Collecting Sap with my buddies

The sap has been flowing slowly but surely this past week, and yesterday I drove out to Roheryn Farms where my spiles are placed. The Shelleys had already gathered 12 gallons from the woods, and I set out into the woods, buckets in tow, to collect the most recent sap.

As I glanced behind me, I realized I had quite a lineup following me down the tromped-down path in the snow. Of the dogs, first was Balin, then Berin, and lastly Breggo. They're all brothers from different litters- Springer spanial/Aussie/Cattledog. (The German Shepherd in these photos is Connor).


The dogs all get along well, and with the Shelleys dogs and my own, plus occasional visitors from neighboring farms (Lincoln and Reagan) and friends (Wilson, Gizgo) there is often a huge pack of dogs to great anyone who stops by the farm.

The best part of collecting sap yesterday was being greeted into the woods by a black cat named Orthanc. (They also have a white cat, Ecthelion and a grey cat Mithrandir... if you're a LOTR geek like I am, you're no doubt noticing a pattern here...) Trailing behind the entourage of dogs came a swishing black tail, nearly the only bit of him visible in the deep snow. He chirped and followed me from tree to tree, narrating the entire experience in a wide variety of funny vocalizations. What a strange little creature!

It definitely made the experience more enjoyable to have a whole company of friends along in the woods.

Maple Syrup: Batch Two

Well, I've successfully finished my second batch of maple syrup. This time we began with roughly ten gallons of sap, and finished with almost five cups of syrup. Unfortunately I managed to trip into the stove and slop almost a cup of nearly-finished syrup onto the burner. Boo!

I honestly wasn't terribly upset, as I'm used to being clumsy when doing things like this, and so I finished with just over four cups of sap. I actually reprocessed the stuff from the other day to get it slightly thicker. It wasn't too thin to be used, but it was slightly thinner than I liked, so the extra from today's batch went to round out the first batch after reprocessing it.

I know we have another 3-4 gallons waiting up at Roheryn, and another warm up early next week so I should be able to get at least one more batch hopefully before the trees bud out!

The Maple Syrup Post

We Have Syrup!

After gathering the first large batch of maple sap, we had roughly 13 gallons of sap. It was amazing to walk through the woods, emptying gallon jugs of sap into our collection pails. Some of the trees had produced more than a gallon overnight and were starting to trickle out the tops. I couldn't wait to get home to start boiling! Unfortunately I was busy the rest of the day so it wasn't until early the next morning that I lit the fire in the firepit and started heating the sap.

The sun was shining and it was a comfortable 55º or so, and I found myself obsessing over the boil. I started by sitting on a log, and quickly found that this was not only uncomfortable, it also meant I was stuck in one spot and when the wind would shift and the smoke would sweep past me there was little I could do. It wasn't long before I came up with an idea to make myself more comfortable. I lined our yard cart with a cardboard box, dropped one of the long sides and brought a blanket and pillow and made myself a mobile nest! It was probably pretty funny to see, but I was super comfortable and cozy, and when the wind would shift I could just wheel myself to the other side of the fire.

After several hours I had added roughly six gallons of the total sap and decided this would be a fine first batch which theoretically would give us slightly more than two cups of finished syrup (at 2% sugar content). I skimmed the foam from the top of the sap and had to diligently watch for blowing debris since the wind was relentless, gusting around 30mph. I was so worried that a rogue pine needle would alter the taste of the finished product, so I was like a crazy person any time the wind picked up.

When the sun went down I let things cool and packed up the sap, now roughly 1.5 gallons, and refrigerated it in the house. I had hoped to add the other seven gallons to the mix the next day, but the snow hit and I had no choice but to hold off boiling the rest.

This morning, though, I was concerned the sap would pick up an off taste from being in the refrigerator so I decided to finish the batch in the house on the stove. It wasn't long after I began smelling the sweet maple scent throughout the house that I looked down and found a friend on my shoulder. A Box Elder Bug! How funny. I had to wonder if he was drawn out of hibernation by the smell of the maple sap since box elder trees are closely related to sugar maples... It's startling to find bugs this time of year, but it's also a welcome sight since they indicate spring's inevitable approach.

After bringing the boil to roughly 219.5º I quickly filtered and refiltered the finished product to eliminate sugar sand and impurities. I then poured the syrup into sterilized and warmed Le Parfait jars and that was that! What an adventure! Our finished total was roughly two and a quarter cups, and the taste?

Here are some geeky ratios to describe the taste of this stuff...

pole syrup : store bought maple syrup
as
store bought maple syrup : homemade maple syrup


In short? AMAZING.

Enjoying the warmer weather...

The weather this past week was like a dream. It provided a much-needed respite from daily trudging through the snow, and I was able to get several things done in the yard and barn. I mucked the entire sheep stall and toted all of the manure and straw/hay bits down to the edge of what is going to be the newest and biggest vegetable bed this spring. We have no tractor, so everything was done by hand with yard carts. It was tons of work, but in the 50º sunshine it was quickly done and I loved every moment of it. I also mucked and toted the duck manure, and started prep-work on the new bed. I'll have to post more about the bed prep later. I'm trying a new technique of my own ridiculous devising and I have photos of a lot of it perfect for a pre-spring gardening post.

I also got to spend some time boiling the first of the maple sap. I set up a fantastic little nest to huddle in while waiting and watching and (not-always-so-) patiently tending the task at hand. When the wind picked up later I was constantly trying to keep pine needles from blowing into the sap. It was intense! I was constantly skimming them from the sap's surface or flicking them mid-air before they landed. How tedious! We were going to finish the first batch today, but the wet weather and the ice/storm on the horizon kept me from starting the fire since we'd only get a couple of hours before our primitive setup would drive us indoors anyway. I was defeated as soon as I saw the forecast. Boo.

Finally, yesterday, Jeremy and I headed off to the spinner's flock Fleece Fair in Chelsea, MI. The middle school gymnasium was packed with people and fiber, and I had to walk at least three times past everything to feel like I was seeing everything. When we left, I had four balls of fluff with me and a grin on my face. I've started spinning the top right ball already and aside from an occasional second cut it's very nicely processed and easy to spin. I'll have to post photos of the finished yarn asap...

First Sap

I figured I'd post a quick shot of the sap we collected yesterday. Obviously this is a very small amount but considering this is what was ready in the time it took for us to grab lunch, I'm pretty happy with it. It's a beautiful clear liquid, ever so slightly thicker than water, with a very pale warm tone to it. We collected roughly 1/3 gallon yesterday, and hope to collect at least 15 more gallons through the rest of the season.

Tappy Valentine's Day

Sorry folks, that was terrible!

Today is Valentine's day and my husband Jeremy and I spent the morning out at Roheryn Farms tapping their maple trees. This is our first year tapping maples, and I have to admit when we got out there it was pretty daunting. Their woods is full of maples, which is great. The problem was that there were all different types of maples. They have sugar maples, red maples, silver maples and even some box elder. This time of year, unless you really know what to look for, it's very easy to mistake one species for another. After some quick smart-phone research (this is where these silly contraptions really come in handy) I was able to identify the different trees by their bark texture.

The way to identify a tree in the maple family is to look for the opposite branches. Of course in a dense woods like at Roheryn, this is difficult because often one or the other opposite branch has snapped off as the tree has grown. There were very long minutes of standing in the cold wind staring straight up into 50 year old crowns until at last "Aha!" my eyes would focus in like a zoom lens on a small twig high above my head that would confirm the towering tree's family. Opposite branching means that the smallest branches, when growing, grow out of the same point on the supporting branch.


Next was identifying which type of maple we were looking at. We only tapped one red maple and, quickly realizing our mistake, removed the spiles and apologized to the poor tree. The thing about maple trees is that, while their bark is very different from species to species, there is no black and white. Red maples can have sugar-maple-like bark, and vice versa. The best way to identify the sugar maples that we found was to look for maples that have strips of bark that appeared loose. It's the kind of tree that if you leaned a firm hand against it while hiking, you might snap off some of the bark that was jutting out away from the tree. Red and Silver maples have bark that snugs closely to them, flush against the trunks. I wish this were easier to explain.

Anyway, we figured it out and after that tapping trees went much faster. Some of the trees are nearly three feet thick, and we found quickly that the sap rises in the big trees earlier than it does the smaller ones. The trees that were at least two feet thick all started dripping as soon as we drilled. Some of the narrower trees didn't seem to have sap risen yet at all, so Lauren from Roheryn is going to text me today to let me know if they're still not flowing. If they're still not flowing tomorrow I may move the spiles to the bigger trees. My guess is they'll rise this afternoon since it's supposed to be considerably sunnier today.

If you've been following our blog, you'll know that I've been attempting (and failing) to cut down on the plastic in my life. We have started changing over from plastic water storage to glass, just about as quickly as we can drink apple cider. This left us with lots of old, clean, water jugs made of plastic, and as I have a habit of reusing plastic rather than eliminating it, it should come as no surprise that I came up with a way to mount them to spiles to collect sap. Since Lauren and Heather are only able to check and empty the containers once a day, I needed something bigger than a mason jar to collect sap. This is our first year tapping so we're not ready to launch into metal buckets but we'll likely try to pick some up when we visit New Hampshire later this year... Supposedly in sap country out there, they're fairly easy to pick up used for a fraction of the cost for new.

You should have seen me when we tapped our first sugar maple that had sap that had already risen. It started spilling out of the drilled hole and I did a little dance and immediately swiped some of the sap off the tree with my finger, grinning feverishly. I'm surprised Jeremy didn't have me committed after that! I admit I'm pretty geeked about the whole thing. We have a whole load of wood, too soft to burn in the wood stove, standing at the ready for boiling down the sap next week.

Even if we only get a few gallons of sap, and thus a few ounces of syrup, this has been a really fun experience and it has been the perfect way to enjoy the first big melt. I hope in the future it will become the hobby that keeps me going through the last month or so of winter before the gardening season begins.


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Have you ever tapped trees, maple or otherwise? What do you use to get you over the last hump of winter?