Woman Trapped By Snow Magic

I grew up on a sleepy street in a small town in southeastern Ohio. Our neighborhood had a motley collection of kids who were just a bit younger than me. We spent a great deal of time together and were always up to some kind of caper. Our imaginations ran wild with pretend games of all sorts and to us it seemed that anything was possible.

One wintry Sunday afternoon we hatched a scheme to force the schools to be closed on the following day. The weekend had seen a decent snow fall but the dreaded snow plows had long since cleared the roads. Some little genius among us reasoned that we should be able to reverse the work of the snowplow and render the roads impassible again.

After a brief huddle, we scattered in all directions to retrieve the necessary implements from our homes. Before long we had amassed a collection of shovels, buckets, hand trowels, sleds and a wheel barrow. We dove into our work with grim determination and the thrilling sense of doing something that would simply amaze and dismay the entire town when they awoke to find that everyone was going to get the day off!

We worked against the clock. We knew that the afternoon was getting long and soon our neighborhood would echo with the voices of our mothers leaning out of back doors and calling for us to come home for dinner. We shoveled and carried, pulled and dumped. Back and forth we went into the middle of the street as a small pile of snow grew there. Before we knew it, the time had expired. We shouted in response to our mother's calls that we would be there in "just a minute". We swore each other to secrecy and briefly made plans to meet up and play tomorrow during what was sure to be a Snow Day.

Of course we were sadly disappointed when our parents urged us to get up the next morning. Somehow, against all odds, the snow plow man had been alerted to our scheme and had come during the night to clear our street. In defiance of our brilliant plan, the Superintendent declared that the schools would indeed be open.

This past Sunday evening I was taking a break from the care of seedlings in the basement to watch some of the Olympic events on television. It was approaching the children's bedtime and I knew that I would have to tear myself away from the broadcast in order to tuck them in and read to them. It was then that I noticed excited whispering and the sounds of drawers being opened and closed in the kitchen. I rose to my feet and headed out of the room to investigate.

Entering the kitchen, I spied Freya and Aidan with spoons in their hands and wide grins on their faces. They were clearly up to something and I soon found that Freya was the ring leader. To my inquiries they responded that they were doing snow magic to cause school to be cancelled the next day.

They certainly weren't dressed to go outside and there wasn't a shovel or bucket in sight. I told them about our failed attempts at the same feat when I was a child and then I learned how much more sophisticated their approach was. Their technique involved three actions. They collected ice cubes from the kitchen and flushed them down the toilet. Next they each took a spoon, licked it and then placed it upside down under their pillows. Lastly, they put on their pajamas but wore them to bed inside out!

Unlike our much more direct approach, theirs seems to have worked! Upon waking the next morning I discovered that a massive snow had fallen during the night and that school had indeed been cancelled! They celebrated and congratulated themselves while I prepared myself for a long and difficult drive to work. There wasn't time enough to get my tractor out to clear the way, so I got out the best I could and headed off through the blizzard.

The snow kept falling throughout the morning. After a few hours I heard from Janet that it had accumulated so much that she could not get her small car out. She and the children were snowed in for the day and the kids were having a ball playing outdoors.

I spent the evening on the tractor shoving huge piles of snow out of the way. I mused to myself about our long-ago childhood efforts to cover the road. I can't imagine that we even created a pile big enough to have been noticed by anyone and yet we believed so fervently that it would work. It was nice to remember a time when great feats seemed so easily attained. I smiled to myself and thought how glad I am to know that my own children have been able to share in that point of view as well.

At Long Last, The First Firing!

At the end of another long week at the office, I pointed my van west along the freeway while my mind wandered over my many choices for farm chores to fill my evening. From deep within one of my many pockets, a furious bumble bee buzzing told me that a call was coming in. Unhooking my seat belt, I began a race to find the phone before the caller gave up, patting pockets and urgently contorting within my many winter layers.

The call turned out to be from a couple of our new CSA members who had been watching the weather. They told me that the forecast predicted a thaw and generously volunteered to come over to our farm with their four-wheeler to help us haul the sap in. Jeri and Liz live just a few miles down the road and are helpful and friendly at every turn. We only met them a matter of weeks ago but our friendship has been growing rapidly due to our shared interest in backyard sugaring.

On Saturday morning, I busied myself with a few chores until at last the low hum of the four-wheeler could be heard coming up the driveway. Attracted by the noise, the children emerged from the house to join us as we rigged up our sleds and a cooler to serve as a sap hauling reservoir. Having that accomplished all five of us trooped out through the snowy fields toward the Sugarbush.

This turned out to be the first of two days that we would spend collecting and hauling sap from the woods. On Saturday the temperatures were low enough that the sap was frozen in large chunks in the sap sacks. This made the collection a little more difficult because the sacks had to be disassembled from their holders to permit dumping of the ice into the cooler. By Sunday the air had warmed sufficiently that the sap remained liquid. This greatly simplified things since we could simply tip the sacks over to pour out the contents.

On both days, the work of gathering and emptying the sacks went quickly. We talked and joked as we moved along. Now and then one of us would shout and proudly hold up an especially full sack for all to see as if we were contestants in a fishing derby. By the end of each trip, the cooler was full and heavy with sap.

As if triumphant hunters, we emerged from the woods following the four-wheeler with our prize in tow. Carefully picking our way over the bumpy field that I had plowed in the fall, our little parade headed for the sugar shack where the gleaming new evaporator waited. Bringing up the rear, our jovial imp of an eight-year old son lent a merry air to our progress with a harmonica that he had secreted in his pocket.

Jeri and Liz were unable to stay for the evaporating part of the weekend. They departed with our thanks and we began our preparations. We poured the sap into the preheating reservoir at the back of the evaporator and Sean did the honor of opening the spout to begin filling the pan. Once sufficient sap had accumulated to prevent scorching, I put flame to the kindling. Within a few moments we scurried outside to watch the first whisps of smoke escaping from the stack.

It seemed to take a very short time for the first tendrils of steam to begin rising from the pan. Next came that rumbling and hissing sound from the middle of the pan as the flame licked the underside and drove the sap toward a boil. Finally the boiling began as the boys and I huddled excitedly around the pan to watch.

I tended the evaporator for two long evenings, concluding this run at 2:30am this morning. Despite the long hours, the novelty never wore off. I thoroughly enjoyed fussing over the appliance as it did its work. I occasionally adjusted the valve that allowed a trickle of sap to enter the pan to replace what had boiled away. I poked about the firebox and kept it full of wood and red hot. I skimmed and discarded the foam that accumulated on the surface of the boiling sap.

I haven’t managed to rig up the vent fan into the ceiling of the shed just yet, so the only way to allow the steam out of the building was to leave the double doors open wide. Late in the night I sat there tending the firebox and gazing absentmindedly out into the night. A spotlight on the roof of the shed highlighted the aerial dance of clouds of steam billowing skyward mixing with a blizzard of snowflakes swirling down.

When the supply of fresh sap was nearly gone I refrained from adding any more wood to the fire. I let the unit cool down and left the sap in the pan. We had probably processed about 30 gallons over those two days, but the resulting syrup wasn’t thick enough to be drawn off. Before turning in for the night, I tasted a tiny sample of the liquid and was rewarded with that familiar sweet and rich taste. Despite the work that is involved in collecting, hauling and evaporating the sap, I am eagerly looking forward to the next warm day so we can begin again.

Ready For The Sap

While I was off at work at my engineering job this week, one of our CSA members was hard at work here at the farm putting the final stages on our new maple equipment. Fred took on the project, all the way from taking measurements and ordering the piping to cutting the hole in the roof and installing the stack. It was a wonderful feeling to know that this task was being taken care of and it saved me a ton of time for other things.

As you can see from the photos, he did a great job. All that was left for me to do was to install the gasket material to the top of the firebox, clean out the boiling pan and set everything into place. With those things done, we entered the weekend ready for a couple of warm days to get the sap flowing and excitedly looking forward to building the first fire in our new arch.

Some Assembly Required!

I have been wishing for a real maple evaporator for a couple of years now. My cobbled-together rig made from an old woodstove left much to be desired, including the fact that it was incredibly slow and ugly. Family and friends have complimented the flavor for our maple syrup but most had never seen how it was made. Thanks to my arranging to get access to a much larger sugarbush and the starting up of our CSA, I finally had justification to purchase a small but honest-to-goodness evaporator built by a real evaporator company!

The maple sugaring supply store in our area has three gleaming stainless steel beauties in their showroom. Each time that I have visited, I have lingered over them admiringly. The largest ones are absolutely huge and encrusted with lots of complicated looking controls and gadgets. After paying my respects to the most impressive units, I always conclude with a visit to the little Half-Pint "hobby" evaporator in the corner that is far less glamorous but more appropriate for my little operation and budget.

On the happy day that I went to pick mine up, I removed all of the seats from our van and headed off to the store. Day-dreaming to myself along the way, I imagined the scene as they wheeled the pretty little appliance up to my van and helped me load it in. The reality was much different. When I backed up to the loading dock, the workers had stacked a large assortment of cardboard boxes, stove pipes and over 100 firebricks for me to load up.

As the numerous boxes foretold, the process of assembling the evaporator and preparing it for its first firing was pretty involved. Sean and I were able to get the basic sheet metal stove together in one evening. After that, things progressed far more slowly due to the unexpected task of building up the interior of the unit with firebricks and mortar.

I knew that I was in trouble when I read in the instructions from the manufacturer that a total of three tubs of mortar would be required. The local dealer had only provided me with one and seemed to think that it was enough. That resulted in me skimping on the joints and trying to stretch the insufficient mortar to complete the job. At about the three-quarters complete mark I finally gave up and headed to the hardware store for more mortar. Regrettably, I couldn't find anybody who had high heat refractory mortar in stock. In the end I had to ask Janet to make the trip back to the evaporator store to get more mortar.

The biggest moment of satisfaction thus far came when we placed the stainless steel boiling pan and prewarmer on top of the completed arch. There is still more work to be done because the stove pipe hadn't been run out through the roof. For that, I've been getting some great assistance from my chimney sweeping friend who has been generous with his time and skills.

By the end of today, we should be pretty much ready to go. I still need to attach a vent fan to the existing roof vent for removal of the steam. Eventually we hope to relocate the whole rig into a new building that will house our commercial kitchen. In the mean time, we have certainly made a giant step forward. Now we just have to wait for the weather to warm up enough that we can begin to collect those sweet drops and give the new evaporator a test run.

I can hardly wait!

All Potting Soils Are Not Created Equal

Last year I was only growing food for our family. While it was all organically produced, the relatively small quantities of materials needed to start things indoors: lights, transplant flats and seed starting mix didn't warrant much more effort than running out to the local hardware store. Now that we have started a CSA, the much larger scale of our operation has me looking carefully at everything we are using to keep costs in line. That led me to turn my attention to potting soil.

At this time last year I was just getting started planting seeds in trays under lights in our basement. By the time spring rolled around, my little indoor garden had expanded to 16 flats on a couple of tables. This year is a completely different story. My planting plans call for more than 350 flats! Realizing that I was going to go broke buying the little bags of organic potting soil in the stores, I started researching alternatives.

It didn't take long for me to run across some excellent articles on making your own seeding mix. After reading up on the details, I picked a recipe that looked easy to do and began calling around to find out how much the materials were going to cost. I was imagining that I would buy bags of sphagnum moss, peat and vermiculite and just mix up batches in a 55-gallon drum. It seemed that I would save a bundle!

Unfortunately the folly of my thinking was soon clear. The pricing for the materials to make up batches of potting soil at home were adding up to rival the high prices charged for the bagged material at the store! There is obviously an economy of scale at work here and the only economical way to go would be to buy truckloads of each material and mix it up with heavy equipment. That would still have resulted in me spending a fortune and ending up with far more potting soil than I needed.

It was then that I recalled seeing a booth at the Michigan Family Farms Conference by a local family that runs a composting business. I looked up their number and gave them a call. The fellow who answered the phone, Justin, was knowledgeable and excited to talk to me. As it turns out, his family produces a wide range of products that start with rich composted dairy manure. To this they add a number of organic ingredients to produce custom blends for every application.

Unfortunately they are located a couple of hours away from our farm but Justin offered to meet us on the weekend when he was passing through a nearby town and bring us a few bags to try. I have now planted about thirty flats and I am very impressed. The soil is deep and rich, but the nicest thing about it is that it wets very easily and holds moisture far better than what I had been using. In comparison, the national brand might as well be made of ground up cork! I find that I have to water those trays every day since they dry out quickly and most of the water just drains out of the bottom.

On top of great performance, the potting soil is a fraction of the cost of the national brand. I also am very happy to be supporting a local family operation. The struggling Michigan economy certainly needs every dollar that can be retained in the state. I also have to assume that even though we will have to drive several hours each spring to stock up on potting soil, the carbon footprint still has to be considerably smaller than the truckloads of potting mix that are hauled all of the way across the country.

As you can see, our red, yellow and bunching onions are getting a very nice start. This weekend they will be joined by trays of celeriac and leeks. In another month we will have flats of green growing things crammed into every conceivable space awaiting the day when we can take them outside and finally start them growing in warm sunshine. As for me, I'm looking forward to taking a trip up to visit this new supplier and strengthen my connection to my local sustainable agricultural community.

Snow Drifts and Cold Starts

Winter here in Michigan really wasn't measuring up to its reputation...until this week. January and the first week of February were so devoid of snow that I was beginning to think we were just going to ease into early spring without it. Two mornings ago, Freya and I emerged from the house in the pre-dawn hours beneath a sky sifting tons of tiny flakes. At work that day, I kept glancing out of the windows at the ceaseless curtain of white while co-workers talked excitedly about the predicted accumulation.

I arrived at our farm that evening to find the driveway under ten inches of snow with more falling. I knew that I would have to put off any snow removal activities until later because an old friend and member of our CSA was stopping by to help me with the smokestack for our maple syrup evaporator. Fred is an all-round handy guy, but his expertise as a professional chimney-sweep is very handy for just this sort of project.

As we worked, our conversation turned to discussing my tractor and my use of it for plowing the driveway. Fred asked if I employed a block heater to help get it started in the cold weather. I recounted my conversation with the tractor dealer who scoffed at the idea of a block heater but never did get around to telling me how to cold start the thing. Eventually I made an attempt at starting it up but quit due to fear of wearing the battery down. I ended up turning to YouTube videos of people cold-starting their tractors (it's amazing what you can find on there!) to see how it was done.

Some of the farmers in the videos sprayed Ether into the air intake. I went out and bought a can of it but have never tried it because the air intake on my Massey Ferguson 255 is buried inside the battery compartment and requires removing the grill to reach it. My only experience with ether involved a particularly foolish episode in my teenage years. I won't go into the details but let's just say it resulted in a VERY large fireball!

After having read accounts of farmers bending rods and shattering rings with ether, I put the can aside. Instead I simply crossed my fingers and held the starter in as the cranking got weaker and weaker. Luckily it kicked over and started before the battery was completely dead. That was back in December on the occasion of our last decent snowfall.

Now I sat in the seat of the tractor and counted the weeks since the tractor had been started. Even though I had replaced the battery in the late Fall, I knew that it was still likely to have lost some of its charge in all of those idle weeks. I opened the tractor tent flaps, set the tractor to neutral and pressed the starter. Rur..rur....rur......ruur.........ruuur...........ruuuur.... The battery just didn't have enough juice to get there.

Luckily I happened to be in the sort of mood that let me take this problem in stride rather than getting upset. I headed out to the hardware store, picked up a battery charger and snaked extension cords out through the snow. Once it was charging, I headed to bed with plans to get up early in the morning so I could get the plowing done before heading off to work.

At 5am I checked that the battery was fully charged, climbed onto the seat, pressed the button and got absolutely nothing in return. It was as if the starter button had been disconnected. I checked the battery again and then stood there trying to figure out what was happening. I tried shorting across the starter with a screwdriver only to find that there was no voltage reaching the starter motor at all. Beginning to suspect a wiring problem, I used a pair of jumper cables to connect the starter directly to the battery. The cables couldn't handle the large current draw, but I got enough of a response to confirm that on top of everything else, the tractor's starter cable had gone bad.

I drove off to work through snow that was now deep enough that it was higher than the front of the minivan. I snowplowed my way through but knew that there was no way that Janet's compact car would make it. Since school had been cancelled for the day, they simply stayed home and snowed-in until I could get home that evening.

I picked up a new battery cable at an auto parts store on my way home. The wind had been blowing all day and the snow on the driveway had drifted to a couple of feet deep in places. I barely got through. After dinner, Janet and I headed back out to the tractor. She held the light for me while I performed the minor surgical procedure of replacing the battery to starter cable. I climbed back up into the seat and the engine started with ease. It seems that the weakened electrical cable may have been the primary problem all along.

Janet gave me a smiling thumbs-up and headed back to the house. I donned my headlamp (I still haven't managed to repair the tractor lights) and drove off into the snowy darkness. The buildup of snow was impressive but no match for "Massie" when she's running well. I cleared the drive in no time and mounded up huge piles of snow with the loader. Upon parking her back in her tent, I headed into the house for an evening of planting onion seeds in flats and dreaming of warmer days to come.

Tapping (Way Too Early) Day

Hindsight is so clear, but three weeks ago it sure looked like we were in for a week-long heat wave. The forecast called for unseasonably warm weather in the upper thirties. Worried that we were going to miss out on the first major maple sap flow of the season, I resolved to go ahead and get the taps in the trees. I suppose my jumping of the gun was fueled by my excitement to try out our shiny new evaporator as well!

On Sunday afternoon, the boys and I pulled out a couple of the wooden sleds that I had mailed home during one of my working stints in Germany. We loaded them up with tools and supplies and headed for the woods. There was enough snow on the ground to help the sleds glide along without being so much that it was tiresome to walk through. The boys pulled the sleds and chattered excitedly. It was nice to be out in the woods together rather than cooped up in the house.

We threw ourselves into the work and fell into a good rhythm quickly. I scanned the forest for the green ribbons that indicated which trees we had picked to tap and chose a route by which we could visit them all. I stopped at each tree, measured its circumference, logged the data and decided how many taps each would get. With Aidan's assistance, I drilled the holes and placed the tabs before moving to the next tree.

Sean followed along behind with his sled and completed the operation. At each tree he assembled the blue sap sacks to their holders and placed them on each of the taps. He also wrote the log book number of each tree on the bags to help us with our record keeping. His was the more laborious of the jobs. I was careful to keep my pace slow enough that we could talk back and forth as we worked and I could lend him a hand now and again.







Things went pretty smoothly except that the sleds kept tipping over. The heavy boxes on the tall sleds made them top-heavy such that any little branch in our path would topple them over again and again. After a while I finally tied the two sleds into a double-wide arrangement and put an end to the constant need to right our burdens and collect our tools from the snow.

About half-way through we broke out the thermos that we had prepared and sat down in the snow for a much-needed hot chocolate break. The woods were beautiful and our spirits were high. We joked and laughed together as we all enjoyed the time together and the adventure of the day.

Eight-year-old Aidan is a master of making ordinary sticks into fantastic playthings. After our break was over, Sean and I resumed the work as Aidan stalked us from behind the trees with stick rifles, stick rocket-launchers, stick light-sabers and stick bow and arrows. Now and then he would emerge from cover to charge toward us with a war whoop and a snarl. After collapsing into giggles over our pantomimed terror, he would bound off to take cover in the woods and begin the game all over again.

It was a pleasant day even if it was a bit early in the season. We emerged from the woods just as the light was fading in the sky. With a sense of satisfaction of another task behind us, we trudged back toward the warmth of the house and the looming prospect of another week of work and school.