sugar snow!

There is a scene in Little House in the Big Woods, the first of the Little House books, where a late-season snow caused the maple trees to produce a whole lot of sap. They called it Sugar Snow.

Well, we woke to snow. And it's still snowing as I type this.

At some point this morning we noticed our sap bags almost overflowing. Sugar snow! Even though the sap had mostly dried up since our last collection,  we decided to leave the taps a few more days to see what the colder temps and snow would do. Turns out, they would do a lot. Rory collected 19 gallons of sap today! The previous one-day record was 7 gallons. There was so much sugar water and the 4 gallon bags were refilling so fast that he had to go buy more containers to hold the stuff until we have the chance to boil it down.

We're very much ready for springtime. But I have to say, having something so exciting happening today made the day feel sort of special. Which is the positive spin I'm throwing out there, because I'm starting to realize winter doesn't much care that I think she should wrap it up. Until then, we'll be happily boiling down sap into syrup, glad to have something fun to do outside until these 6 inches (and falling) of snow melts away.

And for a super great read, go and read Hootenannie who likens April weather to a hormonal teenage girl. Hysterical.

so many hopes and dreams

I remember before we even found this ten acre farm, Rory was reading a book for hopeful hobby farmers. And he read a paragraph to me about how the first year you get your place you're going to want to do it all. You're going to want to take every single hope and dream you have in your head and get er done. Asap. But how this simply isn't possible. How lots of dreams on a hobby farm need to be phased in, given a multiple year plan.

But can I tell you what? This is hard to do. Oh man, it is so hard. All we do around here is talk and dream and plan. We have aerial shots of our property that we have blown up poster size, and we stick post it notes all over it with hand drawn pictures of trees for an orchard, or grass for a pasture. We have pictures of what this farm looked like forty years ago that give us a better sense of the history of this place. Rory took the above picture while going to each corner of our property and taking a picture towards the center. We want to document our place like this four times a year. Just to track the changes. And over the years, we'll be able to see all sorts of before and afters. The field pictured here is about four acres. It was corn this last year, but now we're making new dreams for this dirt. Maybe alfalfa, clover and timothy. Maybe hay or wheat. Maybe prairie grasses and wildflowers. Time will tell.

So we talk and we dream and we wonder. And you know what? It's not all going to happen in one year. That we know for sure. But as we continue to spend time outside I am certain that a whole lot is going to happen this year.

We were out in the grove yesterday and filled three big garbage bags with pop cans and trash. We pulled out an old garden hose and a broken end table. We found a lawn chair, some tires and the topper to a pickup truck. I had the loppers and was cutting a path as we worked our way deeper and deeper into the trees. And Rory was announcing each random item he found in our surprising woods.

And at the end of the day, looking at the work we had accomplished I realized that not everything will get done this year, but let me tell you something: a whole lot will.

And it's getting me excited.

how to make maple syrup: step by step

A few weeks ago I told about how we tapped our maple trees. We ended up tapping twelve trees and out of those twelve, nine produced sap. We're new at all of this, and not completely sure why some trees produced more and others less, but we were thrilled by the amount of sap we were able to collect. Being novices, our expectations were low.

In all we gathered about twenty gallons of sap. Rory built an evaporator with cement block and a metal grate. We ordered buffet table serving dishes to boil the sap in. They worked well. I think Rory would say they were hard to carry when full of sap and sort of difficult to maneuver while on the fire, but for the price, they did the job very well.

Rory kept the fire hot, and I kept him company. We decided to wake up early Sunday morning and evaporate before the kids woke up. We sat by the fire as the sky brightened while sitting in our camping chairs. Felt a lot like camping, actually. 

Rory let the pans boil down for a long time and then consolidated them into two pans on the fire. When he had only two gallons of sap left in the buffet pans, he poured it into our canning pot and brought the sap into the kitchen to boil on the stove.

We purchased a Hydrometer, some cool tool that told us when the sap had boiled to the correct syrup consistency. Rory would fill the metal vile with syrup and then place the thermometer into the vile. When the syrup was not ready the thermometer would sink to the bottom. But when it was getting close, the thermometer bobbed in the vile.

Thirty-two on the scale (the red line) is the magic number. That's a pretty awesome picture, right?!!

Using cheese cloth, Rory filtered the syrup into mason jars. And then I staged the jars for a photo shoot in front of my pretty dishes.

The night our first batch of syrup was completed Rory and I stayed up way too late and ate eggos at the kitchen table. I think it will forever be a favorite memory of mine, and probably the most appreciated and classy eggo I've ever enjoyed.

easter from Josie's point of view

While hosting Easter, my niece Josie grabbed my camera and took about a hundred pictures. What a gift to the host! I love going through them, seeing the day from her perspective and how she chose to capture each part. She's got a cool eye for pictures...very candid and artsy.

we got baby chicks!

Well, we have some introductions to make. These sweet chicks have joined our family and we love them to pieces and one day, we may eat them in pieces. But until then, I'd like to introduce you to six chicks. 

First, meet Eggs.

Before we got our chicks we asked Ivar what we should name a chicken, and he replied quickly, "Eggs." This sweet chick is called an Easter Egger, as she has the blue egg gene. How fun would that be?!! Naturally, when we learned this fun fact, we decided that she would be Eggs. (Note: there is a 50/50 chance each of these ladies is a rooster. Time will tell.)

We love Legos. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but we sort of do. On Saturday, just before we left to pick these birds up we asked Ivar for another name. He was playing with his duplos at the time. The awesome part about Legos is that she is one of those chickens with the feathery/furry legs! She is a Cochin Chicken, and super sweet to hold.

Ivar loves for me to retell him stories from our day. This is a huge part of our bedtime routine. So when I tell the story of our chickens I tell him, "...And then the four of us drove to Zumbrota and got our chicks from Theri." We found Theri through Craigslist after realizing many places have a minimum order or 25 chicks. She is wonderful and had such an amazing variety. I would have never imagined we could have such unique birds. Zumbrota is also a feathered foot Cochin.

Ivar named this one too.  It was a random name choice, but actually fitting in a way since on the way home, with chicks peeping on my lap, we stopped at McDonalds drive through. We told Ivar that out of respect, we wouldn't order chicken nuggets. The girl at the window asked how our day was going and we told her awesome...we got baby chicks. She was super excited and asked to see them, so Rory held the box tipped through the window so she could see.

Hamburger is a New Hampshire Red and after the photo shoot today Ivar has lengthened Hamburger's name to Hamburgerpoopedonthecarpet. That bird will never live this one down.

Our very favorite line from the Little House books is in Farmer Boy. Almonzo is six and oversleeps one bitter winter morning when he is supposed to be doing his chores in the barn. His mother yells up the stairs, "Monzo! You be sick? It's 5:30!"

Rory and I wake each other up with this line quite often. At like 8:15.

Almonzo is a Welsummer and will lay dark brown eggs.

I got so excited to name our chicks after I read a friend's blog post about her chickens. Her kids named the birds, and one of her boys named his Chocolate Chip Cookies. I laughed out loud. What a great name.

This was our last bird to name and with such lovely butterscotch coloring, I thought this bird might be excited to know it has a buddy in another state.

Butterscotch Cookies is a Buckeye.

We are in love with these birds. It's hard not to get attached. They currently live in the downstairs bathroom in a cardboard box with a heat lamp. I spend a lot of time holding them. Rory is drawing up plans for the chicken coop. And Ivar keeps asking for a butterscotch cookie.