Maple Syrup!!

Last Saturday we boiled down our maple sap. This is the first year we've tried to use our new metal pans. Overall it was a fantastic success. My dh built a fire box out of concrete blocks.

First we put one pan on and tested it with just 2 gallons of sap. No leaks this time so we were good to go.

Then we put on the second pan. That pan had one leak but it seemed to close up once the pan got hot.

We kept the fire going all day (well, my dh and children did). I was inside a lot of the day finishing up the sap that I had already boiled down on the screened in porch in my big electric cooker.

Here's a close up of the fire and the high tech leak containment system we employed.

It wasn't hard work, just steady work. Someone had to keep adding wood to the fire and someone else had to keep adding sap. Nathan was mostly chopping firewood.

My dh estimated that if we kept the sap at a rolling boil, we would boil off 7 gallons of water per hour.

We gathered a lot of dead wood from the woods to keep the fire going.

We boiled into the night and then filled up both pans with all the sap we had left and went to bed.

On Sunday after church, we started boiling again and got the sap boiled down so that it fit in one pan. We continued boiling and were just about to give it another half hour or so when it started to snow. That did it. We strained the sap and brought it indoors.

We had about 8 gallons of the reduced sap when we brought it in. I strained it once more using a special paper filter and then it was time to boil inside with the vent on full blast. I boiled this sap Sunday night and then some on Monday morning and finished about lunchtime.

End result: 159.5 gallons of sap collected and 3 gallons, 3 quarts, and 1 pint of syrup canned. We actually had two different types of syrup. That is almost a 40 to 1 ratio which is excellent considering that we only have red maples, not sugar maples.

The lighter syrup was made from the sap that was collected early and reduced on the porch. The darker syrup was made from the later sap. The darker color is natural for sap that is collected closer to the end of the season. The lighter syrup is very delicate in flavor but the darker syrup is more robust and seems like it has a touch of molasses in it.

Both were excellent on pancakes the next day!

Winter Pictures

It's been a long snowy winter (it's snowing right now!). The deer are getting desperate. There isn't much left under the bird feeder after the birds and squirrels finish.

We tapped our maple trees a couple of weeks ago. We've had a slow start to the season. I hope it isn't indicative of the whole maple season.

Deborah, tired out from tromping through the snow.

I used the mock mincemeat that I canned last year from an overabundance of green tomatoes. I liked it but the rest of the family was not that impressed. I made it using an free form pie crust.

Aaron's horse picture, made with colored pencils.

Winter is definitely the time to get under the quilts and read.

Snow Fest!

Back in January, we drove to the Frankenmuth Snow Fest and took in the sights. We met up with three other families and had a great time.

There were some imaginative statues there.

There was also ice sculptures on display as well.

The petting zoo was a bit hit. They had the world's calmest camels there.

Deborah got her money's worth out of her $2 pony ride. It turned out that if they didn't have a lot of children, they would just let you stay on the pony until you begged to get off. Deborah was just thrilled.

I wish this picture had turned out better. What you can't see is the Jumbotron above the stadium showing the tackle that you can see below. Pretty cool. My personal favorite.

We ended up the visit with Ice Sculpture Mini Golf!