In case you were wondering if there are any hard feelings remaining between big agribusiness in California and the United Farm Workers, here is an article from "The Packer" (an e newsletter I get because I am a produce manager, but which doesn't really apply to my job) which describes Cesar Chavez, famous pacifist, UFW's founder and long time leader, and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom as an "obsessive autocrat" and the UFW as a "bit player" in labor relations. *snort*
http://thepacker.com/Labor-disputes-could-harken-back-to-times-of-Cesar-Chavez/Article.aspx?oid=1026071&tid=&fid=PACKER-TOP-STORIES
Also:
Best new place to lay an egg du jour - between the tractor seat and the gear shift on the old New Holland. I found it when we got on the tractor to go collect sap.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
the town that food saved
Ben Hewitt’s book “The Town that Food Saved” is on the shelves at the local bookstore and I stopped in for a little after work read the other day. It was pretty surreal to read about people I know, whose toilet paper I’ve rung up at the store, whose kids I’ve seen have melt downs at pot lucks in a non-fiction book. The book is good. While the author is on the side of the successful “agri-preneurs”, he still asks questions about the true sustainability of boutique cheese that’s mostly shipped off to NYC. If the last thing you read about farming was “The Omnivore’s Delimma” (which doesn’t ask these kind of questions) or “Everything I Want to Do is Illegal” (which asks different questions) then this book follows nicely.
But, see, I got over complaining about poseurs when I was 19 … okay, maybe I was 20. The whole, “they were better before they were famous,” “so and so has been doing X for years before and still does it better,” and “they’re selling out" arguments just sound so frustrating to me. I feel like there is something in the human condition that makes us poo-poo the success of others especially in a small town where not much else is going on.
To look at it from a strictly mercenary point of view, these businesses bring jobs that are hard to outsource (unlike some local businesses – Burton Snowboards, I’m looking at you) and well paying (I interviewed to be one of the milkers at Jasper Hill and they were paying more than I make at the store by a few dollars an hour) and tax revenue that homesteads and subdivisions do not.
Also, I feel like the argument that some of this stuff is getting shipped out of state is not really to the point as well. When Hardwick was mining granite where do you think most of it went? Out of state. Most of Vermont’s fluid milk goes out of state as well. Hell, I bet most people can’t even say what state the gallon of milk in their fridge came from but they’ll get their panties in a twist over the idea of someone selling potatoes in Boston quicker than you can say rBGH free. There are many many small farmers in Vermont who sell all of their produce in New England. Some of them sell it all in Vermont.
One of the best points, in my opinion, was made by Stephen (whose last name I can’t spell and can’t seem to find on the website), the chef at Claire’s. He said that there are 12 dollar entrees at Claire’s and 12 dollar entrees at the Village Diner across the street “And the last time I checked, that was still the same amount of money.” And it is. I have talked to people who tell me they can’t buy organic food because it’s too expensive. Well, it’s true that you will be hard pressed to find a gallon of organic milk for 2.99, but I have seen a lot of organic produce at our store that is priced much lower than the exact same item at the big grocery store in town (salad mix comes to mind 3.50 vs 5.50). This is because we can buy from our supplier in larger quantities and also because (I suspect) our mark up is different.
“Yes,” I feel like I say again and again, “not everyone can afford $20/lb cheese,” but I do feel that a majority of Americans do have some discretionary income that they spend on what it is they feel is important. Where are our priorities? How many homes in American have cable TV? How many kids have cell phones? Is it more important to have money to spend on new clothes, cigarettes, on soda that costs 1.99/pint or a sustainable food system? What is going to serve us best in the long run? That, I think, is the most important question people writing about the slow food movement can help people ask themselves.
But, see, I got over complaining about poseurs when I was 19 … okay, maybe I was 20. The whole, “they were better before they were famous,” “so and so has been doing X for years before and still does it better,” and “they’re selling out" arguments just sound so frustrating to me. I feel like there is something in the human condition that makes us poo-poo the success of others especially in a small town where not much else is going on.
To look at it from a strictly mercenary point of view, these businesses bring jobs that are hard to outsource (unlike some local businesses – Burton Snowboards, I’m looking at you) and well paying (I interviewed to be one of the milkers at Jasper Hill and they were paying more than I make at the store by a few dollars an hour) and tax revenue that homesteads and subdivisions do not.
Also, I feel like the argument that some of this stuff is getting shipped out of state is not really to the point as well. When Hardwick was mining granite where do you think most of it went? Out of state. Most of Vermont’s fluid milk goes out of state as well. Hell, I bet most people can’t even say what state the gallon of milk in their fridge came from but they’ll get their panties in a twist over the idea of someone selling potatoes in Boston quicker than you can say rBGH free. There are many many small farmers in Vermont who sell all of their produce in New England. Some of them sell it all in Vermont.
One of the best points, in my opinion, was made by Stephen (whose last name I can’t spell and can’t seem to find on the website), the chef at Claire’s. He said that there are 12 dollar entrees at Claire’s and 12 dollar entrees at the Village Diner across the street “And the last time I checked, that was still the same amount of money.” And it is. I have talked to people who tell me they can’t buy organic food because it’s too expensive. Well, it’s true that you will be hard pressed to find a gallon of organic milk for 2.99, but I have seen a lot of organic produce at our store that is priced much lower than the exact same item at the big grocery store in town (salad mix comes to mind 3.50 vs 5.50). This is because we can buy from our supplier in larger quantities and also because (I suspect) our mark up is different.
“Yes,” I feel like I say again and again, “not everyone can afford $20/lb cheese,” but I do feel that a majority of Americans do have some discretionary income that they spend on what it is they feel is important. Where are our priorities? How many homes in American have cable TV? How many kids have cell phones? Is it more important to have money to spend on new clothes, cigarettes, on soda that costs 1.99/pint or a sustainable food system? What is going to serve us best in the long run? That, I think, is the most important question people writing about the slow food movement can help people ask themselves.
Monday, March 22, 2010
skidder trail
Today I didn't see a single logging truck go by the store. Surely, this is the end of winter. All last week and the week before trucks full and empty rumbled down main street. I felt like I got to know them: the red one, the black one, the purple one with "Miss Tracy" airbrushed in gold on the side. (My friend told me it belongs to a guy named Tracy. What would Freud say about that?)
I haven't seen my friends who cut timber in weeks. They have all been as busy as the drivers getting out all the loads they can before the ground thaws to mud and slime and forces you to take a break. In Vermont, most logging takes place in the winter when the ground is frozen and (traditionally) there isn't much else to do. Back in the day, farms milked, hayed and spread manure like crazy all summer and fall, dried the cows off in the winter and cut trees while the ground was frozen solid and covered with slippery protective snow. Then, during the spring thaw, they made syrup before starting all over again.
When I lived in California, most of the logging was done on a massive scale. Entire hillsides were denuded by equipment that would dwarf any skidder I've seen around here. Trucks would go down main street loaded with hard wood logs as wide as I am tall. I didn't have any friends who cut timber. I had friends who spiked it.
But logging as the people I know do it - thoughtfully and thankfully and carefully seems a worthy endeavor. My friend made me realize there is even something good to be said for a skidder trail, although it looks a bit ghastly as well towards the end of its working life. "A horse logging trail disappears shortly after you're done using it, but a skidder trail lets two people walk side by side through the woods."
I haven't seen my friends who cut timber in weeks. They have all been as busy as the drivers getting out all the loads they can before the ground thaws to mud and slime and forces you to take a break. In Vermont, most logging takes place in the winter when the ground is frozen and (traditionally) there isn't much else to do. Back in the day, farms milked, hayed and spread manure like crazy all summer and fall, dried the cows off in the winter and cut trees while the ground was frozen solid and covered with slippery protective snow. Then, during the spring thaw, they made syrup before starting all over again.
When I lived in California, most of the logging was done on a massive scale. Entire hillsides were denuded by equipment that would dwarf any skidder I've seen around here. Trucks would go down main street loaded with hard wood logs as wide as I am tall. I didn't have any friends who cut timber. I had friends who spiked it.
But logging as the people I know do it - thoughtfully and thankfully and carefully seems a worthy endeavor. My friend made me realize there is even something good to be said for a skidder trail, although it looks a bit ghastly as well towards the end of its working life. "A horse logging trail disappears shortly after you're done using it, but a skidder trail lets two people walk side by side through the woods."
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
flashback
When I was in highschool and knew next to nothing about agriculture except that if you planted seeds in the ground they would grow and that cows were mammals, I went as an exchange student to Germany. My host family lived in a similar small townish sort of place like where I lived in the States, but one time, we went hiking in the Alps for the weekend. We went to this famous park with a huge lake and hiked up the side of this mountain all day long. In the afternoon, we came to the small Alpine cabin where my host mom's friend spent the summer with his cow.
We were excited to learn when we got there that said cow was about to have a baby. All evening while we chatted and had dinner the cow labored. The sun went down, and in this cabin and barn there was no electricity, so by the light of the kerosene lamp we watched Dieter check on his cow. He realized that the cow was having problems and after much feeling and looking with a flashlight, I remember this guy deciding to give the cow a cesearian section. I remember him cutting her open - between her vagina and her udder - the blood shining in the lamp light and I remember the calf coming out and laying on the straw.
I know now that this memory can totally not be true. For one thing, while a cow can have a c-section, the cow is cut open on the left side not between the vagina and the boobs like one would cut a human woman. Also, some guy in a hut with no electricity would not preform surgery on a cow. The cow needs to be numbed or sedated or, I dunno, have 10 guys sit on her. More than likely he would cut the calf up inside the cow and take it out in pieces - gross but much much safer for the cow. I wonder now what really happened. Did he reach inside the cow with both arms and turn the calf so it could be born? This would account for the blood. Did he cut it up and my memory has made the calf born alive? I'm not sure, but this very lucid experience leads me to question the capacity of the human memory. I wonder how many other people have had the similar experience of a vivid memory etched in their mind that they know or later discover is almost certainly false.
In case you were wondering here are pictures of a c-section on a cow:
http://www.acvs.org/AnimalOwners/HealthConditions/FoodAnimalTopics/CesareanSection/
We were excited to learn when we got there that said cow was about to have a baby. All evening while we chatted and had dinner the cow labored. The sun went down, and in this cabin and barn there was no electricity, so by the light of the kerosene lamp we watched Dieter check on his cow. He realized that the cow was having problems and after much feeling and looking with a flashlight, I remember this guy deciding to give the cow a cesearian section. I remember him cutting her open - between her vagina and her udder - the blood shining in the lamp light and I remember the calf coming out and laying on the straw.
I know now that this memory can totally not be true. For one thing, while a cow can have a c-section, the cow is cut open on the left side not between the vagina and the boobs like one would cut a human woman. Also, some guy in a hut with no electricity would not preform surgery on a cow. The cow needs to be numbed or sedated or, I dunno, have 10 guys sit on her. More than likely he would cut the calf up inside the cow and take it out in pieces - gross but much much safer for the cow. I wonder now what really happened. Did he reach inside the cow with both arms and turn the calf so it could be born? This would account for the blood. Did he cut it up and my memory has made the calf born alive? I'm not sure, but this very lucid experience leads me to question the capacity of the human memory. I wonder how many other people have had the similar experience of a vivid memory etched in their mind that they know or later discover is almost certainly false.
In case you were wondering here are pictures of a c-section on a cow:
http://www.acvs.org/AnimalOwners/HealthConditions/FoodAnimalTopics/CesareanSection/
Monday, March 15, 2010
arugula
My first farming experience was at a place called Springfield Wall Garden in Country Limerick in Ireland. I wwoofed (a kind of farmy volunteer program) there for 3 months. They grew mostly lettuce and salad mixes for restaurants in Limerick and Cork. It was pretty awesome. Mibuna Mizuna Mustard and Rocket (rocquet?) were the varieties we grew. I hadn't ever had anything from the mustard family prior to this but I liked the way these words rolled off my tongue. Up until this point, mustard was something one put on hot dogs and I didn't much care for it. I suspected all non-lettuce like greens tasted like endive which I had had once and thought was disgusting. But after my first peppery taste of rocket (arugula to you Yanks), I was hooked.
Yesterday the distributor we order from had sent arugula instead of lettuce with our order. I decided to keep the arugula and sell it anyway. The smell and taste of arugula seems, to me, to go naturally with Ireland. It's softly green and spicy just like Ireland. It's cool on your tongue at the same time, like rain (which there was alot of while I was there). And I always call it rocket, like I learned to do in Ireland.
Thinking about this, I googled Springfield Walled Garden, which looks like it's still around, although under new management from when I was there:
Here's some pictures. The owner, Emer, is different, but I'm sure that's the same greenhouse.
http://www.valskitchen.com/vals_kitchen/2009/10/week-4-at-organic-college-and-springfield-walled-garden.html
Here's a blurb from the Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/property/2009/1119/1224259098278.html
The garden was in a real walled castle garden. Here's a picture of the castle http://www.discoverireland.com/us/accommodation/listings/product/?fid=FI_59562. I didn't get to live in the castle though.
Yesterday the distributor we order from had sent arugula instead of lettuce with our order. I decided to keep the arugula and sell it anyway. The smell and taste of arugula seems, to me, to go naturally with Ireland. It's softly green and spicy just like Ireland. It's cool on your tongue at the same time, like rain (which there was alot of while I was there). And I always call it rocket, like I learned to do in Ireland.
Thinking about this, I googled Springfield Walled Garden, which looks like it's still around, although under new management from when I was there:
Here's some pictures. The owner, Emer, is different, but I'm sure that's the same greenhouse.
http://www.valskitchen.com/vals_kitchen/2009/10/week-4-at-organic-college-and-springfield-walled-garden.html
Here's a blurb from the Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/property/2009/1119/1224259098278.html
The garden was in a real walled castle garden. Here's a picture of the castle http://www.discoverireland.com/us/accommodation/listings/product/?fid=FI_59562. I didn't get to live in the castle though.
Syrup Update
Last week we made 33 quarts of syrup and 6 pounds of sugar. Pretty good. The expectation is to get about 1 quart of syrup per tap, so we are expecting about 130 quarts for the season. But this week the sap won't run too well at all. It's too warm. Sap runs really only when it's below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. The North American Maple Syrup Producer's Manual has a very interesting section on the science behind sap flow. Here is a little bit of it:
Fluctuations in wood temperature above and below freezing during the dormant season are responsible for sap flow in maples. These temperature changes create periods of alternating negative and positive stem pressures. At this time of the year, negative pressures can develop when the air temperature falls below freezing and postivie pressures may develop when the temperature rises above the freezing point. ... These changes in pressure are the result of certian properties of maple wood, which, althought not unique in the plant world, are extremely uncommon. In hardwood trees, a great many fiber cells in the xylem (the wood just beneath the bark) surround the sap conducting vessles. In maple trees these fiber cells are air filled, whereas in most other tree species they are sap filled. When freezing conditions are present in late winter and early spring, small ice crystals begin to form inside each of these air filled fiber cells, much like forst forming on a windowpane. As the ice crystals form, the humidity within the fiber cells falls rapidly, causing moist air to be drawn in from adjacent vessels. As this moisture is pulled into the fibers, the layer of ice crystals within each fiber thickens and the air bubble becomes increasingly compressed. The movement of sap into fiber cells pulls water from the vessels, and this pull is transmitted throught the branches and the trunk down to the roots. Strong negative pressure (suction) results throughout the tree. At the same time, other weaker forces caused by the contraction and the dissolving of air bubbles in the cooling sap also add to the suction. The suction results in water being taken up by the roots (if the soil is not frozen). This process continues until all the sap in the tree is frozen, effectively blocking the pathway for water uptake. When cooling takes place slowly over many hours the resulting accumulation of sap in the fiber cells and throughout the tree is greater than if rapit freezing of the twigs occurs.
When the temperature next rises above freezing and the frozen branches thaw, the pressure in the tree at the taphole transitions rapidly from negative to positive. Thawing of the ice in the fiber cells allows compressed bubbles to expand and push the sap back into the vessels. Coupled with the pressure from bubble expansion are two additional forces: gravity and osmosis. Since the sap accumulated as ice in branch fiber cells that are located high abvoe the taphole, this addtional sap, once returned to the vessels exerts a doward force similar to a standing column of water, with the greatest pressure at the base of the tree. In addition, it is believed that osmosis contributes to sap pressure because the movement of water into the fiber cells during the cooling period excludes sucrose (the sugar molecules cannot pass through the fiber cell walls). Once thwaed sucrose in the sap draws water out of the fibers by normal osmotic behavour. This helps explain the observation that a tree with higher sap sugar concentration than its neighbor typically has higher sap pressure and yeilds more sap.
Cool huh? The book goes on to say that eventually things happen that counter act this positive pressure thing - evaporation from the branches in the sun for one and the sap flow stops until the temperature cools down enough to start it again. And of course, eventually the tree starts to heal the hole you made in it, and that stops the sap flow as well. Once the trees start to bud, the composition of the sap changes and makes it unpalatable for people and that is usually what ends sugaring season.
So, maple producers everywhere hope that it will get colder again to prolong the sap run. It does sometimes take a break and then start again. Some big farms even tap in February for this reason if it's supposed to be warmish - to get some early sap. But, if it gets so warm for so long that the trees start to leaf out, well, that's all she wrote and sugaring is over.
Fluctuations in wood temperature above and below freezing during the dormant season are responsible for sap flow in maples. These temperature changes create periods of alternating negative and positive stem pressures. At this time of the year, negative pressures can develop when the air temperature falls below freezing and postivie pressures may develop when the temperature rises above the freezing point. ... These changes in pressure are the result of certian properties of maple wood, which, althought not unique in the plant world, are extremely uncommon. In hardwood trees, a great many fiber cells in the xylem (the wood just beneath the bark) surround the sap conducting vessles. In maple trees these fiber cells are air filled, whereas in most other tree species they are sap filled. When freezing conditions are present in late winter and early spring, small ice crystals begin to form inside each of these air filled fiber cells, much like forst forming on a windowpane. As the ice crystals form, the humidity within the fiber cells falls rapidly, causing moist air to be drawn in from adjacent vessels. As this moisture is pulled into the fibers, the layer of ice crystals within each fiber thickens and the air bubble becomes increasingly compressed. The movement of sap into fiber cells pulls water from the vessels, and this pull is transmitted throught the branches and the trunk down to the roots. Strong negative pressure (suction) results throughout the tree. At the same time, other weaker forces caused by the contraction and the dissolving of air bubbles in the cooling sap also add to the suction. The suction results in water being taken up by the roots (if the soil is not frozen). This process continues until all the sap in the tree is frozen, effectively blocking the pathway for water uptake. When cooling takes place slowly over many hours the resulting accumulation of sap in the fiber cells and throughout the tree is greater than if rapit freezing of the twigs occurs.
When the temperature next rises above freezing and the frozen branches thaw, the pressure in the tree at the taphole transitions rapidly from negative to positive. Thawing of the ice in the fiber cells allows compressed bubbles to expand and push the sap back into the vessels. Coupled with the pressure from bubble expansion are two additional forces: gravity and osmosis. Since the sap accumulated as ice in branch fiber cells that are located high abvoe the taphole, this addtional sap, once returned to the vessels exerts a doward force similar to a standing column of water, with the greatest pressure at the base of the tree. In addition, it is believed that osmosis contributes to sap pressure because the movement of water into the fiber cells during the cooling period excludes sucrose (the sugar molecules cannot pass through the fiber cell walls). Once thwaed sucrose in the sap draws water out of the fibers by normal osmotic behavour. This helps explain the observation that a tree with higher sap sugar concentration than its neighbor typically has higher sap pressure and yeilds more sap.
Cool huh? The book goes on to say that eventually things happen that counter act this positive pressure thing - evaporation from the branches in the sun for one and the sap flow stops until the temperature cools down enough to start it again. And of course, eventually the tree starts to heal the hole you made in it, and that stops the sap flow as well. Once the trees start to bud, the composition of the sap changes and makes it unpalatable for people and that is usually what ends sugaring season.
So, maple producers everywhere hope that it will get colder again to prolong the sap run. It does sometimes take a break and then start again. Some big farms even tap in February for this reason if it's supposed to be warmish - to get some early sap. But, if it gets so warm for so long that the trees start to leaf out, well, that's all she wrote and sugaring is over.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
now for something completely different
One sleepy morning in December, I dozed while Peter watched the news. I overheard that the Vermont Department of Ag had gotten a grant to help encourage and support new beekeepers. Well, I was all over that like Rivers Cuomo on Asians (to use a simile from 1997). I even got an email telling me I was chosen to be part of the grant. This means that the department of ag is gonna foot the bill for half of my new hive of bees.
I was not totally sure I was ready for honeybees. I spent some time reading a few books on beekeeping a few years ago. I was intrigued, but then I would feel bees crawling in my hair at night. This Saturday, I went to an all day class on beekeeping and feel even more intrigued and less skeeved out. Today, even though I learned on Saturday that the beginning of March is sort of too late to start looking for bees, I bought my bees (which like baby chickens arrive in the mail) from a very nice apiary in Texas (beeweaver.com).
I sort of don't know how this will go ... but I am happy to invite more pollinators (who make honey!!!) to our farm.
I was not totally sure I was ready for honeybees. I spent some time reading a few books on beekeeping a few years ago. I was intrigued, but then I would feel bees crawling in my hair at night. This Saturday, I went to an all day class on beekeeping and feel even more intrigued and less skeeved out. Today, even though I learned on Saturday that the beginning of March is sort of too late to start looking for bees, I bought my bees (which like baby chickens arrive in the mail) from a very nice apiary in Texas (beeweaver.com).
I sort of don't know how this will go ... but I am happy to invite more pollinators (who make honey!!!) to our farm.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tradeoff
Usually, the first syrup that gets made each year is "fancy" - the lightest most delicate flavoured syrup (if you like the flavour of karo syrup say some). Then, as the season goes on, the syrup gets darker, from "medium" to "dark" and then finally to "B grade". As the syrup gets darker, the maple flavor gets stronger. Usually "fancy" also fetches a higher price than "B", although its not necessarily better, in my opinion. A few years ago I had some people at the farmers market come back and tell me that our syrup was the best they ever had (the highlight of my farming career thus far). I suspect this was because they had never had B grade syrup before and they really liked the taste.
The color and taste change based on a few things. One is the amount of bacteria in the sap - the more bacteria, the darker it is. Another is the amount of time you have to boil to get to syrup. If your sugar content (in the sap) is 1%, you're gonna be boiling a lot longer on your back yard rig than if you have sap at 2.5% and a reverse osmosis gizmo that automatically sucks 15% of the water out of your sap and a giant efficient evaporator. There are some other factors also that I'm not totally clear on but you can read about them in the "North American Maple Producer's Manual."
But we never make fancy. Peter's parents also don't recall anyone back before us ever making fancy. I'm totally sure why this is. I wonder if it has something to do with the soil? Peter's dad has an interesting idea that the thing that makes us never make fancy syrup is the same thing that makes us have a 75% heifer calf rate (something particularly good). It's a tradeoff.
The color and taste change based on a few things. One is the amount of bacteria in the sap - the more bacteria, the darker it is. Another is the amount of time you have to boil to get to syrup. If your sugar content (in the sap) is 1%, you're gonna be boiling a lot longer on your back yard rig than if you have sap at 2.5% and a reverse osmosis gizmo that automatically sucks 15% of the water out of your sap and a giant efficient evaporator. There are some other factors also that I'm not totally clear on but you can read about them in the "North American Maple Producer's Manual."
But we never make fancy. Peter's parents also don't recall anyone back before us ever making fancy. I'm totally sure why this is. I wonder if it has something to do with the soil? Peter's dad has an interesting idea that the thing that makes us never make fancy syrup is the same thing that makes us have a 75% heifer calf rate (something particularly good). It's a tradeoff.
The Big Time
The sap didn't run very well today, so we didn't do any boiling. I had planned to try out the solar fence charger we have in order to get my cows back in their own little barn and outside run (the quagmire of our electric fence is a topic for anothe post). But when I got home, Peter thought we should go to the local maple supply store and get some bottles. He also wanted to check out a finishing pan. A finishing pan is especially for storing your almost finished syrup until you are ready to bottle. It is tall enough to float a hydrometer in and has a special spout for ease of bottling. Up until now Peter and his mom (mostly) have refined their own method of filtering syrup into bottles which would make MacGyver proud. I felt hesitant to spend 150 dollars on a gadget that I thought we didn't really need, but next year, when the sugar house isn't right next to our house (our plan to move our sugar house 2 miles away is a topic for another post too) we would have to get one anyway and the price would probably only have gone up, so we went ahead and got it. I'm not sure I would say it's worth every penny, but it is nice and, bottling out of the shiny metal spout without spilling one drop made me feel like we had reached the big time.
Of course, gentle readers, here is a plug for our syrup on Etsy.com: ivyandpeter.etsy.com
Of course, gentle readers, here is a plug for our syrup on Etsy.com: ivyandpeter.etsy.com
Friday, March 5, 2010
what's moosewood?
My first experience with many of the farming activities I love now - sugaring, training draft animals, spinning wool - was through Laura Ingalls Wilder's book Farmer Boy which she wrote about her husband's (Almanzo Wilder) childhood in upstate New York, not too far from where I live. The more I farm the more I realize that she did a really amazing job describing how things were done 150 years ago. I don't often question the methods she talks about in her books as I do with other fiction books describing skills from the past in a way that I believe is simplified or makes little sense to someone who has done it. (Except for training your oxen with carrots. I dunno if carrots were better back then or what, but mine never had an interest them at all. I had an old timer tell me that he fed cows potatoes in the winter, but the cows had to be pretty hungry to eat the potatoes and he had never heard of cows eating carrots, but that they might.)
This is Laura's description of tapping and gathering sap:
Father had a big yoke and Almanzo had a little yoke. From the ends of the yoke hung strips of moosewood bark with large iron hooks on them and a big wooden bucket swung from each hook.
In every maple tree Father had bored a small hole, and fitted a little wooden spout into it. Sweet maple sap was dripping from the spouts into small pails.
Going from tree to tree, Almanzo emptied the sap into big buckets. The weight hung from his shoulders, but he steadied the buckets with his hands to keep them from swinging. When they were full, he went to the great cauldron and emptied them into it.
The huge cauldron hung from a pole set between two trees. Father kept a bonfire blazing under it, to boil the sap.
Almanzo loved trudging through the frozen wild woods. He walked on snow that had never been walked on before, and only his own tracks followed behind him. Busily he emptied the little pails into the buckets, and whenever he was thirsty, the drank some of the thin sweet icy-cold sap.
Our spouts are made of metal and our big buckets are plastic, but I've often wished for a yoke to use while gathering sap. We use a pan with some dividers in it to boil our sap down, but many people still boil in a single pan.
I think it's cool that the basic set up for making syrup has not changed in at least 100 years. (oh, and google says moosewood is a striped maple.)
This is Laura's description of tapping and gathering sap:
Father had a big yoke and Almanzo had a little yoke. From the ends of the yoke hung strips of moosewood bark with large iron hooks on them and a big wooden bucket swung from each hook.
In every maple tree Father had bored a small hole, and fitted a little wooden spout into it. Sweet maple sap was dripping from the spouts into small pails.
Going from tree to tree, Almanzo emptied the sap into big buckets. The weight hung from his shoulders, but he steadied the buckets with his hands to keep them from swinging. When they were full, he went to the great cauldron and emptied them into it.
The huge cauldron hung from a pole set between two trees. Father kept a bonfire blazing under it, to boil the sap.
Almanzo loved trudging through the frozen wild woods. He walked on snow that had never been walked on before, and only his own tracks followed behind him. Busily he emptied the little pails into the buckets, and whenever he was thirsty, the drank some of the thin sweet icy-cold sap.
Our spouts are made of metal and our big buckets are plastic, but I've often wished for a yoke to use while gathering sap. We use a pan with some dividers in it to boil our sap down, but many people still boil in a single pan.
I think it's cool that the basic set up for making syrup has not changed in at least 100 years. (oh, and google says moosewood is a striped maple.)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
cutting out the middleman
One of the big problems I have come across farming is not the production, but the selling. If you don't want to sell your products on the commodity markets (where economies of scale make it virtually impossible for a small farmer to make much money) or you don't have enough of a product to sell that way (syrup is sold by the 55 gallon drum) you've got to sell it yourself. But when you are not a vivacious and outgoing person by nature, this is not always easy.
I felt down right embarrassed when the man selling us our new arch told us he sold 300 gallons of syrup every year from his dooryard when I felt it was a Heruclean accomplishment to sell our 30 gallons. However, I have vowed to redouble my efforts this season. My plan is to write to local csas and ask them if they would like to buy in our maple products, also to have a sign at the farm in addition to our website. I drew some nice pictures of me and Peter sugaring to go along with the letter and for tags and stuff. Who doesn't love that shit?
So here's to hoping that this year is an easier sell than last (and it better be because next year we're planning on making twice as much syrup).
I felt down right embarrassed when the man selling us our new arch told us he sold 300 gallons of syrup every year from his dooryard when I felt it was a Heruclean accomplishment to sell our 30 gallons. However, I have vowed to redouble my efforts this season. My plan is to write to local csas and ask them if they would like to buy in our maple products, also to have a sign at the farm in addition to our website. I drew some nice pictures of me and Peter sugaring to go along with the letter and for tags and stuff. Who doesn't love that shit?
So here's to hoping that this year is an easier sell than last (and it better be because next year we're planning on making twice as much syrup).
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
that's why he's on the 100
There seems to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery. The second is by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle wrought by the hand of God in his favor as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
- Ben Franklin
- Ben Franklin
plink plink plink
Town meeting day is the traditional day to tap trees in Vermont. But where we live its usually way to cold to tap at the beginning of March. That doesn't stop everyone, but when you don't have a vacuum pipeline and instead use spouts and buckets (like us), you have to be a bit more judicious about when you tap, as a tap with no vacuum just won't stay open and productive as long.
However, it's been pretty warm -30's during the day and below freezing at night - and after Peter and I went down to the school and voted, we decided we would tap a few and see how the sap was running. A few, to Peter, means bring 60 buckets and see how many you can get through before chores. We did 33 before my legs stopped working (I don't do a lot of snow shoeing before sugaring starts) and (mercifully) the battery in the drill died.
It's a cheerful sound when the whole hillside is plink plink plinking sap into tin buckets and the sun is shining. Standing there, you can feel the smoky sweetness of the syrup in your mouth.
However, it's been pretty warm -30's during the day and below freezing at night - and after Peter and I went down to the school and voted, we decided we would tap a few and see how the sap was running. A few, to Peter, means bring 60 buckets and see how many you can get through before chores. We did 33 before my legs stopped working (I don't do a lot of snow shoeing before sugaring starts) and (mercifully) the battery in the drill died.
It's a cheerful sound when the whole hillside is plink plink plinking sap into tin buckets and the sun is shining. Standing there, you can feel the smoky sweetness of the syrup in your mouth.
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