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When I look out my office window, all I see are fields of white. It is the tail end of March and we still have lots of snow left on the ground. Unlike last year when we were in T-shirts and some neighbours were getting their fields ready to plant, I am still sporting a winter coat in the evenings and wearing insulated boots.
Yes, the red-winged blackbirds and robins are back but I am sure that all of them are checking their travel itineraries and wondering what went terribly wrong. We just sheared the sheep and I think a couple of them have the OSPCA on speed dial.
The sap is running... sort of. We are having on and off again runs where one day it runs like crazy and the next two to three we get nothing at all. We only tap a few trees around the yard to produce enough for our use. We are hoping to get about 8 litres of syrup and we are well on our way to producing that. This year we are trying a turkey fryer to boil down sap and then we finish it off and bottle it in the house. This summer I hope to put up a little three sided shed that I can put a wood stove in to boil sap down outside the house.
This spring brought a new Maremma pup to the farm. His name is Zeus. He is about 4 months old now and is a pen with two 8 month old lambs. Unfortunately they do not have the temperament to correct his puppy nips so we will be putting him in with the rams today. They will teach him what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. He also is getting introduced to our other dogs: first Mayla and later Titan. Mayla, is on reduced duties due to her multiple dysplasias. Zeus was purchased to replace Mayla when we are no longer able to keep her comfortable. I still have a hard time believing a breeder could sign a health guarantee for Mayla and then totally dishonour their guarantee. This is definitely a case of buyer beware.
Shearing the sheep revealed developing udders. Lambing starts in about 5 weeks. There is lots to do before then. I just hope the fields start drying up and growing so we can put the ewes out soon after the lambs are born.
We just set up an incubator with 31 Partridge Chantecler eggs. We have lots of orders for chicks and mature birds so we will be filling the incubator at least twice this spring.
The day lilies have started to sprout. Hmmm, maybe spring is not too far behind,
TTFN,
Laurie
Ever since we have moved to Hawk Hill Farm ...getting to be 14 years now... I have wanted to make maple syrup. We have several large maples around the house so it seemed an obvious thing to try. This year we were in the hardware store and supplies were on sale. Bob suggested maybe next year but he turned his back and I bought enough to set up three buckets. Well that got us started and we now have a grand total of 6 collection buckets and are boiling down sap. After less than a week we have 2 and a bit litres of amber syrup made and the sap is running really well. We just want to make enough for ourselves so about 5 litres in all will be more than enough. Because we can collect the sap on the way back from the barn, it is a very painless way to make syrup. And we are doing a big " no no" in everyone's opinion. We are boiling it off on the woodstove in the house but in our defense it will be this year only.
We have a refractometer that we use for testing the brix (sugar) level of grasses for making hay. We are using this to test the brix level of both the sap and the syrup as it is being boiled off. Surprisingly the sap from one sugar maple is testing at about 6°Brix coming out of the tree compared to the normal 2°brix. That makes it a whole lot better for boiling off since we have about a 20 to 1 ratio of sap to syrup rather than the typical 40 to 1 ratio. The other two trees are testing at about 3° brix. We are partially freezing the sap to concentrate the sugars before we start boiling so the maximum ratio we are dealing with is 20 litres sap to 1 litre syrup. We remove the frozen (for the most part) water from the container and the remaining sap has a higher concentration of sugars than before freezing. It is the same principle that works for production of ice wine. It saves us a lot of time and fuel for boiling off the sap.
With the weather forecast for this week ie cold nights and bright sunny days we should be finished making our syrup for this year by the end of the week. Dream number 534 accomplished.
TTFN,
Laurie
This spring brought a new Maremma pup to the farm. His name is Zeus. He is about 4 months old now and is a pen with two 8 month old lambs. Unfortunately they do not have the temperament to correct his puppy nips so we will be putting him in with the rams today. They will teach him what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. He also is getting introduced to our other dogs: first Mayla and later Titan. Mayla, is on reduced duties due to her multiple dysplasias. Zeus was purchased to replace Mayla when we are no longer able to keep her comfortable. I still have a hard time believing a breeder could sign a health guarantee for Mayla and then totally dishonour their guarantee. This is definitely a case of buyer beware. 
