slowed down lately as we haven’t had our store open regularly through winter, but it’s typically a good producer!
@@TarshaHomestead Awesome, thanks for the info. The video aspect of it is essentially another job added on top of the rest, isn't it? Best wishes for a blessed season!
This is perfect! We're gonna put it in our next issue. A lot of people can benefit from this! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all this. Personally, I have always wanted to have a beehive or two.
Great Video! I am in the market for a bottling tank myself… debating on this and the one from Hillco. Question for you… where do you get your labels from? Thanks in advance
Thank you! I like HillCo, and for many things, they get my money. John Hill is doing admirable things, BUT, a bottling tank is designed to have honey sitting in it for extended periods, and for that reason I wanted American made for that one item. The extractor, uncapping tank, etc have honey pass through relatively quickly so I’m happy to save money on equipment shipped in from mass producers overseas, and I have been very happy with them too. So you didn’t ask, but that’s my personal take on why I have HillCo everything and then a Maxant bottling tank. The labels I designed in Photoshop using the template provided by Vistaprint to get it the right dimensions, then they printed and sent them out 👍
@@TarshaHomestead I appreciate your honesty and feedback with regards to the bottling tank and need to take that into consideration. I do have the extractor from Hillco and absolutely love it and highly recommend it…. Thanks letting me know where you get your labels made from… will have to dust off my PS skills and make a design….also debating about starting a new bee video channel :)
@@GrillingNetwork it wasn’t too tough. Go size your stickers and then download the appropriate template psd file from vistaprint first. That made it easy to get things aligned and within the bleed area. Random: I just subbed. I’m not a skilled cook, grill or otherwise, but hope to convert a retired grain bin on our property to a grill/smoker/griddle gazebo this year, and it will be time to learn my way around.
I did, just a month or a two back, and what a game changer. I have actually moved since this shop and I have not built a new station in my new shop yet. I’m not yet sure what I want. One thing I no longer like from the station in this video is the fence. Rarely is wood already straight and it would causing binding.
Yes, bought a track saw a couple months ago and now I can do preliminary and accurate sheet breakdown in my garage. I agree that the fence idea is not good if cutting bowed boards. I elected to install a t-track in my top inline with the saw. It will also give me better room on the bench as I plan to put cabinets above the surface instead of on it. Have fun building your next station! Cheers! @@TarshaHomestead
🍻 pal! I think your approach with regard to the fence and the uppers is how I will do my next. Not that this station wasn’t great for me for many years but you live it for awhile and you learn from it. Always improving!
We moved away last year and they were still great. Hard to say if they have held up, but I’m betting they’re still good to go. The new owners reach out to us from time to time and haven’t said anything.
I’m sure this matters, but I legitimately used whatever scraps we had around with very little consideration to that. I think the biggest concern would be shrinkage as it dries, and expansion in more humid years. That said, we gave it no thought and had no issues.
A standup floor sander rental could be good too. We moved away from this home a couple years ago, but I didn’t do a super thorough sanding and they still looked great.
Excellent...well done! I want to do about 750 ft2 in end-grain oak over 3/4" subfloor. I imagine I'll lay down some underlayment first. Also, maybe pour the poly on and spread it with a squeegee? Thoughts and advice are welcome.
Awesome! My wife and I bought a breeding pair last year and we now have four piglets from them. They are crazy easy to keep. My neighbor's can't believe how I'm able to keep them in one place with just a strand or two of electric poly wire. Super-friendly too. We take him on walks to eat acorns when they drop. Couldn't wait to try the meat so I bought some older kunes and had them slaughtered. They taste delicious.
@@TarshaHomestead If you can just buy pork and don't buy an older one to slaughter like I did lol. Unless you know for sure that it was well kept. The ones I bought were in overcrowded conditions. And although they were still easy to keep relative to any other pig, they caused some chaos at our place. By comparison our hand raised breeding pair are so much sweeter.
Yep! It’s just the smaller of the two hydraulic lift tables from Harbor Freight. I got the idea from Duck River Honey on here. This way I can lower it, dump buckets in, then jack it back up to do bottling.
@@TarshaHomestead thanks ! I’m looking to enclose my pole barn / car port the same way (something that doesn’t require sheathing). I am between T1-11 and LP smart siding(engineered panels, curious if you have ever used the smart siding?
I wasn’t very clear in the video, but these two are our breeding pair. Our hope is to raise them up to keep and breed, and to actually raise their offspring for meat.
Completely random, non-bee question: That dust collector attached to your sander looks like something that would really help my husband. Would you mind telling me what it is, and where you got it? Also, thank you for this simple video. It's time for us to refurbish a hive box, too!
The one I have is very expensive because I am an avid woodworker. It is a Festool Rotex with a Festool Dust Extractor. There are cheaper options such as the Bosch Dust Extractor that could connect to a cheaper orbital sander
Did you put a brood frame in the box? I've been working on a similar trap out for more than a month. I took the box away with 95% of the colony but the stragglers won't leave the tree even though they can't get in. I can't help but wonder if the original queen is still in the trunk.
I wasn’t having much luck with just foundation. Yesterday I swapped the box for an old one with drawn comb and they started moving right in. I do still have a bunch that wont yet leave the cone. If I don’t see significant change rather quickly I’ll steal some brood from one of my other colonies to see if maybe they can raise a new queen
I’m in a tight spot there. I have a small colony that I recently split that I could take a brood frame from, or a large colony that was split off of that the new queen hasn’t yet emerged from her queen cell. I’m worried taking brood from either may be detrimental. Maybe if I take from the one with the queen (since she can make more) and start feeding 1:1 to keep her production up?
