Kicking Into High Gear......And.....A Little Bit of History!

This is the start of a very busy time for us now!  So much to do!  The weather forecast  looks like all the freezing temps are going to be over, and so we can begin yard work and tilling and gardening.  Besides yard clean-up and continuing to finish outside work on the house, we need to get the gardens cleaned and tilled and get stuff planted.
     The other day I planted leeks in the greenhouse and put a bunch of plants in there to harden up, as the plants need to toughen up after being in my warm living room for the past 2 months.   I put some broccoli plants in there - my best ones - and this is what I saw this morning:

Some critter already ATE my broccoli plants!!!!   I suspect slugs ate some of the leaves of about half of my plants.   The internet says to put wood ashes or sawdust down around the plants to deter slugs.   I'll try it, but I don't have much faith in "natural" methods.   Luckily I have more plants than these, but it's a shame that my best ones were eaten.

Remember the garlic that was coming up, in the photo I posted in a previous article?  Well, check out what it looks like now:

There are 70 garlic plants growing nicely!

In addition to all the work needed right now, I can add dirt hauling to the list!  I need to add more dirt to the boxes in my greenhouse, and also to low spots around the yard.  Harold took the tractor/loader and got a nice pile of rich black dirt for this purpose.   So I'll be busy!

I'll be hauling big buckets of dirt via wheelbarrow into the boxes in the greenhouse, and also around the yard.  Think I'll use up any calories doing this?  Hope so!

Harold has been busy tilling up the pasture again, as spring weeds were beginning to show.  We will be planting corn there, as well as spreading crops like melons and pumpkins.

Harold just finished plowing up the pasture again, and is putting the tractor out of the way right here.

This year, when we plant corn Harold is going to use a vintage 2-row corn planter from the late 1940's!  He really enjoys using vintage farm machinery and getting those old equipment pieces going!  Like the true country boy that he is, old time tractors and old time farm machinery hold a special thrill for him.  The 2-row planter that he will use is an old International Harvester.  He and his Dad bought this item at an auction back in the 80's, and used it to plant corn here on the farm as late as 1989.  In fact, the land that our house is built on was once planted up in corn by the vintage IH planter that Harold just resurrected from the "farm graveyard".  Using the old vintage machinery is a link to the past - going back in time to a simpler, less hectic world.   Old timers like us just love this kind of thing!!

Harold had to dig this one out of the 'farm graveyard', where it has sat since it was put there in 1989.

He carried it down the road with the loader.

Almost to the yard with this thing!

We are not exactly sure of the vintage of this old International Harvester 2-row corn planter, but Harold is guessing it is a late 1940's vintage.   To most folks, stuff like this is a "nostalgic yard ornament", but to Harold it is something to get running and use!

When we opened up one of the bins, there was still corn in there from the late 80's!

Another view of this old timer!

It needs tires, though.....can't go anywhere with these!

Well, Harold will certainly have fun getting his old planter going.  It's been about 27 or 28 years since it was last used.
     I looked at our apple tree tonight - there are buds ready to blossom out! 

Plenty of blossoms ready to bud out on the apple tree!

And now, for some "cute".   I haven't taken any photos of my cats for a while, so here's some cuteness:

One of our beautiful tom cats.  This is Tommywhite.

One of our female cats, BobbiSox

Four of our 9 farm cats.  They are patiently waiting for dinner.  L to Rt, FlufferDuff, Maggie, Tommywhite, and BigTail

The Living Room Nursery

I have plants in various stages of growth in the living room....my indoor nursery.   But I an now finished starting everything that I start seeds indoors for.  Now as everything  grows and needs transplanting, I will put them in other flats and put them in the greenhouse to grow bigger, and also to harden off.  There are 19 trays of plants here in the living room.  Retail-wise, there are probably a couple hundred  dollars worth of plants here, but I started things from about $20 worth of seed.   Some plants were started from seed saved last year, so the cost was zero.  Starting your own plants is definitely the thrifty way to do things!
     Here's what everything looks like as of today:

The older plants are on this side of the table, and newly planted trays are on the top board.   When the seeds sprout, I will take off the plastic dome covers.

Another view.  I planted some seeds in peat pots for things like watermelon, as they do not like being transferred.   With peat pots you plant the whole thing in the ground. Up here in the north, watermelon must be started early indoors in order to have fruit matured before frost!

The green peppers are doing great!   This is a variety called King Arthur, a very large pepper variety.

This year I have 5 different varieties of tomatoes to grow.   They, too, are growing nicely, and have been transplanted twice already.  They are 10 inches tall right now!  Some of them will be planted in the greenhouse in a few weeks, and others will go in the regular outside garden.

There are 4 flats of petunias I need to transplant and thin out - mixed varieties, and also colors of red, white, blue, and purple wave.  Plenty to give away and plenty to plant in all of my various planters!

Here's what it looks like with the grow lights on in the evening!

Here's a photo that's a bit off the topic, but I had a nice surprise visit from a small herd of deer today!  They were munching away at new grass in the yard.  The deer are such beautiful and gentle animals, and so graceful.   Cute, too!  Well, that is............they are "cute" until they start eating my gardens  up!!  Then I get mad at them and put up an electric fence to zap their 'cute' butts!  I love the deer, but not in my veggie gardens!!

Five young deer came to the yard to eat tender fresh grass today.  This was taken from the front porch.  They didn't even budge when I walked out onto the porch and snapped the photo.  When I finally started talking to them, then they ran off.

There Is Garlic!!

Last November I posted an article and a photo about how I was going to try growing garlic in the greenhouse.  The experts say that up here in the north, we are supposed to plant garlic bulbs in the fall, and they will winter over - even in the sub zero cold - and come up in the spring.   Being sort of a skeptic, I didn't have much hope for this, but I planted the garlic anyway.   Just "to prove the experts wrong, ya know" !  After all, we did have several mornings of minus 30 temps, and I figured the garlic would rot by then.   If you recall, here is the photo I posted back on Nov 30:

Well, today I decided to scrape away the straw and see what was underneath.  And lo and behold .........looky-look!!

It works!  You CAN grow garlic up north!  Those experts were right!  Plenty of garlic growing just fine in the greenhouse.   I planted about 40 or 50 garlic bulbs. 

Of course, it's nice and warm in the greenhouse today.  Is it any wonder they are growing?  Take a look at what the thermometer says:

Who needs to go south for the winter?  All I need to do is step into my greenhouse!

Well, so now I can grow my own garlic for cooking and pickling.   That's good, because I have heard that much of the garlic sold in our supermarkets actually comes from CHINA (gasp!).  I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to eat any produce that comes out of China - you just don't know what chemicals they put on the veggies, or (gasp again!) what "fertilizer" is used to grow the crops!  Just sayin'...........

Making A Few Improvements to the Process

We've been at this maple syrup stuff for quite a few days now, and for old folks like us, we're getting tired!  In order to eliminate some of the work (and save our backs!) Harold came up with a few improvements to our system!  While going through the woods to empty sap bags we decided taking the lid to the sap drum off and on all the time was a pain, so we made an improvement to the lid.

We cut a hole in the lid and put one of our 600 micron screens in the hole.  The lip of the screen filter grabs the lid nicely and doesn't fall in.  This way, we filter the sap and dump it all at the same time!  

Then, to eliminate the step of having to do a 'bucket brigade' transferring the sap from the drum to the bulk tank, Harold rigged up a 1/3 hp shallow well pump and some clear hosing and PVC piping to pump the sap directly from the barrel into the tank. 

The sap is pumped directly into the bulk tank now - no bucket lifting!

Another improvement Harold made was to rig up a regenerative blower and a long metal pipe directly into the firebox of the evaporator.  By blowing air right onto the fire, we can get a better boil of the sap and burn the wood more efficiently.

Adding a 1/2 hp regenerative blower to bring more air into the firebox really helps keep the fire glowing nicely!

By having a hotter fire, the sap can really boil!!  We're burning off excess sap now!!  Look at that boil!

The ever constant need for split wood.  Next Harold needs to rig up a log splitter!

Our constant companion in the maple syrup making is our cat FlufferDuff.  She sits patiently on the wood pile waiting for us to go into the woods and collect sap.   Then she follows us from tree to tree, watching every move, and tagging along like a little puppy dog.   She just loves being with us in the woods. FlufferDuff is about 4 years old now.

Our next improvement will be a system to boil the near syrup outside instead of in the house.  Last year we used a small propane turkey fryer, but we will rig up something else this year using the propane.   We are getting too much syrup to boil up inside the house.  It will take some thought, though, because an outside system isn't as efficient as my inside burners.  
     Now, if I could just figure out how to keep my floors clean from all the mud.   Maple syrup season comes right in the middle of the "mud season", and the woods are constantly wet.  And we got an inch of snow this morning, which melted and added to the moisture in the woods.  We are always tracking in mud and leaves, and having to take boots off and on many times a day.  Throw rugs help, but then they also get muddy after a day.  I have pretty much figured out that the floors will just have to be a disaster until maple season is done!  (This is why country folks don't have fancy carpeting!) Last night we pulled an "all nighter" - boiling sap round the clock, sleeping in one hour shifts.   We rigged up an outdoor floodlight to see things, and just kept feeding the fire and boiling sap and bringing it in.   We probably won't pull an all nighter tonight, but will certainly boil until nearly midnight.   The sap is running all week long and we still have a few hundred gallons to boil off yet!  And the sap bags are still dripping like crazy!    Every time we gather the sap from all the trees we have tapped, we collect about 300 gallons of sap.   Well, it is surely a blessing from the Lord to have all this wonderful maple syrup so I guess we really should not complain!

Maple Syrup 2016 Part 4: Finishing the syrup and canning

Today I finished up the "near syrup" from Saturday night.  We usually let the "near syrup" settle out for a day or so before bringing it inside to boil further until it reaches 218.6 degrees.  Then it is filtered again, and brought back up to 180-185 deg and put into canning jars to seal.   The jars do not need to be processed like other types of canning.

I usually have two pans going.  With a window open to let the steam out of the kitchen, I boil the "near syrup" until it becomes real Maple Syrup!  This happens around 219 or slightly less. 

When the syrup reaches the proper syrup point of 218.6 the top of the liquid becomes suddenly bubbly and foamy - it practically explodes into bubbles. 

Then the hot syrup is poured into a special felted wool filter to take out any sediment (niter)

I suspend the wool filter between two chairs, supported by broomsticks.

After the syrup is filtered, I bring the syrup back up to about 180-185 degrees (trying not to get over 190 deg).  The hot syrup is ladled into hot sterile jars and hot sterile lids and rings are put on, and the jar is allowed to cool and seal.

The first batch of wonderful tasty maple syrup - 8 pints - 1 gallon's worth!

Whew!  And that is how maple syrup is made!  We will repeat all these steps over and over and over for each batch, working with sap until the season ends (when the trees bud out), or until we are completely sick and tired of working with sap (usually the case!)  It is indeed a real time consuming and tedious process, no question.  With all this work, is it any wonder that maple syrup costs so much per pint?   We sell ours for $10/pint, and I'm sure that price comes nowhere near  to reimbursing us for our time and effort.   We get sore backs and aching muscles and legs and sometimes need Tylenol to sleep at night, but it really is totally worth it!  Of course we try hard to make things easier every year as we sure aren't getting any younger, and making maple syrup is definitely for young strong bodies!  The "big boys" of maple syrup making,  like in Vermont or Wisconsin, use the tubing system, stringing plastic hoses from tree to tree and they use pumps and special lines to bring the sap in.  They also have big furnaces in brick cookhouses for the evaporation part.  And thousands of dollars worth of fancy equipment.   But we just do things the old fashioned, tried and true way, on a small scale.
     We give away jars of our syrup for Christmas gifts to friends and family.  So if you are one of the lucky recipients of our syrup, now you know how much actual work went into your gift!

Maple Syrup 2016 Part 3: Boiling Sap

Today we are boiling sap - lots of it!!  This is the boring part of the maple syrup process.  For every 40 gallons of sap, you need to boil off 39 gallons of water in order to get 1 gallon of finished syrup.   This is a long process that takes almost all day long.   We just keep feeding sap into the evaporator and feeding wood into the firebox.   It's very windy today, too, so it's not a pleasant task to be outside doing this.  Towards evening, we will have a bunch of "near syrup" that we will filter and bring into the house.  Tomorrow we will boil small batches of it inside to the finishing point and filter it again before letting it settle out and canning up the following day.

First the sap is filtered through a 600 micron filter to take out any debris.

The filtered sap is added to the back of the evaporator.  There are small holes in the evaporator plates, and the sap gradually works its way to the front of the furnace, where the sap is more concentrated.   The whole thing is kept at the boiling point to boil off the excess liquid.  We add another few gallons of sap about every 15  minutes.

As the sap boils, minerals are boiled out and a white foamy scum forms.  From time to time this is skimmed off and discarded.  If you don't do this, it is more difficult to obtain really clear maple syrup.

The sap gradually works down the 7 partitions of the evaporator.  Each section is still boiling.

It is a constant chore to split wood and keep the fire going.

The goal is to have a good fire going at all times in the furnace.  Towards evening, we will draw off the near syrup with the faucet at the front, and filter it before bringing it inside.

It will take a couple days to boil up the sap we collected yesterday.  The sap is not running very good today, as the overnight temps were not freezing.  In order for the sap to run, there must be freezing temps overnight, and above freezing temps during the day.   The weather forecast for the next few days does not show freezing temps until Tuesday, so we will have a few days to catch up!  We collect sap until the trees bud out - then "buddy sap" makes for horrible tasting syrup and the season ends. 

Maple Syrup 2016, Part 2: Gathering Sap

Today Harold and I gathered the sap from all the trees we tapped the other day.   We got about 140 gallons of sap today, enough for 3 1/2 gallons of finished syrup!  It's a 40 to 1 ratio of sap to finished syrup, that is, it takes 40 gallons of sap boiled down to make one gallon of finished syrup.  We usually put our syrup into pints, so that means today we gathered enough for 28 pints of finished syrup! 
     It takes a bit of energy to gather sap and empty bags, and we're not as young as we used to be!  But we filled up our 55 gal sap drum almost 3 times today, and we haven't finished tapping all the trees we want to do.   It takes us about 2 to 3 hours to gather up all the sap.  At least the snow is gone, so that makes it easier to walk in the woods, although it's a bit muddy - boots are in order.   Here's what the sap gathering looks like today.  It was warm and sunny and 57 degrees out!  Most of the bags were quite full of sap.

A close up of a very full sap bag!

Two more very full sap bags on one tree!.  The bags can hold almost 3 gallons, so right here is about 5 gallons of sap!

 

 

The sugarbush looks a lot different now that the snow is gone. 

The bags are lifted off the screw hook and emptied into a 5 gallon food grade bucket.

The 5 gallon buckets are emptied into a 55 gallon food grade drum attached to our Cub Lo-Boy tractor.   We drive the tractor through the woods and gather sap bags on either side of the path.   Harold takes one side and I take another.

The sap drum is covered as we travel along in the woods.

When the drum is full, we drive to the bulk tank to empty it.

Harold and I have a bucket brigade to transfer the sap from the drum to the 300 gallon stainless steel bulk tank where we store all the sap.

Today's 140 gallons of sap ready to boil up tomorrow.

The tank is tarped for the night, to keep out leaves and debris.

Tomorrow if the weather holds, we will boil up sap all day long.  It takes 50 gallons of sap just to fill up the evaporator for boiling.