daily yarns 'n more

i've been somewhat preoccupied

Y'All know we had a new grandchild, so I took a road trip over to lower Michigan where our son and daughter-in-law live.  I did what I love to do, I cooked, I baked, and I snuggled our newest grandchild.

 

Today is our last day for making syrup, after today we will be over our total from the previous years, despite the late start and not many days of boiling.  Mr put in 51 more taps and that seemed to help a lot with getting more sap.  Half of our crop was golden and the other half was dark maple.  I hope to get back to blogging again, I seem to have put it on the back burner the past week, but that just couldn't have been helped, I was simply busy doing some fun things :)

Babies and maple syrup, both pure sweetness.

 

boiling time

Well, here it is, our boiling area.  I so can't wait to get our sugar shack built, but first things first around here.  This boil is from the other day when we gathered all the frozen sap from the trees.  This was a boil from heck.  Mr was trying out his new evaporator pan and things just weren't going too well.

BUT, the good news is we did get some syrup out of the whole mess.

And...It ended up being top grade at that.  Mr tested the sugar content in the sap and it was at 5% which means the sap had a high sugar content.  Of course I had to make breakfast for dinner just so we could have some of the new syrup.  Mr did think it was a bit sweeter than our last years batch, but I really liked it.

 Linking with Madge for Rurality Blog Hop.

 

gathering the sap

Wow, it's been a month since we tapped the trees.  The weather kept changing on us, when we thought the temps were going to be just right, it would change, and it kept doing that for a whole month here.

Compared to the previous years it's getting late it seems to be tapping trees.  The buckets are full of sap and frozen sap.  We're going to boil it any way and see what we get.  I'm sure it's going to be a very dark syrup and that's okay with me because I will use it for baking.  We not only use the traditional sap buckets to gather the sap, we also found that these buckets from DQ work just as great.  Our daughters mother-in-law works at a DQ and would save these buckets for us.  There's Mr's deer stand, it could use a bit of TLC.

The snow is making it very difficult to drive into the sugar bush, the path is getting very icy to drive on.  We need to get some chains for the tractor tires and that should help.

Sadie is loving it now that we are outside again.  It's been a long winter so far and all three of us are happy to be working outside, despite the snow that is still on the ground.

Well, we'll see what kind of syrup we get tomorrow, dark or light it's going to be very yummy.

 

we've got it down pat

Jim has his end all figured out and so do I.  After the sap boils in the evaporator it gets brought in the house where I finish the boiling process.

I test it with a hydrometer to get it to the correct temperature, then we strain it and put it in hot bottles.

Yesterdays boil yielded a gallon of syrup.

We'll see if we get the number we got last season which was just over 20 gallons of syrup.

:: today

Yesterday I had to head to Illinois to see the dentist.  I like the one I go to so I don't mind the drive.  I left at 9:00 a.m. and got back about 7:00 p.m.  It was a quick trip, but I got to see some of the kids while I was there.

One good thing about going there I was able to pick up some angle iron that Jim needed for the evaporator, so that today we could start to boil.

I'm organized with my part and now I'm just waiting for the sap to boil down.

Oh man, I can't wait to taste that first taste of the season.

more photos from yesterday

I think I need to bring out my muck boots instead of my snow boots.  So far my snow boots are still free of mud.

You all have a wonderful Sunday.

maple sugaring 2012 is underway

I can't believe it's that time of year again.

Sadie is always in her glory when we head out to our woodlot.

This baby is going to be such a BIG help this year, maybe we won't be as exhausted when it's all over as we were last year.

I just love hearing the sap dripping in the buckets as I'm walking through our sugar bush.

I can't wait to get boiling.

the last of the sugaring and a visit from family

Muck boots were needed no matter what kind.

Our daughter Carri came with her family from Minnesota during their spring break.

Checking out the sugaring process for the first time.

Having a stick fight....

...getting a wagon ride.

Heading out to gather sap.

Our daughter Becky also came to help with the last of the sugaring.  We also celebrated Becky's 22nd birthday.

Our son-in-law had a broken hand, but he managed to take out all the taps and haul in all the buckets and jugs for us with the help of our grandson Reese.

Next year we won't be having to haul all the sap to the van or carry it up hill.  Next year will be much easier with the tractor we're getting....Whew!

This photo take by our granddaughter KC...Good job KC.

Team work. 

This is it, the sap run is done. 

We hauled in a total of approximately 900 gallons of sap, for a total of approximately 20.379 gallons of syrup.  It's all bottled up, boxed up and ready to be sold at the local farmers market. 

We're tired and ready for some R&R.  We're getting ready to head down to Texas to visit our son and his family.  I'll be posting some this week, but I'm not sure how much blog visiting I'll be able to do.  Know that I'll sure be missing you all.   If you don't see me around your space for awhile, know I'm enjoying some warmer weather...at least I hope it'll be warmer :)))

 

boiling time

We had a really busy weekend boiling the sap.

Waiting around for the boil to start.

Here the sap is really boiling, you can see the evaporation of the water.

The sap/syrup is ready to go to the finishing pot.

We will finish up the boiling process here, where the sap turns into maple syrup.

From time to time you need to skim off the foam that develops.

To make sure you don't over boil the syrup, we need to check the temp with a hydrometer.

When we get to the correct point, we take the syrup and pour it into a filter where all the sediment gets filtered out.  Jim made this handy filter holder, because it got pretty tiring holding it up until all the syrup strained through.

After the syrup is all filtered through, we then bottle it up into hot bottles/jars.

I'm not sure what kind of mess we have going here, but we are supposed to be filling the bottles :)

The syrup is cooling down, and when it's cooled enough I'll add the "Pure Maple Syrup" stickers to the bottles.

So far we have made a total of 3.55 gallons of syrup.  We'll be boiling hopefully for at least 3 more weeks.

I hope you enjoyed with us our experience of making maple syrup for the very first time.

To see more of our process go HERE.

I joined Amy over at Homestead Revivial for another round of Homestead Barn Hop.

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.