Birch tapping and greens

Somebody we met recently talked about tapping birch trees, now that the maples were done. Since we had a big birch tree by the pond with two trunks, we thought we'd give it a try. For about the past week the sap has been running, and much faster than the maples ever did. We've filled our two buckets at least 4 times, drinking some of the sap, and boiling some of it down to syrup. It's a much darker syrup than maple, and has a stronger taste that is only a little sweet. We figure there must be more minerals in birch than maple, or maybe it's just different ones. The flavor I can relate it most to is the taste of molasses. I'll have to look into how to use the syrup, as it's probably not the perfect choice for pancakes, but maybe baking with it, like you would with molasses.

Oliver standing with the tapped birch tree

We are continuing to enjoy our greens, although the current plants are starting to get a little stronger in flavor as they are beginning to go to seed. Fortunately, we have new greens on their way, possibly ready to eat in the next week or two.

More farm animals

More animals have come to the farm! On Friday, Jake brought 5 chickens and 3 ducks from the last farm that he and Melissa had lived on. The ducks were happy to settle into life on the pond, and after a few days of keeping the chickens in the pen, they have been enjoying being truly free range, scratching all over the place for whatever it is that they can find. The chickens lay about 4 eggs a day, and occasionally we find the duck egg, somewhere along the pond bank. We put chicken wire up on both doors of the greenhouse so that the chickens can't get in there, but we'll have to figure something out for when we fully open the endwalls, as well as for when the outside garden is in production.

Then on Sunday, we got a dog. Charlie is a 6-year old black lab. He knows basic commands, is really friendly, and seems to be starting to get used to us and the farm. Eventually it will be his job to protect the garden and orchard, once we get comfortable with him and can start training him on the property. He had a face-off with the pigs and cows the first day, but mostly has ignored them since then. The cats are scared of him and don't want to go outside while he is out (he's either outside or sleeping in the mudroom). Oscar, our fluffy 8lb cat, freaked out the second day he was here and scratched him, actually drawing blood. Poor Charlie didn't know what to do with that, but seems to be the passive one, regardless of the fact that he's about 100 lbs! Hopefully the animals will all work it out, but for now it's a little overwhelming keeping an eye on them.

Having these animals definitely adds a new dimension to the farm. Hearing the clucking of the chickens and seeing them walk around really makes it feel more like a farm. And again, chickens, ducks, and even the dog are all new animals to me. I've never been around them before, so that could explain why I'm feeling overwhelmed!

Maple sugaring and more planting

Today we planted a kale mix, radish easter egg II and red romaine lettuce seeds in the greenhouse.

A big thing we've been focused on the last few weeks has been maple sugaring. We tapped 2 red maples near the house (we couldn't find any sugar maples nearby), and have been collecting the sap when it's there. We haven't gotten too much, but enough to put on pancakes 3 or 4 times. A generous neighbor gave us about 8 gallons of sugar maple sap this week, which we boiled down over the course of the last few days. It resulted in about 6 cups of syrup. Yum! We'll try not to eat it all in one meal...

Next year we want to get better set up for maple sugaring. We plan to build an outdoor bonfire pit where we can boil the sap down, and get more taps for trees. Boiling it indoors uses a lot of electricity as well as evaporates a huge amount of water into the house. Running the kitchen fan helps, but it gets obnoxious listening to that all day. We took a walk this afternoon through part of our forest, and found at least 4 or 5 maples relatively close by to the house and to each other. Once the trees leaf out, we'll go back out there and try to determine if any are sugar maples, and mark those so we'll know where to go next year to tap. We'll also have to cut a trail to get there and back easily, for collecting sap.

Planting and Logging

Last Sunday we planted Burpee's golden beets, italian dandelion radicchio, palla rossa radicchio, baby green romaine lettuce, hakurei turnips, canary yellow swiss chard, rouge de verone endive, and cascadia snap peas in the greenhouse. Orrin noticed yesterday that some of the turnips have already come up. That's so quick! I've never grown turnips before, so I looked up the germination temperatures, and sure enough, it only takes a few days to germinate if the temperature is around 70F. It's been so warm in the greenhouse lately that we've had to have both doors open to keep it from frying the greens. Once we switch to warm weather crops in there, we'll have the opposite problem, but right now we're just trying to keep it in the 15 – 20C (60 to 70F) range. From the picture you can see how great the greens are doing right now. We're trying to keep them small so they don't get too bitter. As a result, we've been sharing them with family and friends to keep up with the picking.

We are loving have greens every day!

We also noticed a few days ago that a few of the potatoes have sprouted. They've been in there for a while, so it's nice to see them come up.

Orrin and Jake have done a lot of logging in preparation for siding the other building. On Tuesday, they cut quite a few more trees down, and then on Thursday our neighbor Mike came over with his tractor and “the Claw” (as I like to call it) and pulled the logs out of the woods and piled them up near the other building. Orrin and Jake had used Jake's ATV to pull about 100, 10 – 12' log sections out of the woods in 4 or 5 days over the last month or so, and Mike pulled 37 logs out and had them piled with his tractor within 2 hours. Ah yes, the benefits of heavy machinery. We think we have around 4000 board ft of wood, once it gets milled (hopefully in the next week or so). That should be enough to side the house and have extra to build the wood shed. We'll need wood for a barn, too, but first things first.

This is most of the cut logs.

Here's Mike with "The Claw" and the rest of the logs.