At last...a break in the action

Maple season is finally over.  We look forward to it's arrival every year, and are always happy to see it go, simply because there is so much else to do!  And it seems I cannot blog AND do maple syrup.  Either I am away at the trees gathering, chopping wood, or cooking, or when I am inside finishing I must NOT get distracted by the computer or we will have maple goo all over the stove.  And I haven't found a profitable use for maple goo...

My constant companions are never far away; following me everywhere, but also contented to catch a nap in the back mud hall while I have a snack or hit the loo.  Normally, I would NEVER show you the nasty mud hall, but how else to share the view out my back door? - Max is in his bed, and Candy (who we have now figured out is a boy - sorry, Candy for a year of calling you "girl"...) with head tucked under for a quick wink.

And there's been a little bit of time for some charity knitting by the maple fire, as well as tucking in several flats of onions, mesclun, herbs, broccoli and lettuce.

EVERYBODY is laying, even the turkeys!  The Bourbon Reds have mastered the art of walking around the pen without stepping on the eggs, so we are incubating a pair of those, and have sold some.

And we have three new additions to the flock:

Our Silkie just died, and I got the opportunity to replace her. And I thought one chick amongst all those hens might get picked on, so better to have a companion, and besides, how could I choose between the two colors, and well, what if I had somehow chosen two roosters?  Just to better the odds, I had better get a third, that way we will at least have a hen to breed if we chose poorly and got two roosters, and, well, you understand...

Snippets

Just a few snippets of stuff to show you...

For those of you following the bee saga, (and there are a bunch so I will report back as often as I can) the hive is all put together.  It took two days, mostly because there were LOTS of parts, but I have two hive bodies, two supers, a hive-top feeder, and a ten frame set up. (That means constructing 40 frames, with brittle tissue-paper waxed foundation that tears if you breath wrong...)

 

But as I worked, I began to really enjoy it, and part of the experience was the smell.  The fresh cut pine boards and beeswax foundation gave off a really nice aroma.  I am very happy I chose the wood bodies vs. polystyrene, and wood frames vs. plastic.  I think the bees will be happy, too.

Madison's California cousins were here last week, and I forgot to share some photos.  Here is one taken by my brother-in-law (an awesome photographer) and pretty much sums up what the week was about:

And I found a really neat picture of Madison's Japanese cousins that my brother had posted on Flickr:

I wish I could tell you the circumstances of the photo - usually they are two very happy country boys decked out in tye-dye everything, but I am still waiting for the explanation myself...

And maple season is officially underway here in the Northeast.

Yesterday I spent all afternoon helping a friend chop wood, load sap, and boil, boil, boil...My early small runs were turned into thick syrup for breadmaking, and I did them here at the house.  This year the bulk of our sap will be cooked over there...wish I could do an aroma blog - you would LOVE the smell of boiling sap!

Damp, Dull, Dark, and Dreary - But you asked for it...

I've been asked by everyone, "What's up?" and "When are you posting?" and the truth is, I've been trying to spare you all, but since you asked...

It's been raining, and raining, and raining. And then, raining. Everything is damp. And muddy. Even the chickens. This is Blueberry, a normally fluffy, bright Blue Cochin. (Well, OK, light blue-grey.)

These are the sheep. (Or at least sheep-butts. ) Not anywhere near as interesting as say, lambs. They are dull. At least lately. No shearing excitement, no woman exploring their ewe-terus, no sheep-coated cuteness. Don't get me wrong - I love them dearly. But they do have their high moments and their low...

Today was the last of the maple season. We took in the taps, tubes, tubs, and pails. The sap is cloudy (a sure sign) and the syrup is dark. The earlier in the season, the lighter the syrup. (That's where grading comes in). We produce "kettle" syrup, cooked over an open fire, which is already darker and richer in flavor than commercially produced. But when it's this dark, it's time to wrap up the season. We produced over three gallons of syrup, which translates to something over 120+ gallons of sap collected.

And, well, these are the neighbors. Turkey vultures. Each afternoon they circle the farm, in huge loops; there are over a dozen of them. I was never able to get more than two in the camera lens at one time, circling before they roost in the pines. Even in their red-headed ugliness, they usually evoke a sense of awe as they glide in a blue sky, but this grey is just dreary.

(Sigh)

(Perfect weather to curl up and knit some socks...)

Curse you! Global Warming...

(Warning! Politics ahead!) It rears its ugly head more and more these days. We are screwing with things we don't understand and that are far more powerful than we little gnats..er, humans. I just read an article about the declining production in maple syrup, due in large part to the shortening sap season. But it's a variation of the same article I read last year, and the year before, and the year before that. Do you know commercial syrup operations use pumps to literally suck the sap out of the trees, instead of waiting for it to drip out? All in the name of more and more reliable production.

For us, we take the shortening season in stride, as I can find 700 other projects to busy myself with. But think about this - what if you had to survive on this as your source of sugar for the year? Americans, with our gluttonous need for sweets, would never make it.

But I'm not talking about anything that certain press has not been telling us for ages now. Is anybody listening? According to a report published by the World Wildlife Fund, "For more than 20 years we have exceeded the Earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable..." this is due in large part to Americans (and other "modern" countries' ) huge per capita emissions of carbon dioxide.

But here's a thought: Cuba is the only country in the world that has a high level of development, including good health and education systems, and does not use up more resources than is sustainable. Hmmmm.....

Sap log:

Wednesday-10 and 1/2 gallons
Thursday-18 gallons
Friday-19 gallons
Saturday/Sunday-12 gallons (warmer temperatures, sigh....)

Spring Rituals

Well, there's no doubt Spring is here...the work has begun! The seedlings are popping up, and needing immediate transfer to larger digs under the grow lamp...

Who knew they'd sprout so fast? The heat mats I got worked wonders! Now if I could only re-pot a little faster...

(Ran to the garden center to stock up on organic plant food and more sticks to ID the pots.)

Oh yeah, and the sap is running again. An overly warm snap followed by a too cold run shut everything down for a week, but we are back in business. I collected over 10 and 1/2 gallons of sap this afternoon, and I expect the same or more tomorrow, so we're lighting the fire as soon as we get home. Meanwhile, I finished off the first mini run and split it between bottling and the house supply.

Real maple syrup has no equal. Ahhhhh.....

Egg-citing news...

Well there's egg-citing news from the coop...What's that? EGGS?

Finally, after a winter of growing our chicks into a laying flock, the day length has arrived that heralds the coming of eggs. That's Eagle, a complete, un-identifiable mutt chicken sent to us by Ideal Poultry in an order we placed a year or more ago. Although she remained un-identified as a breed until the end of her days, she was a favorite of my daughter's. We lost our original flock to a dog attack last September, and we lost many friends as well on that day.

We are back on track, the customers are happy, and thank God! no more sub-standard eggs from the grocery.

BTW, we've collected 5 1/2 gallons of sap on day one, 3 gallons on day two, 9 1/2 gallons on day three, and frankly, it's raining too hard for me to go out and haul buckets around. There's always tomorrow. The resulting almost-syrup is sitting on the stove, awaiting bottling.

Tapped

Finally, the maple season is here! We tapped about half the trees today. We didn't get home until late, so the others will have to wait until tomorrow. But it hit the requisite 40 degrees today, and every tap flowed instantly when I drilled it.

Some trees, like this big maple, still get the traditional taps and buckets. The gentle "ping, ping" as the sap hits the bottom is very satisfying. But we live on a mountainside, and several of the maples are so hard to get to with buckets, we've gone to plastic tubing and a collection tub. We're shooting for 25 taps this season. That requires tapping a few new trees that we discovered on the fringes of the property this last Fall. Twelve taps so far in 6 trees. This also means a visit to the kitchen supply store Monday for a pan for the fire, and ordering a few more taps and filters, and finding the sledge and wedge for fire-building, and getting on-line to order bottles and jugs, and still looking for the perfect digital thermometer...

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