Time For Tappin’

		Maple Syrup Time VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Yesterday I went into the woods with my brother to help him tap an area he calls, “the gully”. It will soon be maple syrup time and once winter loses its’ grip on this area, the sap in the maple trees will start to flow. The gully is a little bit treacherous because there is a frozen stream bed running through it and the banks are steep with lots of rocks and barbed wire (this area used to be part of a fenced in cow pasture). With snow drifts and icy patches of snow, it makes for some slippery navigating to get to a lot of the trees that Jim has tapped here.

I was in charge of cutting off the old tap and putting the new tap on. This is the special tool that is used to do that with. The yellow area is the knife that cuts the old tap off. You cut the old tap off the tubing and put it in your pocket, to discard later.

The tubing is threaded through the round red part of the tool and the new tap is positioned between the claw on the left and the open end of the tube. As you apply pressure with the tool, it pushes the new tap into the tube. It’s a little tricky to get the hang of. It’s some pretty heavy duty hand dexterity action going on….reminds me of the first time I had to flip donuts in the fryer, after dropping them out of the donut machine. Sort of like Lucy on the conveyor belt with all those chocolate candies coming at her. After doing about 25 taps I got the hang of it.

Here’s a new tap. It’s hard to see but there is a little black ball in the top tube, which is a check valve to prevent old sap from going from the line back into the tree. These little taps cost .60/piece and we wonder why maple syrup is pricey. The tool I was using is over a $100 to purchase!That’s a lot of investment that maple syrup producers have into their product. On top of that all the tubing, pumps, vacuums, reverse osmosis machines, evaporators, etc. that are part of the process.

We had 177 taps to change out in the gully and it took us about three hours to do it, due to the dangerous terrain that we had to navigate. It sure was a pretty day to be out and the gully provided some protection from the cold wind that was blowing. We saw a flock of turkeys and lots of animal tracks in the woods. I love to work outside if I have the proper amount of warm clothes to keep me comfortable. Luckily I had brought along my alpaca ski mask that helped to protect my face and neck from the bitter wind. We had to replace one drop line (the tubing that goes from a tap to the main line) because deer had gnawed on it. My brother thinks that the deer (probably the fawns) like to chew on it due to the rubbery feeling. (Maybe it gives them relief when they are teething.) Here’s a picture of all the chew marks. Weird, huh. Jim says that deer and bear can really do a lot of damage to the lines. Once he hooks up his vacuum pump to a line, he monitors the pressure in the lines. If it isn’t as high as it should be, he comes out and walks the lines to see where there might be a puncture, like from chew marks, so that he can replace the tubing and get the pressure back to where it needs to be. Lots of trips into the woods to keep that sap flowing. Once you put a new tap on, then you drill a hole in the tree and use a hammer to put the tap in the hole. Once the weather warms up, the sap will start flowing and then the real fun begins.

It’s brutally cold outside today, with wind chills of –25. The weather has been extremely abnormal but who’s to say that it’s not the new normal. I got out the new loom that I bought a while ago and have been trying to get reacquainted with weaving. I learned how to weave when I was doing my internship last winter at White Violet Center for Eco-Justice in Terra Haute, IN. I find that weaving is something to take my mind off how slow the day passes and it’s something to keep me occupied till spring gets here. I have lots of yarn and time to get involved in a fun project.

Tonight I’m heading out to join the members of the Mansfield Grower’s Market for their kick-off potluck. It will be fun to meet other farmers and growers from the area. My daughter is visiting for the weekend and is going along with me. It should be a good time.

 

 

LiveJournal Tags: White Violet Center for Eco Justice,weaving,maple syrup,tapping trees,reverse osmosis,evaporators,vacuum pumps,tubing

Almost There

Final Stages of Greenhouse Construction VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The builder and his crew worked yesterday. The good news is they got the last of the steel on and the solar fans installed. One screen door has been hung (two more to go) and downspout for one side of the roof has been completed. The bad news is that they still have two more screen doors to put on, one more downspout and the double poly for the roof. They will wait till we have a “calm” morning with very little to no wind to come back and finish. A warmish day would be nice but last night we slipped into the icy abyss of another polar vortex that is going to last through the weekend. The wind chills today are in the –25 range, which is dang cold. The kind of cold that makes your nose hairs tingle when you go outside. Thank goodness for the alpaca ski mask and gloves I bought at White Violet Center, during my internship last year, that got me through Indiana’s polar vortex. Nothing like alpaca fleece to keep you warm and dry, without the bulk.
The inside of the barn looks like a construction zone, due to the builders using it for material prep and a place to go to get warm. Anxious to get the greenhouse painting done so that I can build the troughs, etc. but nothing can happen till the plastic goes on and the space warms up. So we wait…

Winter Doldrums

We left the mud in December to plunge head-long into snow and bitter cold temps. The builders haven’t gotten everything wrapped up because one of the last crucial things to do is put up the double poly roof on the greenhouse. Ideally , it would be nice to have no wind (nothing like fighting a 25’ x 55’ long “kite” when it comes time to put the plastic on) and a day that isn’t freezing cold. We have not managed to have these two characteristics intersect so they can finish up. They did get the steel on the west and east walls.
There’s a strip that needs steel on the shared wall between greenhouse and the barn (see the silver area on right wall of barn). The builder was hoping for a good day next week to finish up but the weather is looking like another storm is going to come through on Monday.
When the cold weather came (and didn’t leave), each snowfall kept adding to the previous one because the ground was cold. We currently have about 8” on the ground but the wind has created some snow drifts that are up to my knees in the yard. We have a micro climate in this spot that produces extreme cold temps (last night it was –21) that are far colder than surrounding areas. The local weather station reported that for most areas around here, it was –5 degrees. The extreme temps will be a challenge for winter growing and a test to see how well the growing troughs can maintain their temps. A fellow aquaponic grower near here, who uses the same type of growing system, only loses 2 degrees of warmth over the entire length of the system. This is due to the trough sides and bottom being insulated to maintain the water temps. On top of that, the raft that the plants are growing in is a 2” piece of Dow insulated board. Insulation all the way around to keep the water temps consistently warm and that keeps the plants happy.
I placed orders for some of the organic items that the seed companies tend to run out of early, potatoes and garlic. The potatoes won’t ship till after April and the garlic doesn’t get shipped till fall but this way I know it’s ordered and I’ll get some. Not much I can do till the greenhouse is completed. I’ve been working on the paperwork for the organic certification. My brother is starting to tap trees and I hope to help him out with boiling this year and learn about the whole process. Can you believe, that in another week, February will be half over already. You know what that means….Spring is just around the corner!