Little House in the RedWoods- Maple Sugarin' Day

Yesterday we hosted a Sugarin' Off Day at Redwoodshire.  After a few days of strong running sap, we sent out an open invitation to local friends and family to join us for a day of outdoor sap boiling.  Throughout the day, friends and family wandered in and out, keeping us company and taking part of the boiling process.  I think we had around 30 people over the course of the day- though it never felt like that many.

The Laird got out to our Sugar Camp nice and early, 8:30am and got set up and started the fire.  I baked a batch of Maple Doodles to share and got the kids bundled to head outside.  The weather was perfect, a beautiful 40 degrees F.  We expanded our set up and added another pan to our evaporator- leaving us with a triple pan system.  The Laird's co-worker also let us borrow a couple pans, which definitely helped speed up our evaporating process.  We had a warm week, where some days the temperatures didn't drop down below freezing.  We had to put our bottles and buckets of sap into the fridge and freezer to prevent the sap from spoiling.  Sap must be boiled down within a week and kept cool to prevent it from going bad.  We estimate that we collected about 25 gallons of sap this week, which doubles our production from last week (10.6 gallons).

Feeding the chickens

We expected people to come and go, hanging out for an hour or so.  Some people stayed the whole day!  Which means they discovered the joy of sugaring!  Yay!  We shared lots of things we've learned about Maple Sugaring, from the trees identification, to the process of the sap running, to the actual boiling down to syrup.  It's really awesome to share and teach people about things we've learned.  Everyone got to taste last weeks batch of maple syrup, and be amazed by how delicious sap tea is!

One beautiful part of the day was having all the kids running around- ALL DAY!  I think our kids spend at least 6+ hours outside yesterday.  One of our photographer friends took some really cool tin type photos of some of the group.  Check them out:

Holding very still for 6 seconds

Developing the tin type

Redwoodshire Maple Sugarin' Day

Niter/ Sugar Sand caught in the filter

 Our 25 gallons became about 2 quarts of maple syrup.  The color was a bit darker amber color than last weeks Light Amber grade.  Though the color was darker, the flavor was still quite light and not very maple-y.  One improvement to our processing was the purchase of Sugaring filters and a filter stand.  Last week, we had trouble filtering with cheese cloth & coffee filters, set into a funnel.  It was basically as if we didn't even filter our syrup.  A thick layer of niter sugar sand settled out on the bottom of our 2 jars of syrup from last week.

Filter stand & filters- A Must Have with home sugaring!

At the end of the day, as we were boiling down to 7 degrees above boiling water, some of the grown ups played board games and the kids continued their play from the rest of the day.  Our kids had so much more fun on this sugarin' day, than last weekend when it was just our family.  And boy did they fall asleep fast!  We made some pancakes for dinner and enjoyed our time together.

The Laird has been reading the Maple Sugaring forums, and learned that people who sugar consider the hobby a bit of an addiction.  What starts out as a cool thing to try out, grows into something you want to keep doing.  We started out spending as little money as possible- the basics.  10 spiles, 5/16" tubing, buckets, water jugs, 4" boiling pans....  then we added the filters and filter stand & a metal skimmer....  we planned to purchase a hydrometer next year, if we decided to do it again.  Well, we're hooked and looking forward to the next boil (though we wouldn't mind taking a weekend off next week).  We purchased a hydrometer and cup today, for our next evaporating day.  We have to see this season through, so that we can get some robust flavored maple syrup.

As lady Genevieve and I have been reading "Little House in the Big Woods", we really enjoyed the chapters about the Ingall's Sugaring day.  Maple Sugaring is about more than getting a bit of delicious maple syrup at the end of the day.  It's about being outside and spending the whole day with people that you love- creating memories.  Memories were made- and a new tradition has been born!

So far:

We've boiled: appx. 35 gallons sap

Bottled 2 quarts & 2.5 cups maple syrup

2 Saturdays of boiling- 10.5 hours

Pancakes with homemade whipped cream,
strawberries, maple sugar & today's batch of maple syrup!

Light Amber "fancy" grade w/ sugar sand settled on bottom (last week's batch)
Medium Amber (this week's batch)
Dark Robust (Wegmans syrup)

Little House in the RedWoods- Maple Sugaring

Two Saturdays ago we placed 10 taps into a variety of Maple Trees on our property.  It was a warm day for February, so the perfect activity for our low key Saturday.  

Our Maple Tree hunt was neat because we really learned how to identify the Maple bark & branch patterns. 

The Laird read up a lot on Maple tree identification throughout the week, and led us on the walk.  He was wanted to learn how to identify trees by their bark and leaves for many years now, but never really got around to it.  With this new interest in Maple Sugaring, he learned more in a few weeks than in the years of wanting to learn.  In the midst of Winter, and a fresh layer of snow on the ground, it wasn't as easy as looking at the leaves to find our maples.  We would dig up leaves at the base of the tree for more confirmation, but we may have tapped an oak in the bunch.  Hopefully not.

We have a very large Maple right near our front porch which we are pretty confident is a Norway Maple.  That one we tapped mostly because of it's proximity to our house and ease of being able to watch the jug fill with sap.  Tree number 2 is a Silver Maple where lady Genevieve's swing is hung.  Then as we go into the woods we have what we think are a handful of Sugar Maples.  We are using plastic 5 gallon food grade buckets with metal spiles and 5/6" plastic tubing for our sap collection operation.  In addition to the 5 gallon buckets we have a number of 1 gallon water jugs hooked up to easy access trees.  

Sap's Risin'!

We had 2 days where the sap ran last week.  And we estimate that we collected about 10.6 gallons of sap from the 10 taps.  The Norway Maple near the house was basically bleeding sap out- as it was likely our most productive tree.  On the other hand, the tree we expected to give good amount of sap, the Silver Maple produced very minimally.  We removed one of the 3 taps in that tree and tapped another tree in the woods.  

Testing the evaporator with snow 

On tree tapping day, we also built and tested our simple cinder block evaporator.  Well the Laird built it, and the kids and I came out to watch him test it out.  It worked!

1st Sugaring Off Day- lighting the fire 

This past Saturday we collected our 10 gallons of sap and boiled it.  We started around 9:15am and finished off around 1:45pm.  The snow cover from the previous weekend had all melted away with the warm days.  It was the perfect day to make syrup.  We took turns managing the fire and scooping the niter off the top of the boiling syrup, and continuing to add more sap to the trays.  One comment we've received repeatedly when we share that we are going to try Maple Sugaring this year is: "Do you realize it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup?"  

Yes.  In fact we do know this and we still want to do it! 

Maple Sugaring is about the process.  It's an activity that marks the end of winter drawing near.  It's something that gets you outside, when the cold weather easily persuades me to stay inside by the fire.  This is a process that began with reading from the internet and books we got from the library.  Then we purchased and collected materials.  And then we got outside and hunted for maple trees- and learned a thing or two.  We placed our taps and excitedly checked them daily to see what was happening.  We became obsessed with watching the weather- the same sort of attentiveness to temperatures that you have in April when you're itching to get outside and start planting seeds in the garden.  Then we get to collect the sap and boil off the water content in our home built evaporator.  It was so relaxing to be outside by the fire; similar to the feeling you get sitting around the campfire on a camping trip.  It technically took 4 1/2 hours to boil down outside, but it didn't feel burdensome at all.  It was the most magnificent way to spend a Saturday morning.  Not a moment wasted.  We loved it so much, we're looking forward to doing it again this Saturday and inviting interested friends to join us.  

Not only do we enjoy learning this process, it's been so fun to include our children and teach them things we would have loved to learn and experience as children.  We are all learning together as a family and it's the greatest feeling ever.

Adding sap to the warming pan.
The hot pan (right) is turning amber color as the water evaporates and becomes more sugar concentrated.

We yielded a whole 2 1/2 cups of syrup.  The early syrup is very light in color and taste.  They grade it as "fancy".  In our taste test comparison to Wegman's Maple Syrup, it hardly tastes like maple at all- but it was quite delicious.  So our sugar content was about 1.5%, which is lower than we expected and hoped.  

It was a pretty good first run through of Maple Sugaring this past weekend.  We still need to refine our filtering process, as our syrup still has a bit of particulate and niter settled at the bottom.  We're looking forward to opening an invitation up to friends this coming Saturday and sharing with them the joy of Maple Sugaring and what we have learned so far.  

Our Sugaring Station

Redwoodshire Maple Syrup (Fancy grade) compared with Wegmans Maple Syrup (Grade A dark)

For the Love of LEARNING

I love learning.  And I especially love learning with my children.  I love when life is our learning ground.  And so far 2018 has been filled with a handful of learning opportunities that I hope to write about along the way.

I cannot remember how or why the idea popped into my head.  But at some point in early January I mentioned to the Laird that I thought it would be cool to do some Maple Sugaring.  We have a Norway Maple right near the front of our house and a Silver Maple out back where lady Genevieve's swing is hung.  Neither are ideal for sugaring, but you can tap them for sap and boil it down.  The only thing is that the sugar content is far less than an actual Sugar Maple tree.  So we started our internet learning about Sugaring and decided we would give it a try.  It is a fairly low investment to try out.  We had to purchase some spiles (the taps), 5/16" tubing, and buckets to collect our sap.

During one of our trips to the library for story time, I asked Miss Laura to get us books about Maple Sugaring.  She brought me the few books that they had.  She then asked me if we were planning to read "The Little House In The Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Not having ever read "The Little House" books or watched Little House on the Prairie, I responded.... "Umm should we?  Would they be at lady Genevieve's interest level?"  She then introduced me to the "Little House" picture books about Maple Sugaring.  And so begins another love and another world of learning.

We enjoyed the "Little House" picture books.  And randomly on a trip to the library the following week, "The Little House In The Big Woods" just happened to be on the display near the circulation desk.  I grabbed it.  And we started reading it a few weeks ago.

Lady Genevieve and I absolutely LOVE the "Little House In The Big Woods".  So we decided to visit another local library to pick up Little House on The Prairie Season 1 on dvd.  We are 2 weeks in, and it has become our daily afternoon activity to watch "an episode".  We love it.  Lady Genevieve pretends to be Laura.  We've been exploring different activities that they do in the book like making butter... I have been making bread 3+ times a week (even for sandwiches)....  somehow I decided to make a braided rug (which we have now seen Ma Ingall's making in a couple episodes)...  tin can lanterns...

MAPLE SUGARING-  With our couple maple trees, we decided to explore our little woods and see if we had any other Maple trees.  We found a couple sugar maples right in our woods, and explored a little further and found a couple more.  It was really cool to get outside and learn to identify maple bark, branch patterns, and look for some leaves.  I got pretty good at spotting maple trees.  Winter is not exactly the best time for tree identification- however when you decide to Sugar in the middle of winter, you have no choice. This past weekend we put in 10 taps, tubes and buckets (and 1 gallon water jugs).  And with slightly warmer temperatures during the day, the sap is starting to run!  The Laird is super excited to be sugaring and had been anxious to Do something besides wait for temperatures to rise.  And now we're waiting to see how much sap we will have come the weekend.  Last weekend we also built a simple evaporator/ fire box out of cinder blocks.  We purchased 2 large 4" pans to boil the sap in.  Since we moved to Redwoodshire, we've had 4 pine trees come down.  So this activity seemed like the perfect way to get rid of the huge pile of pine tree remnants.

BRAIDED RUG-  This idea preceded our reading of the Little House books, however we have now seen Ma Ingall's working on a braided rug in a few episodes.  Lady Genevieve noticed it before I did and she said, "hey she's making a braid like you!".  I watched a few YouTube videos and was amazed at how simple the rug seemed, and how I could use my fabric remnants to make it.  I started cutting my remnants into 2 inch stripes and then braided them.  The hardest part was sewing the rug together.  Last weekend I finished my rug.  It was quite small, so it works well in front of my kitchen sink.  That rug was my test to see if I really wanted to make a large rug for my dining room.  I loved making it and how it turned out, so went on a hunt for old bed sheets.  My favorite 2nd hand store (Savers) recently closed near me, so I decided to stop into the Salvation Army store.  And to my surprise and excitement, bed sheets were only $1.99!!!!  I picked up 5 that day.  Because I am planning to make a very large rug, I decided I probably needed a couple more sheets, so I got 2 more the next week.  And then another one this evening.   At this point, these sheets are becoming a bit addicting.  I can't believe how much fabric you get in a bed sheet, for $1.99!!  This beats Joann Fabrics prices by like 100%.  And for the purpose of a rug, you really can't beat that.  This week I have been cutting all the sheets into 1.5" strips and rolling them up.  I have most all of the sheets cut into strips and am about ready to start braiding.  My first rug is cute and turned out pretty nice, however it has a few quirks to it.  After a little investigation, I found an amazing series of braided rug you tube videos, to which I learned how to make the braided rug better and hopefully it will turn out amazing this time.  We will just say that I did things the hard way, a few times over.  My color scheme is navy, white, grey, light greens & teal, and golden yellow.  The fun is about to begin.

LITTLE HOUSE IN THE REDWOODS-  This is what I think our story would be called. I just love Ma Ingalls (Caroline).  My daughter loves Laura.  I am pretty smitten with all things primitive and learning to keep life simple, as we see in the show and read in the books.  Every episode is amazing and full of a wonderful life lessons.  I love discussing what we learn from each episode.  I love making bread, and am getting quite good at it.  Making butter is just the coolest thing ever.  And we made goat cheese this past week, and it turned out amazing as well.  Better yet, we were able to use the whey in our bread and other home made foods.  It's an amazing journey of discovery.  Caroline Ingalls- where have you been my whole life?!  I learn so much from her every day.

So that's where this year has brought us so far.  I will post more details about each of these adventures, with photos and outcomes.  Loving to learn is a love of life.  That is one of my greatest desires for my children as we continue on our homeschooling journey.  In the end, it's not important that they be the smartest or the best at anything.  I simply hope that they love to learn.