Evaporators and Apprenticeships

For this year's maple sugaring, we have mostly been using a propane cook stove. Neal made a small "rocket stove" like fire with bricks surrounding the area to trap the heat. It worked better than our evaporator up north for sure. This year Neal and a neighbor will work on building a real maple syrup evaporator rocket stove. The idea is that rocket stoves are designed to be ultra efficient and use a tiny amount of fuel. Woo hoo!

~One example of a maple syrup evaporator: http://www.threestonefarm.com/2012/02/rocket-stove-evaporator-2-0/

Yesterday I collected ten gallons of maple sap at the farm. Today is nice and sunny so I think it will be another good day once the temperature gets above freezing. I'm guessing we have 36 gallons of sap in the 55 gallon drum so we are just thrilled.

I can't remember if I have mentioned this on the blog yet (and am too lazy to double check right now), but I am participating in an herbal apprenticeship with Linda Conroy of Moonwise Herbs. So far I'm loving learning about the plants as the seasons change. I'm reading "full moon feast" by Jessica Prentice and am loving the ties she makes to the lunar cycles. We are currently in what is considered the sap moon in this region.... How fun to have our yearly maple project tied to the lunar cycle. Last months as considered the Hunger Moon in many cultures because its the last moon before signs of spring (and fresh food) return. We will be discussing some of ideas from the Hunger Moon chapter with the folks from Casa Maria in a couple weeks.

~Moonwise herbs link: http://www.moonwiseherbs.com/
~Full moon feast: http://www.amazon.com/Full-Moon-Feast-Hunger-Connection/dp/1933392002

I apologize for fewer pics and no captions this week. I can't figure out how to deal with them on the blogger iPad app. If anyone knows the work around... Let me know. Oh also can't figure out how to do nice clean links here with the app so we are back to having the whole clunky address visible.

Tapping 2013

We put in 15 taps at Catherine's farm this year. The sap was flowing so well one weekend that we had to check on a couple of trees multiple times each day. That's about how many taps we have up north at the Styka cabin every year, but we are hoping for a larger yield here at the farm. We figure that being able to check on the trees more often and rearrange them as needed will help us out.

I hope you can tell in the pictures how foggy it was here. Everything is thawing out and the pond is the fullest Neal and I have ever seen it. The chickens are still little babies about going out in the yard because of the snow. I'm hoping once it is all melted they will go search for worms and such again. We may get some younger chickens this summer when they can forage for a greater percentage of their own food. We want to snag some chickens on free cycle or Craigslist from the type of folks that are moving, decide they don't want chickens anymore, etc. hehe.

Black Walnuts

Black Walnut Sap

Collected in milk jugs that our friends at Casa saved for us

The brew kettle gets a new use in storing sap

This sweet find allowed us to store about 30 gallons of maple sap

Neal worked heroically through the weekend of rain and fog to fix the potting shed.
Joanie and Kevin were nice enough to help with the finishing touches.

Huge maple tree by the chicken yard in the fog

Same tree, different view

You can barely see the trees through the fog... so cool!

Spring projects

Things are speeding up at the farm these days. The restful days of winter are over as we get things ready for the 2013 growing season.

Neal is working on an automated chicken feeder. He is getting closer to a functioning machine, but there are still a few kinks (like it won't work when you put a full days worth of feed in it). If you have ideas on chicken feeders, let us know. Neal has been crowd-sourcing suggestions from his family, but we would always take more ideas.

We just got some clear plastic in the mail that we can use to cover Catherine's potting shed. Neal already started onions and leeks in the shed, but we need warmer temperatures in there to start things in the nightshade family like tomatoes and peppers.

We are crossing our fingers for good weather for making maple syrup (below freezing at night and 40's-50's during the day). It looks like we might be in luck this weekend at the farm. Neal has tapped a couple maple trees already and based on a suggestion from Ellen from  Sustain Jefferson, we may try black walnut syrup as well this year. Neal's dad will help us out this week by collecting sap at the cabin up north and we will go up there to boil it down in a couple weeks.

More pictures of our projects to come with next week's post.

And the learning continues...

At the farm, we're spending some time educating ourselves about possible sustainable ways to grow vegetables. Here are some ideas we have come across so far. Let us know if you have experience with any of these topics. We're also looking for people who have had success growing anything near black walnut trees. Catherine has been quite successful with raspberries by the black walnuts and my folks had a tart cherry tree near their black walnuts that is still doing well 20+ years later.

Lasagna Gardening/Sheet Mulching- 
This is one no-till idea that uses resources from your own land to build your soil up rather than dig down. Basically you put down a grass suppressing layer followed by a variety of "brown" and "green" material. These substances compost in place while also keeping down weeds/grass below.

Hugelkultur
We tried out this method at Casa with some success. You dig a trench in the soil, place rotting wood in the trench and build up the pile, then cover the whole pile with mulch and soil. The idea is that the wood holds onto water after rain events and slowly releases it into your garden bed. Also, as the wood rots, it leaves space for the roots and earth worms. Our beds were probably only a foot tall. This helped some during the drought this summer, but making the mounds closer to 5 feet tall would have been necessary to get us through the summer without having to use hoses to water.

Sustain Jefferson
Catherine shared the link to this year's organic gardening workshops.  There are so many great options that I'm having a hard time picking which sessions to attend. If anyone from the area wants to go... let us know. I'd love to have someone to swap notes with. Gardening for resiliency, hoop houses, growing meals not salads, and water conservation are just a few of the topics that sound good to me.  Here is the description of the event from their website:
 
"This year the workshops will focus on how to adjust our gardening practices to meet challenges posed by increasingly changing and unpredictable weather in Wisconsin. If your garden wilted in last summer's drought and heat and your harvest of vegetables suffered as a result, you'll want to take some of these workshops."

Home Gr/own
We are cheering for Milwaukee as they take part in the Mayor's Challenge. Gretchen Mead is the lady behind the idea and she has spearheaded many of the fabulous local food initiatives in the area like the Victory Garden Blitz, Fruity Nutty Affair, and the Edible Garden for Sustainability Series.