daily yarns 'n more

gathering of the sap

Usually we go out to the sugarbush 3 times a day for the sap.  It got really tiring for Jim to carry the two 5 gallon buckets up and down the hills, so he devised something from the past.

After the jugs and buckets are emptied into the 5 gallon buckets, they get hauled up hill to be dumped into the holding tank.

Sometimes we have to make two trips and Jim will have to come back down to fill the buckets up again.  We'll do this everyday until the sap stops running.

We'll be boiling again this weekend, our son Joshua and his family are heading here and Lauren and Erin are heading her as well from Minnesota.  It should be a fun and busy weekend.

To see more of our maple sugaring go HERE.

I'm linking again with Amy over at Verde Farm for Farm Friend Friday.

 

i think we're starting to figure it out

We put more taps on the trees yesterday for a total of 50 taps.  Not a huge  amount, but just enough for us right now and because that's all we have (lol).

We only had 25 buckets, so we used milk jugs and a few plastic buckets that the kids saved for us.

The path we call the "high road" where more maple trees need to be tapped.

After we tapped and hung all the jugs/buckets we could, we headed back up to the house to wait for the buckets and jugs to fill.

And fill they did.  Jim emptied them later in the day.

He hauled the filled 5 gallon buckets back up to the house,

where the sap will be stored in this huge container until we have enough to boil.

We strained the sap that we poured into the container as it had a few pieces of debris from the trees.

This is just the start of it, we are nowhere near done.

Sorry I'm late, again I'm joining Amy over at Verde Farm for Farm Friend Friday.

ruins of an old farm

There's an old farm that I never knew about because it's pretty well hidden when the trees are in full bloom.

In the winter tho it's more visible to see.  There is something quite odd about the photo below.  If you take a look at the farm house it looks like it's not been lived in for many many years.  But if you take a closer look you can see a satellite dish in the yard there.  Try and figure that one out.

There's nothing left of the barn.

If only walls could talk and tell us about the dish in the yard.

What do you think?

I'm joining Amy over at Verde Farm again for Farm Friend Friday.

 

farm friend friday

I'm joining Amy over at Verde Farm who is hosting Farm Friend Friday.

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We are getting ready for maple sugaring here at Gentle Hearth Farm.  We have never done it before so there is a lot of preparation going on right now for us. 

Yesterday we headed north, through small towns.

Down country roads that led us to....

Roth Sugar Bush, Maple Syrup and Equipment Sales.

Where we looked for some used maple sugaring equipment.

Getting used buckets can save tons of money, you just have to be picky on the shape they're in.

There were stacks and stacks of used buckets in their back warehouse, and man was it cold in there.  It was the same temp inside as it was outside.

We had to get some lids for the buckets as well.  You need those to keep debris out of the sap.

So much to do yet still.  Hopefully we'll be ready by the time the sap is running.  I can't wait to show you all that process.