Hurricane Farm

It took only a few hours and a sunny morning to get about 100 taps in.  We dug out the buckets, lids, tools, and spouts, loaded up the trucks, and headed across town to the sugar bush.

The owners of the land that we use have been hard at work clearing out the brush, thinning the trees, and making the sugar bush more productive.  You can see in the above photo some of the smaller trees that they had cut down to allow the larger trees room to grow.

The darker hole in the photo below is the hole from last year.  To the right you can see the a new hole with fresh sap already dripping out.  We generally put two taps per tree.  This works out well as the two taps will generally fill a five-gallon bucket each day during the sugarin' season.

The first step once we make it to the woods is to lay out the buckets at each tree we plan to tap.  We put out about 50+ buckets today.  We still have at least 50-60 more spouts to set back at our farm.  Hopefully we'll get to this in the next day or two.

A few slight knocks with a hammer and the spout is set!

One a sunny day like this, the sap starts to flow before the drill bit is removed from the hole.  It starts with a steady stream, but then slows to a pulsing drip.  Those drops sure do add up, though!

Once again, everyone lends a hand.  First we loaded up the trucks.  Then we unloaded them in the woods and set out the buckets, covers, and spouts.  Finally, we drilled and set the spouts into the trees.

It takes some focus and concentration to score a direct hit with the hammer!

The old-fashioned hand drill (brace) works better than an electric drill, in our opinion.  Less noise and more elbow grease makes for some contemplative moments in the woods.  (The more keen of our readers will notice something about the photograph below.  Examine last year's photos...any takers?)

Teamwork all around makes quick work of the trees in the sugar bush.

The buckets are set, the trees are tapped, the sap is flowing...Maple lovers prepare to have your taste buds tantalized!

With the roof on, the trees tapped, and SNOW in the forecast, it was time to bring in some of our dry firewood.

Our design of a post/pole building leaves plenty of open room for the sunshine, for fresh air and ventilation, and for stacking wood!  We started with the remaining slabwood from last season and then moved on to some of our super-seasoned hardwood.  To get the sap boiling, you need as hot a fire as can be mustered.

The stacks of wood will also make a nice windbreak.  An added bonus!

Every one in the family lends a hand at maple time.

Once we get all four walls stacked, it will be as if we're in a bear den.  And...once the evaporator is firing, it will be nice and cozy...

It's almost SUGARIN' TIME...

We still have not uploaded the photos from the weekend, but here are some to hold us all over for a little while.

Here we have some hogs--snouts sullied--after a hard afternoon's rooting session.

They have cleared all of the land for our orchard and have also just about finished our bramble and briar patch.  We'll be moving them behind my log pile along the west end of the farm this coming weekend. 

Here is Erica hard at work planting what will hopefully one day be a wonderously prosperous apple tree.  All of the trees we set in have started to bud and are full of leaves.  The bees are starting to leave their hive and gather nectar and I saw several of them already buzzing by the apple trees.  We have set up the hive right amongst the apple trees for maximum pollenization.

Speaking of bees:  When they arrived, they were looking rather piqued.  So much so that they seemed to be--and were--mostly dead.  After a quick couple of calls and some photos sent via email, the supplier has agreed to send us a second shipment as a replacement.  Our queen, however, looked healthy and quickly worked her way onto the honey frame foundations to start her egg laying work, but the colony is off to a rocky start with so many dead bees during shipping.

We'll be adding the new bees as soon as they come.  Below is a shot of the bees that we received in the mail.  An acceptable amount of dead bees would be no more than 1/2 an inch on the bottom.  You can see how something must have happened during shipment to cause over two inches of dead bees.  All the bees amassed on the bottom are dead.  There are still several thousand living bees clinging together at the top end of the cage, but this may not be enough to establish a heatlhy colony.  Also of note is the can in the center of the shipping cage.  This is filled with sugar solution to feed the bees during their voyage through the mail.  Just to the right of the can, nearer the top, is a small cage which houses the queen and five of her royal servants.  Their job is to feed her.  She apparantly cannot be bothered with such menial tasks.  Anyhow, only one servant was left when the cage arrived, so that might explain why the queen was so eager to leave her little cage...She might have been a little hungry.

Stay tuned...More to come!

After last week's cold snap, everyone was talking about frozen pipes and frozen noses.  But that sort of cold weather reminds us that sugaring season is not too far away from us here in Eastern CT. 

It's just about time to start setting up the evaporator, cleaning out the sap buckets, and locating all those gallon milk jugs that we've been saving all winter.  Below is a photo of my two helpers hard at work during last year's sap run.

The one in the red hat is also known as my "official syrup taster."  In fact, she came out with spoon in hand about 30 minutes after I fired up the evaporator...And to her credit she was able to hang out all day and wait for her chance to "test" the syrup.