Turkeys are annoying

Through the dirty basement window I saw a face that I  am glad did not become our country's symbol, the wild turkey. It gobbled, danced and pecked at the window's reflection of itself. Quite funny to watch and hear. They have stayed out front during the completion of our sugaring  this spring. We bottled about 8.5 gallons of amber colored syrup. A good year for us. The turkeys better head out soon before the season opens up!!

Turkeys Display

As we wrap up the sugaring season, other activities are taking shape. Two tom turkeys displayed to 4 hens this morning while we ate our breakfast.  Rains washed most of the snow away and left lots of mud and torrents of runoff water in the field. Finishing Batch 7 on the stove today, we are getting back to normal. It looks like the temps are too warm for the run, but we still have enough left in the barrels, tanks and buckets to get another boil on wed. Then it's done for the year. Maybe 8-9 gallons.....

Very Good News About Maple Syrup

Batch 4 in the picture is still looking med light. We don't really grade it because we don't sell it, so we don't really care. We are boiling today in the sunshine and warm temperatures. What is even greater about maple syrup than we had known, is that it has been labeled "health food" . Yes it's actually good for you! Follow this link to find out what the latest research is saying. Health benefits of Maple Syrup. 20 maple syrup compounds have been discovered last year in preliminary research which can play a key role in human health. These compounds possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which have been shown to fight cancer, diabetes and bacterial illnesses. I GUESS WE WILL KEEP BOILING....!

Birthday Batch

This is batch 3, which happens to be on my birthday, so I will call it the Birthday Batch. The sugar content is still high, down from 3.2 to 2.9 on the hydrometer. It is getting somewhat darker but still on the light side. I like the real dark stuff, personally. John is out in the shack today while I remain tethered to the floor and bed with my backache (muscle spasm). Bummer. And to top it off, the winds have picked up to around 20 mph and it is about to rain, no snow, no rain, or both. However, yesterday was a great run and we stored 74 gallons of sap which has to be boiled. He's got books to read and the fire to stoke. We chat over the 2 way radios quite often. I am getting some reading done and other internet searching. I will hobble over and give him a break for lunch and a nap. We should finish around 3-4 pm. Hopefully this next batch will be the same or greater. When the blog  background changes from snow to flowers, you will know that our snow is gone!

Sap Slowing Down

Cold temps have come again leaving the buckets very slowing filling. We get to take a break from our work.

The First Run

 

As the afternoon suns streams into the kitchen, we finished bottling our first run of syrup which is called the Fancy grade. So light and lovely, this is the pure gold of syrup. We have collected 71 gallons of sap so far. We left partially boiled sap in the evaporator until we have collected enough to boil again. Today is cooler after a below-freezing night which will start the flow again. We look forward to a good week of sugaring.This is the best batch of fancy we have ever had. We are finishing the syrup on the kitchen stove rather than in the sugar shack so that we can get a more precise moment of finish using temperature, not specific gravity. We should be able to do a much better job this year with this technique.