The Garden's Growin'

This year we (OK, Zenka) turned under all of last years plots, amended the soil with lots of good stuff and re-worked the whole layout.  It's looking awesome! Technical difficulties (old camera, old laptop...) have made taking pictures and making posts really challenging...  Here's our cucumber trellis in progress -- It's made of reclaimed wood...we have some sliding glass doors that came from a renovation job and these mahogany thingamajiggies are window pane inserts.  Way to grow in style, cukes!

It Rained and Poured, and Rained and Poured...It's the Catskill Mountain Rainforest!

We have been eagerly awaiting the end of the frost era so that we can begin our direct sow plantings.  But then the rain began, and didn't stop for days....  But work must go on at the Farm, even in the slog.  There's one thing that wet weather is really good for (besides mud for wallowing but we don't have any pigs..) -- Burn Pile! 

And how do you keep a good burn pile fed with plenty o'brush?  Child Labor!  Yep, Zenona has learned to drive the tractor and for now, is eager to help with yard work.  I made some cute videos but they are taking forever to load up to blogger...maybe if I put them on youtube first. Ugh.. Anyway, trust me, the girl's got skills....

Rain is also extra good for asparagus...check out these monsters!  They are the one's growing 'wild' in the back of our garden, remnants of Laurel's Garden.  My yearling asparagus is doing pretty well but these ones are just ridiculous. 

Home!

We're here....not much of our stuff is, but we're pretty easygoing folks. Home is where the TV/phone/internet & beer are!

What the Hail??

Here we are well on our way toward's actual spring and busy in our renovation work and what happens?  Crazy white stuff falls from the sky.  Really. (Don't run to look out your windows now this happened on Sunday...really.)

But, it was a nice interruption in our frenzied renovation efforts. Look - a wall with no paneling!!!

Here's 1/2 of our tired crew....

Holy Sap Season, Batman!

We're certainly new to this, but it is pretty clear that this is a phenomenal season for maple syrup!  We have had consistent production for four weeks...and for the past few days at least, we've collected about 16 gallons of sap per day. Drip, drip, drip, boil, boil, boil  has become our mantra.  Frankly, we are all getting pretty sick of sap about now.  And we have syrup needing to be finished and jarred all over the place.  Ugh.  On the positive side, the extended season has allowed for our evaporator to evolve along with our skills at taking sap to syrup.  Look - we even have a roof!

Evaporator Upgrade!

It became pretty clear that our first-attempt backyard evaporator was just not getting the job done. Too long to boil too little.....  Zenka paid a visit to a local sugarin buddy and after a walk through Sasha's Sugar Shack, it was back to Fox Hollow for sap set-up Take Two.  A man with a pan and plan!

Here's our revised set up, once again using stainless steel sinks:

Look at all that steam!!!

Here's a better picture of the sap boiling...unlike pots, sap likes (needs) to be watched.  It's more fun as a family event...even Oliver enjoys being part of the sugarin' scene.  He likes to crunch on sap-ice.

More surface area, more sap boiled and at the end of Big Boil #3, more syrup!!  We haven't finished into jars yet, but looks to be well over a gallon.  If the temps hold the current pattern of cold nights and warmer days, we'll have a 4th weekend to refine our sap refinery..

Step Into the Light

Sorry it took so long to post an update of Big Boil Weekend #2...it kept snowing! Yes, I said it, that evil dirty four-letter word....S-N-O-W.  It's still on the ground, dammit!  Yuck.

We boiled two batches last weekend and combined them for the final finish. We have learned that boil time, outside temperature and the nature of the sap all have an impact on the final product.  Our Big Boil Weekend #1's Batch was subject to a very long boil time and was done during pretty cold weather.  The result is what we've dubbed our Black Gold - dark, smoky, thick and so so maple-y.  Mmmmm...like sugary motor oil.  So good.  Last weekend's batch however, came out that dark amber color that is more standardly recognized as "quality maple syrup".  We got about the same yield, with much less boil time. But ya know what? It pales (pun intended) in comparison to the flavor put out by our Black Gold.  Here's the two side by side:

We'll see what we get this weekend during Big Boil #3.  The sap is still flowing so we might get a 4th chance this season to experiment. 

The Finished Product!

Sugarin is a real process, a real labor of love. We ended up with 96 ounces....that's not quite ONE GALLON!  Our syrup is super-dark, definitely would be considered a Grade B or lower if there is one, I think our evaporator set-up allows the sugar to carmelize too much.  We'll be working on that for this weekends boil.

So, Even if syrup is selling for $60 a gallon, and even if we don't count all of the time that we spent setting up, lugging buckets, designing and building the evaporator....and only count the two long, full days of sap boiling....we made 2.25 dollars and hour!  We're gonna really have to step step step it up if this is going to be a income-producing product.  Here's Fox Hollow Farm's first syrup of 2011:

Boilin', Boilin', Boilin'...and More Boilin'....

We had so much sap, about 70+ gallons, that we couldn't wait until Sunday to get our boil on as planned. So on Saturday we fired up our ghetto'vaporater and started sugarin. We boiled into the early evening on Saturday, closed up shop, and started up again Sunday morning. We boiled and boiled and boiled..Zenka didn't get back home until 10 at night with our big pot of syrup -- I'll be finishing it down on the woodstove inside today. I expect at least a gallon, probably more!

Here's how Zenka's Hi-Tec Low-Tec Sugarin System works:

The sap from the blue storage drum is flow-controlled into the "warming pan" where the sap is pre-heated.

Then the warmed sap overflows into the boiling pan (stainless steel sink sunk into the Riteway woodstove).

Here's what sugarin in full action looks like (exciting, huh):

If you had smellivision, you'd be able to smell a slight maple scent..this is the first day of boiling, notice the sap is still quite clear. By day two it became much darker, more of a...hmmmm...maple color!

The Sap's A Runnin'!!

Two days after our trial tap Zenka installed this year's taps - 20 in all, I believe. Last year we had 10, which equated to three days of boiling and maybe a gallon of sap. This year the buckets seem to be filling up much faster than last year...this week alone we've collected enough sap to use our 55 gallon storage drum. We mounted the drum up above our evaporator and have connected a stainless steel sink bay to serve as the funnel. Climb up, pour sap in sink, rinse, lather, repeat...

Our best producers in terms of volume seem to be the maples back by the spring. This bucket was emptied last night and overnight has since filled back up again. You need about 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup, but the lower the sugar content (or higher water content, whichever way you choose to look at it) the more sap you need. Since we don't have any fancy hydrometers yet, we don't know if these super-sappers are sucking up excess water being so close to the spring. Making syrup is a lot of "live and learn.."

Let it Flow...Is It Sap-Tappin Time in the Catskills?

Tapping maple trees is more of an art than a science. There's no empirical way to know when the time to tap is....there's a combination of factors to look out for, but mostly it seems that practice and instinct are key. I can't remember when we tapped last year, but it was sunny and warm, and the sap came a runnin out. This year, the past few days have been the right combo of warm during the day and chilly at night to make us antsy that it was time to tap the trees. We ordered up some Tree Saver Taps from Leader Evaporator in Vermont, along with a 500-foot roll of tubing -- this year we're making the move from old fashioned bucket luggin to the ultra-efficient gravity driven sap super highway! But its going to be a transitional move, because our evaporating (sap to syrup) system isn't getting a parallel upgrade....

So, today we installed a trial tap. We'll see how this tap does today and tomorrow, and if it seems the sap's runnin, we'll get the rest of our operation in gear. We have 50 Tree Saver Taps, more than we can handle. Keep in mind that one tap can result in about 1 quart of syrup -- however you need close to 10 gallons of sap to boil down into that 1 quart. One drip at a time....

Here's Zenka drilling the test hole:

The first hole!

This is the Tree Saver Tap - the better tap for your trees!

Here's the first sweet drip of sap:

Now we connect our new tubing, this way we don't have to figure out how to secure a 5-gallon bucket to a tap on a tree...we definitely had a few spilled buckets last year!








And here's the final set up, with the bucket. We will be able to connect several taps from a single tree to a single bucket. Simple.

Brrrr....It's Arctic Around Here!

It's been so damn cold that our Fox Hollow renovation efforts have literally been frozen... We've made very little progress in the last few weeks, its hard to motivate to work on an unheated home when it is 25 below outside. All of Zenka's extra time has pretty much been devoted to blowing snow (because the white stuff just keeps accumulating!) and 'doing' firewood. It's so cold at the Stone Mt. House, I snapped this photo of Jack Frost peeking in my window.

Here's another photo from the Stone Mt. House to reiterate the point - it's Too Damn Cold!

Help Us Make Fox Hollow a Real Farm

Take That, Snowstorm!

Zenka strikes back with his expertly reconditioned free snow-throwing machine - buh-bye shovel, buh-bye back pain (at least shovel related back pain..).  It may not seem like much, but for those of us living in the NY tundra, a machine to remove this pesky white by-product is like a new lease on life.  Finally, we can fight back.  We are no longer slaves to the snowflakes.  We can chew it up and spit it out. 

Thanks, Sears, for getting our gears here before the clean up was required.  And thanks, Zenka, for your mechanical talents....we certainly can't run a farm of any sorts without such necessary hands-on skills! Vrooom.....

Required Renovations - Update #1

Required renovations are those that we absolutely have to have in order to move in.  It's a pretty small list, relative to the extent of work that is actually necessary and/or desired...  Basically, the list is:  Decent Working Bathroom, Zenona's Room, and Mostly De-Funked Floors.  Here's a few photos showing some progress....

Decent Working Bathroom.....floors gutted, vanity removed, new toilet purchased. Still to come - tile, installed new toilet, purchase & install pedestal sink.

Zenona's Room -- First coat of paint is on.  Still needs final coat, ceiling painted and trim installed.

This Nook in Zenona's Room will become Oliver's Room!

This other Nook in Zenona's Room (minus the beer...) will become Zenona's Reading Room / Super Fort, Whatever.....

This is the Blue Bedroom with all the black crap sanded off the plywood floor.  Not bad, not bad!  Add furniture and rugs and who cares!  See the before picture HERE .

X-mas Has Passed and So Has Our Dog

It was a modest but cozy holiday with a big snowstorm rushing in a couple of days late for "white Christmas."  We scrambled around the day before the snow to get our garden tools and miscellaneous things strewn about the yard secured under dry cover and prepared for the blizzard.  It was a satisfying snowfall and we promptly headed over to Fox Hollow to sled and shovel and so I could take pictures of the real first snow.

Sadly, the first storm was also the last for our dog Sadie. I think there's a coincidence, for sure.  The ol' gal had grown decreasingly fond of the snow; this one was the last straw. She died as peacefully as death can be, in front of our fire at the foot of our bed. A perfect passing for a perfect dog. Zaia and Zenka made her a perfect final resting spot on the hill overlooking the house and garden -- now Sadie is waiting for us at Fox Hollow...  I'll be able to write more in tribute in the future but for now its too soon and makes me cry....