Sandhill Farm

3/17
Michael & Gigi transfer flats of young seedlings to the greenhouse. WAHOO! This is one of the main reasons we built the green house: a place to raise seedlings for transplanting into the garden. Until now we had the seedling trays in Karma – one of our residences because it has very large south facing windows. As the seedlings grow, we often take them outside during the day so that they have more sun and then we bring them back in for the night – either because of possible stormy or cold weather. The flats are quite heavy and shlepping them in & out daily is not anyone’s favorite activity. Having them in the greenhouse would eliminate that chore. (Another other main reason for the green house is to have hardy greens in beds for winter and early spring eating.

3/18
Michael & Gigi note that the seedlings in the green house are much greener – after the first day. It indicates that they are getting full spectrum sunlight – one of the touted characteristics of the hi tech material we used for the roof and the upper part of walls of the green house; it appears that it was a good choice.

3/20
Equinox. Some years we have a gathering or party of some kind to mark the occasion – but not this year. We had a big bonfire with neighboring folx 2 days ago, a peace vigil in town the next day and we are having our annual community retreat now (we have meetings for 5 days). All of us go for a landwalk together – most of it through woods. It is a glorious day: balmy, breezy, full of “spring”.
Apple is moved to take the plastic off the walls of our screened in porch (to keep winter winds & snow out) and we begin eating some of our meals out here again.

Feb 2-3, 08. we tap the maple trees.

It feels like the beginning of the agricultural year – even though it is still the dead of winter. These years, I usually do it on weekends so that Renay (11) is not at school. She enjoys it which makes it more fun for me too. Sat was a lovely day and we tapped about half of them – but renay was at a school function. We did the other half on Sunday after lunch. Usually, we go with a tractor and wagon, but this time, we went in our “new” 4 wheel drive pickup – to one of our maple yards, about ¼ mi from our yard.

Click Here to read about how we make our Maple Syrup

Just as we (Renay, Oliver (a visitor) & me) are heading out, it begins to snow. By the time we are tapping, it is coming down faster than I have ever seen it here in mizzourah. Huge fluffy snowflakes that immediately blanket everything; we lay down the hammer or drill and a minute later, we can’t find it! It becomes comical – we are trying to work quickly so we don’t lose stuff, but the snow just keeps falling faster. One of the real joys in this process is to watch Renay sucking on the tubes immediately after she attaches it to the tap: she kneels by the tree and sucks on this long tube attached to a tree! Primal nursing.

Renay is trying to capture the tapping process on our digital camera: it’s challenging becuz the heavy snowfall makes it all appear dark & cloudy. Our gloves get wet and then our hands are cold. By the time we finish (an hour later), there are several inches of snow covering everything. Awesome! We keep being amazed by the amount of snow that is falling. It feels dramatic to finish in this kind of weather.

Now we wait for the sap to drip from the maple trees into our buckets. And wait. And wait. 5 days later we gather the sap – only 40 gallons of sap (it takes about 40 gal of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup). The next 2 weeks are bitterly cold – no sap flow.

How we make Maple Syrup at Sandhill Farm

Tapping. Note: we tap soft (silver) maple trees – since that is what we have on our land; most of the commercial maple syrup on the market comes from hard maple trees in Canada and northern US. We have planted hard maple trees – but they are very slow growing; our 20 year old trees will probably take another 10 years before we can tap them.
How do you find maple trees? One way is to look up at the canopy – the maple trees have swollen reddish buds – after awhile, the eye picks them out readily (by now, I know where all the trees on our land are). Then you inspect the trunk of the tree to find the scars from previous years’ tapping – new taps should be about 4” away from old ones; also, we prefer to tap the south sides of trees because when the sun shines, it warms that side of the tree and makes it flow more. We have been tapping some of our trees for 20 years so they are pockmarked by grown over old holes and it is a challenge to find the right spot. When we do, we drill a 5/16” hole 2-3” deep with an electric cordless drill (we used to use a brace & bit – but the cordless is faster/easier). Another person hammers in a plastic tap (we buy them from maple sugaring supply places. Then attach a plastic tube to the tap and the other end into a bucket on the ground.

How many taps? The rule of thumb is that a tree needs to be at least 12” in diameter (at chest height) to be tapped. A tree that is more than 20” can have 2 taps and over 28”, 3 taps. We run the tubes from one tree into the same bucket – usually, a 5 gal bucket. We do not put more than 3 taps in a tree.

Renay sucking maple sap from a tree.

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