Tanglewood Hollow

One of the taps I put in today.

Got’s me a sugar bush tapped.

Sounds dirty. Let’s rephrase that. I put taps in a bunch of sugar maple trees today.

Da tapping a tree.

The sap was flowing nicely. Seems like winter still, but the trees always know what’s going on. And they were acting like it’s spring.

The snow is still pretty deep out at my folk’s house. It’s wet and tough going when you are slogging through it. It’s melting though and evaporating away. Hopefully the cement pad that we set up with a tarp will be cleared off by next weekend. As long as I can get the van to at least the edge of the woods we’ll be good. We keep fantasizing about getting a four-wheel-drive quad or something. One of these years I hope we break down and get one.

I still have to cut, haul and split a bunch of wood; clear out the ole evaporator and get the jugs on the trees. I’m also going to have to come up with a food grade barrel to hold the sap in. Two would probably be better.

We tried to keep the taps closer to the main path that winds through the woods and on the fence row on the south edge of the treeline. A tree that grows on the north side of a field will have a bigger crown and produce a lot more sap.

The corn field to the south of the woods.

You’ll often see long lines of big old maple trees growing on the north side of the east-west roads around here. People planted them to harvest the sap back in the old days. They get big crowns that way.

Aside from my muffler falling off, it was a very good day. Getting out in the woods always does that for me.

Well, I got an incubator made today too. At least I can say that I got some things accomplished. I even posted an entry in the ole blog. Woot.

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Now this baby would make some serious syrup.

The Leader WSE Evaporator is designed for the hobby maple syrup producer that is serious about turning sap into syrup quickly and efficiently. The WSE Maple Sap Evaporator is a combination of two stainless steel, tig welded pans sold as a set, and a Fire Box called the Arch. Each Leader WSE Evaporator is customized to fit the needs of your maple operation.

via Leader 2×4 and 2×6 WSE Wood Fired Maple Syrup Evaporator.

I’m amazed at the complexity that the professional maple syrup evaporators exhibit. Makes me want to build a sugar shack, buy a pick-up, 4-wheeler and a serious set-up and do this for profit. But eeh gads, the expense!

Anyone want to invest in a syrup business? haha.

If you just want to build yourself a relatively cheap set-up, check out Homemade Maple Equipment topic on Mapletrader.com. Amazing ingenuity there.

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A TBH in the Michigan winter.

OK. Uncle. I give. Enough already!

I am hereby extra-ready for spring. I know it’s just around the corner (or at least the weather guys at work keep assuring me so), but I’m becoming a little impatient.

Don’t get me wrong. I mean hey, I did move back to Michigan from Florida, so I can only blame myself for having to put up with winter. But I’ve had enough this year. I need some sunshine and some green. The monochrome thing is stale.

At least winter is a time to plan. Big stuff will be happening in the garden. The chicken moat will be finished. Some raised beds will be made. And we have sugarin just around the corner in the next couple of weeks. Gotta get the seeds started soon too and get the lights set up.

I can’t help feeling sorry for the chickens though. They sure to look cold, even if they have “down coats” on. They rarely venture out of the coop. Every so often I see one poke its head out and peck at the snow, as if it hopes to scare it away.

Apparently the snow is not scared by chickens. Go figure.

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Being so obsessed with honeybees of late, I stumbled upon the honey ant. Amazing creatures. I highly recommend reading this article.

Image from the post by Randy C. Morgan

Myrmecologists, naturalists and bugwatchers have long been fascinated by honey ants. Colonies of these amazing insects develop specialized workers, called repletes or honeypots, with tremendously swollen abdomens for nectar storage.

via Honey Ants.

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The simplicity of these complex foot powered machines is amazing. They are brilliant.

Treadle Power.

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One weekend down, more to go. We’ve been sugaring.

I was able to work from home last Friday (woohoo) because the Internet was wonky at the office, so I snuck off to start boiling (in all honesty, I did work while I was there – yeah for wireless). We ended up getting just over a gallon of syrup. Yummy stuff.

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It’s early March in Michigan. The temperature is starting to get above freezing during the day before dropping back down to the low 30′s at night. The snow is starting to burn away in the spots that are getting sunlight.

It’s the season for making maple syrup!

This past weekend we went out to my folk’s house to set up the sugarbush. For the uninitiated, a sugarbush is the group of sugar maple trees that you tap for making syrup.

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This is exactly the type of stuff that gets me steamed. Having met quite a few legislators in my day, I must say that it’s my opinion that very few of them have the mental capacity to be the person deciding this sort of policy. After all, they need to be popular to be elected, not smart. All too often they are only doing what they need to get more money for their next run. It is political suicide to do what is actually right.

If you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.

But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.

via My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables) | CommonDreams.org.

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