It's No Secret....We Like To Talk!

Sometimes, when we tell folks that we home-school our kids, they have some.....odd....reactions.  For example, some ask, "But, what about socialization?" 
My response:  "Have you met my husband?!"  

Indeed, children, especially home-schooled children, learn to "socialize", interact with others, by watching and imitating their parents.  It is no secret that Don and I enjoy the art of conversation.  We both love a great exchange of ideas.  We genuinely enjoy.....people!  

So, it is no surprise to us that all 4 of our children were completely at ease with the 4H group that came to our farm today to learn about maple syrup production.  Each of us participated in presenting information and fielding the group's many excellent questions!

Nate did a super job explaining our sap collection system.

Don gave a great little science lesson.  And, the one dad, who came with his family, added to it from his perspective as a logger.  These youngsters had a comprehensive "tree science" experience! (Actually, the adults learned a great deal, too!)

William and Don demonstrated how the evaporator works...... to a captivated audience.

 

And, finally, Grace and Rosie served spoonfuls of syrup to everyone's delight.















I got side-tracked in conversation....(imagine that!)....and failed to photograph my daughters sharing our chickens and horses with our curious guests.  I was so pleased with their hospitality and patience, as they answered about a million questions from these 3-12 year-olds.

I hope our visitors had a wonderful learning experience....despite the MUD.  I know we did!  Made a few new friends, too!  :-)

Thawing out...

It has been a rather long, very cold winter in Central New York.  Our first 8 inches of snow fell on Thanksgiving day.  And, with the exception of one unusual week in December, we've had snow cover....

Lady joined me for a walk, Nov. 27, 2013

...at least at our elevation....ever since!  We've had record cold temps all over the northeast this winter, which meant too many days in which we did not even break out of the single digits.   

Brrrrr!  




Needless to say, I have been carefully watching for signs of spring and thawing out for several weeks now.  So, without further ado, I have some promising "signs" to share with you......

The birds are coming around, again! In addition to this little guy, and the gorgeous robin below, my resident bluejay, who insisted upon dining on our cat food last spring, is back! 

(He still prefers the cat food to bird seed...oh, well...)

Places in our woods that were frozen solid less than 2 weeks ago, are now flowing, crystal clear water....

  And, most importantly, of course..........

Sap is flowing from our maple trees! 


According to the 10-day weather forecast for this area, we should have sap every day in the coming week.  And, so long as we have those cold nights to complement our warmer days, we can keep collecting sap and making syrup. 


I can't help but grin when I lift our bucket lids to see 5 inches of sap inside, and that steady drip...drip...drip... from the spile!

William was excited to discover nearly 30 gallons in our high-vac gravity system's collection drum this afternoon!

















Oh, yeah!  Speaking of signs, we added one of our own to the farm today, too..........

We now have enough bottled for folks who want to stop by, and we expect to be boiling and bottling a bunch more this week.  We're looking forward to meeting many new people, as well as sharing with our family and friends. 
Next week, we'll have a 4H group visiting the farm to learn about maple syrup production.  Learning is what we are all about, so come on over if you're curious!  What fun this is going to be!

Trial and Error

By now, we've had several short sap runs.  Each time, we tweak our equipment and get alittle more efficient.  We're gaining experience and getting advice from a couple of other sugarmakers in our area.  What a friendly group of people!  On the whole, sugarmakers love to talk to others about what they do and impart their wisdom to folks just starting out, like us.

We've adjusted our evaporator so that we can make the finished product in one less step.  Here's our "magic" temperature.

Now that we can get the smaller runs up to temperature in the evaporator, we'll have no trouble at all with the larger runs to come!

100% pure maple syrup from our evaporator!

We learned that if you touch the boiling, foaming sap with a teensy speck of butter, the foam will dissipate in seconds!

before touched with butter...

immediately after butter...

We had a successful attempt at making maple cream, though it was really hard work to do by hand. We all took turns stirring the thick, sticky syrup for a total of fifteen minutes, giving each family member a good upper body workout! (No wonder early-American women were so strong!)  It was really cool to watch it turn from that translucent amber color to an alabaster cream.

It tastes superb, and we've enjoyed sharing small samples with friends that stop by.  I also used it to develop a maple barbeque sauce recipe - YUM!!!

I am enjoying finding new uses for maple syrup and maple cream for my family, and eventually, I'll post recipes to share.

One night recently, I attempted to make "sugar on snow" with the kids.  You have to heat the syrup to 235 degrees, then let it cool down some before pouring it on the snow.

It should become a stretchy, taffy-consistency that you can pick up and chew.....



I didn't allow it to cool long enough and we ended up with..... maple snow cones. 
Still quite tasty! 
I'll have to try that one again, though!

What we couldn't eat, (in other words, once we were stuffed on snow cones!) we were able to boil the remainder back to syrup for our pancakes, so nothing was wasted.

All in all, we are having fun with this new adventure of ours.  Whether we make 5 gallons of syrup or 25 gallons, we're learning so much....together....

 And, that's what its all about!!



Actually, we've made about 8 gallons so far. At a rate of about 45 gal. sap to 1 gal. syrup, how much sap have we collected so far?.......







That's right!  About 360 gallons of sap from our trees!  God-willing we'll get a great run starting this Thursday when Central New York warms up again....for us, spring has definitely not sprung, yet. :-)

Seasons

Last week a friend commented on a photo I posted on Facebook, "You make winter look fun!"  What?  Really?  Winter is my least favorite season, actually.

The next day, Don and I were taking a snowy stroll through the woods when the topic of our future came up.  Looking over at me, he commented, "You realize that this is just another season of our lives...it won't last forever."  These comments got me to thinking about.....SEASONS.









Farmers are acutely aware of seasons.  They must be!  Growing crops or produce, raising livestock.....the timing of it all will make....or break you... in agriculture.  For example, if you breed your beef cows at the wrong time, they could be calving in a blizzard and much of your new stock would freeze to death.  Or, if you plant your tomato crop too late in the summer, your tomatoes will probably be lost to an early frost.

In the world of sugarmakers, you never know quite how long your season of productivity will be or exactly when it will be.  It could be as short as 3 weeks, or as long as 6 weeks.  It could begin in late-February or early-April.   Just like other agricultural commodities, you better be on your toes when the season arrives or you'll miss your payday!

We've been well-trained by our years of planting and harvesting corn, wheat, soybeans and hay.... so we've been ready for the sap to flow for a few weeks now, anxiously awaiting "the big run", while collecting all we can from these little 2- and 3- day runs.

All this talk about seasons got me to thinking about the seasons of our lives.  Sometimes, the beginning and ending of one can be fairly well-defined, and you see it coming well in advance, but often times, it is just not that way.  If you had asked me just 3 months before we moved up here, "Will you be moving anytime soon?"  I probably would've said, "I doubt it."  Especially not 4+ hours....NORTH!  (I'm partial to the Chesapeake Bay area, actually.)  I have some days, still, when I wonder if we made the right decision.  But, other days, I think, "Boy, this was a great decision!"  It certainly began a new season in my life....in our family's life.  But, like Don pointed out, it is just another season.

Making "winter look fun" is a choice I must make each day to have a positive attitude about this particular season in my life.  (Some days are tougher than others!)  Will we still be doing the same things in this same place 10 or 12 years from now?  I highly doubt it!  Don never allows grass to grow under his feet!  By then, my children will be all grown up, maybe even with children of their own.  Hopefully.......we'll be moving hours SOUTH of this place, where the temperatures rarely go below 35 degrees...even in February.  Heck - we haven't tried growing peaches or pecans, yet! 

 Buttonwood Beach - June 2008

 
Until then, I will choose to live my life right here, in Central New York, and just visit places south whenever the opportunity presents itself...