End of sapping season

It was a red-letter, record-breaking day today with temps heading up over the 70˚ mark--76 in Duluth, I think I heard.  So if the maple syrup season wasn't ending before, it did today.  But it's been a great season!

We began with our usual grove of maple trees.  Things were pretty slow at first, of course, until the weather got into a good pattern of warm-ish days and below freezing nights.  This grove is down in a ravine so it takes a while for the roots warm up enough for the sap to begin flowing nicely.  And look...no snow!  Last year we couldn't get near these trees without slogging through 2+ feet of snow.  So...no maple syrup last year!

Since our first trees were going so well, Leann moved further into the trees, cleared out some brush, and put in a few more taps.  I think by the end we had buckets hanging on 24 taps.  We could see places on the trees where my Dad had tapped them probably 30 years ago.  The holes heal over but you can still see remnants of the scar.

We cooked down accumulated gallons of sap about five different times out in our "sugar shack" on this old cook stove.  The 40:1 ratio of 40 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup creates lots of steam so it has to be done outside or in an out-building.  We visited my cousin Rollin up the road to see his syrup operation.  He had 84 taps in trees and cooked it all outside on a cooker fashioned from a metal barrel set on its side with a grill on the top and wood-burning space underneath.  He REALLY had a good boil going!

This was our boil after several hours of cooking.  The sap would have been nearly up to the top at first so getting it cooked down this far was progress.  We burn using lots of our apple wood from trimming trees around here, and we're still using scrap lumber pieces from building our house three years ago!

And here's the end product.  All the different colors of syrup happen from collecting at different times in the season, different sugar content, and other variables.  All the colors signify different quality grades, but since we aren't selling it, we just use it as it comes.  And it all tastes pretty good!  We did one more batch yesterday so I think we are up to about three gallons now.

While tooling around in our UTV (Cammie) in our tropical 72˚ weather today we saw this last vestige of winter hiding in the shade of the hill.  We really haven't had very much snow all winter, so this might be left from that first big storm back in November.  Why does it feel like we haven't suffered enough this winter for it to be spring already??

And finally, out on my walk today, I saw this little guy scooting along on our road.  And there was one more a little further up the road.  I thought they were only around in the fall when the width of their red stripe predicted how bad the winter was GOING to be.

Not sure if this is good sign or not!

Thoughts of apple trees & maple syrup

We experience a couple of 40˚ days and our thoughts turn to trimming apple trees and tapping maple trees!  Conventional wisdom says to trim apple trees in March or April, but recently we've heard that modified to...trim apple trees whenever you can!

Our "tame" orchard is a mix of really old trees--75 years old or older--and the ones we've planted in the last ten years.  And they have been shown the results of a mix of trimming styles in these last ten years.  Two summers ago we experienced a major case of fire blight for which we had to cut off and burn all the affected branches.  So they were a little out of control!

We've read many how-to articles in books or on the Internet on trimming apple trees, but this time we decided to bring in someone to help.  So enter our local expert, Konrad, who gave us lessons on what to cut and why, and what to watch out for around the base of the trees.  And we learned a lot!  He was almost like a tree-whisperer as he decided which were the leader branches and which ones needed to go for the good of the tree.  It was an afternoon well spent!

The apple trees look like apple trees again instead of branches going every which way.  And we're sure the trees are heaving a sigh of relief for getting the extras taken off.  I went back over this evening to check on all he had done this afternoon.  The difference was amazing.  He's coming back with a chainsaw to take off some of the large, dead branches in the older--and TALLER--trees.  Now we need another good apple year!

 And because temps were up in the 40s, we had to tap a couple of maples.  Here I am with the brace and bit drill on the first tree.  The key is to drill it up at a slight angle in order to get gravity working for you when it starts running.  It was slightly moist inside the hole but no drips.  It seems really early, especially compared to last year, but we'll see what the next few days brings.

So below are the two trees (looks like one, but two close together) near the house, each with a bucket to catch the sap.   

Every year I ask why we're still using the brace and bit when we have several cordless drills around.  I guess we're missing the drill bit for the size of the hole we need.  And like most of the tasks involved with tapping maple trees and making syrup, the fun is mostly in the journey and not the destination.  Good thing because the journey is usually more fun than the little bit of "destination" that we end up with!  :-)

A day of proclamations and disappointments

I know we should be happy about this:

Down to 27 1/2 inches and more, I'm sure, by tomorrow.  However, all the warm temperatures and snow melting that contributed to this picture today has led us to make our first proclamation:

"As of this morning, 11:00am, we are halting any more maple sap collecting until it is safe to go back to the maple trees!"

And that's because, at around 11am this morning, as I was on my way to collect from the maple trees we tapped yesterday, I almost lost myself in the snow...several times...too many times to continue under these conditions.  That snow down there is SO deep!  And when you sink down into it...time after time after time...it is SO wet!  So, even I finally gave up, turned around and went back up the hill, practically crawling in places.

And that leads to our second proclamation:

"In future years, if we ever have this much snow again, we will not even THINK about trying to do maple syrup!

I posted this here in case another year or two goes by, nostalgia hits, and I forget how frustrating this was for us this year.  Log Cabin, Aunt Jemima, Vermont, you may have to fill in for our maple syrup needs this year.  (Unless conditions improve, of course.)

We did get a good head of steam going on the syrup we were able to make today, even though it took several hours to do.  Leann busied herself with chopping kindling and making fire starters with old candle wax poured on little pinecones on old muffin tins.  And I found my copy of James Michener's Alaska and started up where I left off last year at this time.  Putin's got nothing on the Russians from 1789 and their treatment of the native Aleuts and others!  Michener's books always get me worked up over one thing or another.

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And look what showed up today.  Our lost shovel from under the snow on Friday!  It was located just about where I was poking in the snow, but I didn't poke deep enough.

And now I'm really tired.

An all-around beautiful day!

Lots of smiles on peoples' faces today as yesterday's big dump of snow melted away almost as fast as it came.  We still have lots of snow, but temps up in the upper 40's really compressed it down, as seen in my gauge:

We're almost back to the low of 29 1/2 inches from several days ago.

Because it looked so nice out this morning, we decided that if we were going to expand our maple syrup project for this year, today was the day.  We gathered (most of...see below) our materials, buckled on the snowshoes and started out for the sugar bush--where the maple trees are.  Since we've had 2-3 big snowstorms since the last time we went down there, we were breaking all new trails today.  And because I ended up in snow almost to my waist last time, we tried a different path, attempting to angle our way down.

And that worked pretty well, as long as I side-stepped my way down the hill, until I got to the bottom where it was flat.  We easily trekked over to where the trees were, and we sadly realized that we didn't have the little bucket of taps to go into the trees.  Darn!  And, as Leann stated (since it was kind of her deal to remember...), "Should have had a checklist!"  So, I went back up the hill and this time it was almost like a walk in the park!  I found the container of taps, hiked back down there and we now have a total of about 15 taps drip, drip, dripping into the cartons!

Around 5pm this afternoon, we went back over there to see what kind of action we've had today.  Our morning trail was NOT a walk in the park this afternoon because of all the snow melting/sinking/compressing that had happened today.  What were good solid trails underneath before are now getting soft and unpredictable. But I got down there and was able to collect about two gallons of sap there and another 2 gallons in the tree near our house.

So, time to cook tomorrow!

Mary's Motley Minutiae #2

I never know what I'm going to write about from day to day.  People ask if I have to write every day, and, of course, as of noon on June 8, 2012, I don't HAVE to do anything.  And in the words of the Dave Clark Five, "I like it like that!"  However, I do have this fear that if I don't write on one day, I'll find an excuse not to write the next, and the next, etc.  That's kinda how I roll.

So, whether anyone is reading or not, I like to write every day.  Today was going to be a one-topic day, but it suddenly exploded into a Motley Minutiae, so here they are:
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Topic #1:  Monarch Watch - http://www.monarchwatch.org

The butterfly seeds arrived today!  I learned back in the early '80's when I lived down in the little parsonage in a little town on the southwest Minnesota prairie (hmmm...sounds like a book!) that nothing helped a dreary winter day more than getting a seed catalog in the mail, and starting in on summer garden plans.

Today's packet contains Butterfly Milkweed, Swamp Milkweed, Common Milkweed, Purple Coneflower, Joe Pye Weed, Indian Blanket, Scarlet Sage, Tithonia Torch and Zinnias.

Some I've never heard of but here are the three kinds of milkweeds.

So now we have seeds and we can start planning our Monarch Waystation!

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Topic #2: The weather (Surprise, surprise!)  It's another Winter Storm Warning today and tomorrow and the estimates for how much snow vary, but this is what it looks like outside right now:

So one of my friends here in town thought I might need to cover up my yardstick measuring snow depth so we wouldn't go backwards.  Being the realist that I am, I decided that instead of covering it,  I needed to add some length to properly show the 6 or 9 or 12 or more inches they are promising tonight.  So here is my yardstick with a 12-inch ruler taped on the top.  It really only adds 11 inches since I had to overlap 1 inch for stability, but you get the idea.

 If it goes above that, I can't predict what people will do around here!

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And, finally Topic #3: Maple sap is running!

Knowing that this new snow was coming, along with another smaller storm earlier this week, we decided to put off tapping any more trees until later when we hoped it would be easier to get to the rest of the maple trees.  And wouldn't you know, when we looked out this afternoon at the taps we put in last week, the sap was running!  One bucket was nearly full and all others were dripping.

So, ready or not, the sap is running!

Tapping our way into spring

Our spring break excursion was over and we came home to eight inches of pretty, new snow.  The town plow had cleared our driveway but there was still lots of snow up by our house and garage.  I and our trusty little Toro snowblower made quick work of clearing that away and we were all settled in again.

Since it was a beautiful, sunny day, and since the temperature is supposed to be quite warm tomorrow and Sunday, we hiked out on our snowshoes to a couple of maple trees right up close to our house.  Because of her eye surgery, Leann isn't supposed to do anything crazy--like drilling holes in trees with a hand drill--so she stood by to offer encouragement to me and take pictures.

I drilled holes for two taps on each of these two trees.  

And then we hang our modified milk cartons on the taps to catch the drips.  When I reached into the holes I had drilled to fish out all of the extra wood chips still in here, I could feel how warm it was in there and it also felt a little damp.

Imagine my surprise when, as soon as I pushed in the tap in the last hole, sap started dripping out right away!  Listen to this sound and imagine being in the midst of several maple trees all dripping at once.  Listen...

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Getting the maple sap routine started today was really to help us feel better after hearing today's news from Leann's sister, Kristi, whose cancer is back again.  It seems like the circumstances surrounding her previous experience with colon cancer and now again with this next phase have all been unusual.  Now the cancer is in such a strange location that they say it will be really difficult to get it out.  And it needs to come out.  

So, if all of you who read this blog could keep Kristi and her family in your thoughts and prayers, we would all really appreciate it.  And if you have any quick thoughts from your own experiences or people you know on how she can get her mind and heart ready for the long haul ahead of her, please email me directly [mlchilds@gmail.com] and I'll pass it on to her.  And thanks so much!

Maiden voyage to the Sugar Bush

Today's weather was just outstanding!  Temps were up into the 50s, water was ROLLING off the roof, and the sky was so blue I thought I was looking through some kind of a filter.  I guess my only filter was the last two months of bone-chilling cold.

Apple orchard on the way to the maple trees

 So we decided to use this beautiful day to scope out what we'll be facing when we start to tap our maple trees for making maple syrup.  Here's a view of the collection of trees and the hillside we were about to snowshoe down in order to get to the trees.

 And below is a view of my snowshoe with the boot still in it after I stepped into wet, cement-like snow nearly up to my waist.  The only way I could extract myself was to pull my foot out of the boot, and then try to dig out the boot and snowshoe.  Very thankful that it was warm out!  Leann also had a sinking mishap on the hillside, so she wondered if I had the phone in my pocket...in case we had REALLY gotten stuck.  I did but it probably wouldn't have worked down in that ravine anyway.  We'll check it out next time!  We promise!

So after I recovered my footwear, we went on our way, beating down paths to each of the trees.  It doesn't look so pristine down there now!  And it will probably snow again before the sap starts running.

Below is one tree that has the evidence of several years of being tapped.  The holes are all in various stages of healing up, and at various heights depending on how much snow there was in a given year.

And down along the creek was a well-worn deer trail that maybe we should have followed instead of trying to make our own.  We were also trying to guess the reason for some of the big depressions in the snow.  We don't know if deer just lie down in the snow or what goes on when nobody's looking.

So now we know we're dealing with a LOT of snow, but we probably knew that already.  We have our equipment all staged now, so maybe a few more warm days and cool nights like this will get the process started.  

And then I came home and took a nap!

Celebrating March!

I don't remember when I've been so happy to see the first day of March!  But the big question remains, is it coming in like a LION or LAMB?

I don't think anyone cares, as long as it's not February anymore!  But let's analyze:  It's a beautiful sunny day, so on my LION/LAMB continuum that would fall on the LAMB side.  But it's still -7˚ at 10:30am so that's definitely on the opposite LION side.  Maybe I could make a 4-quadrant chart and plot the possibilities.  It could be a beautiful sunny day (like today) and be 40˚ F (not like today), and that would be a LAMB/LAMB winner!  (Maybe not to most people in the world, but 40˚ sounds like a little bit of heaven right now.)  On the other hand it could be -7˚ F. at 10:30am (today) and be a total blizzard outside like last weekend.  Roarrrrrrr! That's a LION/LION day.  So, here's me being thankful for the sun, enjoying our LAMB/LION day and looking to next weekend when the temps will be higher.  Meanwhile, they say we will be setting a record for the coldest winter since 1874-75 with 70 straight days of temps below zero.  Yay us!

So what can we look forward to in March?

• Leann's birthday is on the 11th when she wants to have an indoor picnic & brat/hot dog roast again this year.  Last year we were really optimistic and were planning an outdoor cook-out! But, no.  
• Older Daughter's birthday is on the 23rd, but I'm not sure she's recovered from turning 30.  I'm sure she'll find some fun California place to visit to celebrate.
• March is high school boys' & girls' basketball tournament time in Wisconsin and Minnesota. We're so proud of our school here and feel so fortunate that we still have our school in town, even though it's one of the smallest schools in Wisconsin.  They are always winning awards for their students' achievements, and they have such a dedicated group of teachers, parents and community members supporting them.  The girls' basketball team is undefeated again this year and will be moving on to the next level.  Last year they lost their first game of the whole year in the championship playoffs.  That's pretty good when they have class sizes of around 10 students!  So, playoff games coming up!
• And, finally, by the end of March we should be able to start collecting sap for maple syrup! (IF it warms up enough for the sap to run, IF we can get to the maple trees through all this snow, any other IFs?  I think that's it.)

Here are some pictures from last year:

Down in the "Sugar Bush" where we drill holes in the trees and hang our adapted milk cartons on to catch the drips of sap.

Drip, drip, drip.  Not a better sound on a warm-ish spring day, with some bird sounds added in, too.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup, so that's a LOT of drips!

Then we cook off the sap on this wood cookstove from the old Larson house.  The main job for us here is keeping the firebox filled with wood to keep the fire hot and having a good book to read.  Then we bring it into the house to finish it off and process it.

Nothing better!