The Growing Days Have Begun

If things on the farm do not happen simultaneously, they certainly happen in quick succession.  Mother Nature is wise that way.  As we thank the trees for the early sap for syrup, now is the time to cease in collecting it.  As you can see, the lichen are thanking us for the little overflow of sap.

Today as we removed the spiels from the trees and scrubbed the buckets to ready for them storage, everything around us is hinting of tasks to come.

In a short two weeks our cool weather broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seeds have blossomed into little plants ready to be hardened off and planted in our mini hoop house.

A large amount of dirt is lifting as our giant rhubarb begins to emerge like an octopus poking up from the deep.

Tender garlic shoots are beginning to poke their ray through their winter blanket of straw.

We have never seen stinging nettle on our property before, and after an exhaustive unsuccessful search last spring, late summer this plant began coming up in our pepper bed.  We left it and it is now getting large enough to transplant into its own area, I am excited to finally try julie's nettle pesto!

It is also spring animal time.  We are trying to finalize decisions on piglets, and since we did not want to brood any fowl in the house this year we have waited an extra month to order them.  Now we are putting together an order for chickens, ducks, and geese to wander the property all summer.  There is never a dull moment as the growing days have begun!

Spring Is In The Air

The snow has almost melted and the sap is running freely.  Dinner this evening will be out on the front porch so we can enjoy the light and balmy 69 degrees before the weather turns cooler and more seasonal again tomorrow.

The weekend was filled with evaporating off 67 gallons of sap into what eventually became two gallons of beautiful maple syrup.  Since this is our second year and we set our expectations appropriately, the sugaring off was much more relaxed.  We stepped away from the boiling and were able to do a number of spring chores.  The chickens and ducks are happy with their newly spruced up coop.  The cold frame is covered, warming and waiting to be planted with early cold weather greens next week.

As I write, the windows are flung open, a vase of daffodils are sitting on the counter and the kitchen filling with the smells of candied walnuts to toss on our al fresco salads for supper.   I have tried a lot of candied nut recipes, and this recipe is ah-mazing!

Children's books are never just for children......wouldn't you agree?

I am constantly pinning recipes or storing them to my online ap Paprika, however there is something about the physical cookbook.  When Seriously Delish came out I ordered the kindle version, and quickly found that I missed having the book to flip back and forth through, refer to previous recipes or bits on information in the prologue, so I promptly ordered the book itself.   I love to read cookbooks especially when the author adds little stories around the recipes or discusses their trials and errors.  I like to make notes in the margins as I cook and was happy to see that I was not alone.

How was your weekend?

A Spoonful of Sugar

March is certainly making an entrance.  The 1-2" of  predicted snow followed by freezing rain, sleet and generalized yuck, has outdone itself so far this morning, giving us about a 5" base for the remaining precipitation to crystallize on.  At least above freezing temperatures are on the horizon, so there is light at the end of the tunnel, the season of mud  Spring is on its way!

The most exciting thing about this, is that it appears the temperatures beginning this weekend and into the extended forecast will be perfect for tapping trees and harvesting this years sap flow for syrup.  We have about 2 cups of syrup left from last season, and I am rationing to make it last.  Who wants to go and buy syrup after being spoiled for the last year?  So I am looking forward to this spoonful of sugar which will make the medicine of next few, hopefully final days of winter, go down quite nicely.

Sugar Sugar

As I mentioned here, we are attempting to collect sap and make our own maple syrup this year.  Yesterday after a week of intermittent temperatures and two good sap flow days that yielded 15 gallons of sap, we decided to cook down what we had collected so far.

Our method of choice was a large propane operated camp stove, which seemed to do the trick quite nicely.  Next time if the snow cover has subsided we may try doing this over a wood burning fire.

Would you expect anything less of a small animal veterinarian, than to have access to the perfect bulk sugaring device?  An unused stainless steel kennel from work was the perfect tool for the job.

As we collected sap during the week, we stored it in a couple of large buckets that we packed in snow.  I suspect by the time we get to cooking next weekend, our snow cover will be sparse, but the nighttime temperatures should continue to work in our favor.

So basically, you do nothing to the sap but cook it, and cook it, and cook it.  The sap is comprised of a great deal of water so your aim is to evaporate all of it off.

Once our volume had reduced from fifteen gallons to about three gallons, in this case seven hours, we poured it into a couple of large stock pots to finish in the house.

The indoor finishing process took an additional three and a half hours.  The sap begins to turn amber, reduce more dramatically, and most importantly taste like maple syrup.  What you are looking for is your syrup temperature to reach seven degrees above where water will boil in your location on that day.  So for us, the temperature we needed was 217 degrees.  You have to be very careful not to cook it over that temperature or you can scorch it.  Trust me, after this time investment, no one wants that to happen.

So at 1:30 am this morning after ten and a half hours of cooking our syrup was jarred and us put to bed.  We learned a few great things, this is truly an easy task, just time consuming and we need to start much earlier next time.  We yielded 4 pints from 15 gallons.  Based on what we ended up with our sugar concentration was  3%  which is what we would expect from sugar maples and so fantastic for the silver maples we are using.  With the weather appearing to be ideal this coming week, we are looking forward to how much we can collect for next weekend.