…A week ago last Saturday we completed our first flow of maple syrup cook down. The flow has been slow this year due to the length of snow cover and lack of night and day variation in temperatures below freezing and between 40 and 45.
From 117 gallons of sap, we harvested 3 gallons and 11 ounces of syrup. If you know anything about maple syrup it can vary in color from light golden to very dark brown and in this case, ours is on the Darkside. It is actually Elder Syrup because it is from the box elder tree, which is a member— I recently learned--of the maple tree family. It is a very soft maple and to think all these years I just thought it was a nuisance with box elder bugs in it! There is really no taste difference in the resulting syrups, but the concentration of sugar in the sap is much less in the box elder. Therefore, it takes a lot more sap to make the same amount of syrup. So, if you try some of our syrup, you Harry Potter fans can tell everyone that you are using syrup made from the elder tree on your waffles and pancakes!
We were hoping to get another sap run this week, but the flow was light and it looks like the temperatures will be rising above freezing at night so that should probably be the end of our maple season. (I say this while we are currently in an April blizzard!)
We did have one casualty from our maple season so, my ever cautious husband did the unthinkable of trying to stoke the fire for the cook down in bare feet! Picture wood log meets big toe… Yes, it is broken and requires a four+ week walking cast! May the lesson to be learned for all of you maple syruping upstarts... it is better to wear shoes and caution when throwing logs into your maple sap cooker!
On another Elder note… My elderberry starts are leafing out in the house as I could not get into the area where I wish to plant them, so I think I will have to grow them in the greenhouse for a bit and plant them at a later date. Stay tuned.
On the animal production side of things, all blizzards aside, we have put the hogs out on pasture this week, to do their plowing work on areas that we will be reseeding this year. They do a wonderful job on cleaning up roots prior to disking the fields. The cows are enjoying the freedom of a larger paddock to romp in, and under the new snow, the farm is starting to turn green again! The chickens have also been allowed to roam outside and have been moved to a dryer location as we change season. With the lengthening of the days, production has started to pick up for all you egg lovers!
That’s all for now on the Pautauwak Farm home base. Happy April!
LHD
PS… Below, you will find a poem in tribute to Rainbow, the Brown Swiss Cow that you see pictured above. She passed away two weeks ago. Rainbow had been through many trials and tribulations in her 12 years of life, she has now gone to the great pasture in the beyond. She was our lead cow and family favorite....we will all miss her.
__________
Bovine Brass
The cows march home to the bell’s “cling, clang, cling.”
Brown Swiss, Rainbow, leads the long bovine string.
Jane has a higher pitched bell that rings, and…
The calves prance along with “ting-a-ling-a-lings”
The cows come home, it’s time—I think,
For chewing their cud, and a long, cool, drink.
The sun is burning brightly, flowers line the trail,
And one lone horse, Breezy, is bringing up the tail!
From 117 gallons of sap, we harvested 3 gallons and 11 ounces of syrup. If you know anything about maple syrup it can vary in color from light golden to very dark brown and in this case, ours is on the Darkside. It is actually Elder Syrup because it is from the box elder tree, which is a member— I recently learned--of the maple tree family. It is a very soft maple and to think all these years I just thought it was a nuisance with box elder bugs in it! There is really no taste difference in the resulting syrups, but the concentration of sugar in the sap is much less in the box elder. Therefore, it takes a lot more sap to make the same amount of syrup. So, if you try some of our syrup, you Harry Potter fans can tell everyone that you are using syrup made from the elder tree on your waffles and pancakes!
We were hoping to get another sap run this week, but the flow was light and it looks like the temperatures will be rising above freezing at night so that should probably be the end of our maple season. (I say this while we are currently in an April blizzard!)
We did have one casualty from our maple season so, my ever cautious husband did the unthinkable of trying to stoke the fire for the cook down in bare feet! Picture wood log meets big toe… Yes, it is broken and requires a four+ week walking cast! May the lesson to be learned for all of you maple syruping upstarts... it is better to wear shoes and caution when throwing logs into your maple sap cooker!
On another Elder note… My elderberry starts are leafing out in the house as I could not get into the area where I wish to plant them, so I think I will have to grow them in the greenhouse for a bit and plant them at a later date. Stay tuned.
On the animal production side of things, all blizzards aside, we have put the hogs out on pasture this week, to do their plowing work on areas that we will be reseeding this year. They do a wonderful job on cleaning up roots prior to disking the fields. The cows are enjoying the freedom of a larger paddock to romp in, and under the new snow, the farm is starting to turn green again! The chickens have also been allowed to roam outside and have been moved to a dryer location as we change season. With the lengthening of the days, production has started to pick up for all you egg lovers!
That’s all for now on the Pautauwak Farm home base. Happy April!
LHD
PS… Below, you will find a poem in tribute to Rainbow, the Brown Swiss Cow that you see pictured above. She passed away two weeks ago. Rainbow had been through many trials and tribulations in her 12 years of life, she has now gone to the great pasture in the beyond. She was our lead cow and family favorite....we will all miss her.
__________
Bovine Brass
The cows march home to the bell’s “cling, clang, cling.”
Brown Swiss, Rainbow, leads the long bovine string.
Jane has a higher pitched bell that rings, and…
The calves prance along with “ting-a-ling-a-lings”
The cows come home, it’s time—I think,
For chewing their cud, and a long, cool, drink.
The sun is burning brightly, flowers line the trail,
And one lone horse, Breezy, is bringing up the tail!
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