2010 April | Itty Bitty Impact

Archive for April, 2010

Making Maple Syrup II: Collecting

Posted on April 6th, 2010 by Tonia 3 Comments

When all the trees are tapped, we wait for the buckets to fill with sap. Some years, when the weather is right, we’ll need to collect twice a day, because the sap is flowing so fast.

The ideal weather for a good sap run only happens during a small window of time every spring {usually lasting a week}. It needs to freeze at night, and then warm up to about 50 degrees during the day. This is a tricky weather combination, but the best syrup is made during this window- a beautiful amber color and buttery taste. Earlier in the spring, the syrup turns out very light in color, and less flavorful. Later in the spring, the syrup is darker and thicker. You know the season is over once you start seeing bugs floating in the sap when you go to collect it. collecting1

As I explained here, we don’t tap as many trees as we used to, because we do all the collection on foot now. Instead of using horses to pull a sleigh with a tank on it, we now set up “collection stations” throughout the woods {large Tupperware bins}, and we dump the sap into these bins.

The sap gets funnelled through hoses down to an underground holding tank. It’s kept cold in there until we have enough to boil. Since sap only has about 2% sugar content, it can take about 40-50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Our evaporator is very large, so we need at least 300 gallons of sap before we start boiling, or else we run the risk of burning the syrup in the pan.

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A quick synopsis of how maple syrup is made can be found here, along with some neat old photos.

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Our “maple mascots”, Charlie Brown and Schroeder, keep a look-out for us while we work.

Making Maple Syrup: Tapping

Posted on April 4th, 2010 by Tonia 9 Comments

The woods are quiet
except for the birds singing
and the ping-pinging.”
-Maple haiku, by Tonia

A very long time ago, when the world was new, Gitchee Manitou made things so that life was very easy for the people. There was plenty of game and the weather was always good and the maple trees were filled with thick sweet syrup. Whenever anyone wanted to get maple syrup from the trees, all they had to do was break off a twig and collect it as it dripped out.

One day, Manabozho went walking around. “I think I’ll go see how my friends the Anishinabe are doing,” he said. So, he went to a village of Indian people. But, there was no one around. So, Manbozho looked for the people. They were not fishing in the streams or the lake. They were not working in the fields hoeing their crops. They were not gathering berries. Finally, he found them. They were in the grove of maple trees near the village. They were just lying on their backs with their mouths open, letting maple syrup drip into their mouths.

“This will NOT do!” Manabozho said. “My people are all going to be fat and lazy if they keep on living this way.”

So, Manabozho went down to the river. He took with him a big basket he had made of birch bark. With this basket, he brought back many buckets of water. He went to the top of the maple trees and poured water in, so that it thinned out the syrup. Now, thick maple syrup no longer dripped out of the broken twigs. Now what came out was thin and watery and just barely sweet to the taste.

“This is how it will be from now on,” Manabozho said. “No longer will syrup drip from the maple trees. Now there will only be this watery sap. When people want to make maple syrup they will have to gather many buckets full of the sap in a birch bark basket like mine. They will have to gather wood and make fires so they can heat stones to drop into the baskets. They will have to boil the water with the heated stones for a long time to make even a little maple syrup. Then my people will no longer grow fat and lazy. Then they will appreciate this maple syrup Gitchee Manitou made available to them. Not only that, this sap will drip only from the trees at a certain time of the year. Then it will not keep people from hunting and fishing and gathering and hoeing in the fields. This is how it is going to be,” Manabozho said.

And, that is how it is to this day.

{Ojibwe Legend}

Sweet, buttery, sticky, wonderful maple syrup has been made in my family for 23 years now. We do it the Manabozho way:

Drill a hole in a tree,
Put a “tap” in the hole,
Hang a pail from it,
Collect the sap when the pail is full,
Boil the sap in an “evaporator” {a huge pan over a huge fire} until it becomes syrup,
Can the syrup in mason jars,
Eat.

Back in the day, we used to tap 1,100 trees on our land, pouring what we collected into a big tank on a sleigh, pulled by a draft horse. It was a lot of work, but we never thought of it that way.

goodoldays

There are too many wonderful things about syrup-making for it to really be considered “work”. The smell of the air as the woods wake up for spring. The sound of the sap as it drips from the tree. The satisfying soreness of your arms after a long day of hauling heavy buckets. The story-telling, snowball fights, pranks, and laughter. The maple-steam billowing from the evaporator. And of course, the first taste of syrup: hot, sticky, and worth it.

Even though we have scaled the operation back in recent years {we no longer have our horses, so we do all the collection on foot now}, syruping is still a beloved family tradition that brings us together, no matter what, every spring.

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Some of our trees are large enough to hang two or three pails on.
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When all the pails are hung, the woods fill with the soft sound of the sap dripping into the pails…ping, ping, ping…

Don’t let any snow get in the pails…
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Make sure you save enough energy to have a little fun…
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If you have a few maple trees on your property, I would really encourage you to try making some syrup! Please feel free to contact me directly for more information about the process. I would be happy to help you get started. toniasimeone {at} gmail {dot} com

Stay tuned for the rest of the Making Maple Syrup series, coming soon!

Itty Bits: Eat Better Meat

Posted on April 2nd, 2010 by Tonia 12 Comments

I’m sorry for the lull in posts lately. Mr. Itty Bitty and I have been busy helping my family make maple syrup for the past few weekends.

My family has been making syrup for 23 years now, and it is a wonderful activity that brings us together every spring {nothing bonds people like the outdoors, honest hard work, and a sweet treat to reward you in the end.} I am excited to share the process with you and hope that maybe you’ll give it a try with your family. You will hear more about all that soon…but first, let’s get on with a new Itty Bits post.

Our last Itty Bits Challenge was to NEVER FORGET TO BRING YOUR REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS WITH YOU WHEN YOU GO TO THE STORE!! I used all caps so that hopefully you can feel my frustration a little. Because, the sad fact is, this is the hardest bad habit for me to break. Why?!? It seems like such a simple thing to do! But somehow I am so used to just using the paper/plastic bags at the grocery store, and it is really, really hard for me to remember to bring in my reusable bags. This is my major eco-sin, and I am confessing it to you all in hopes that embarrassing myself is what it takes for me to finally change my ways.

Alright! That felt good! Moving on!

Recently, the Mr. and I went out for beer and wings at a local restaurant {yep, we occasionally indulge in the fantasy that we’re still in college}. It was a delicious, cheap, and satisfying dinner. Until we noticed something that grossed both of us out beyond the point of return: the chicken wings were SO tender. They were SO tiny. They SO did not come from any real-life chicken I have ever seen before.

Now, we’re no strangers to the fact that most of the meat served at restaurants come from huge farms/huge factories where the meat is chocked-full of hormones and other wonderful things, and the treatment of animals is complete and utter horse-crap. It is for this reason that we avoid chain restaurants and usually eat at places that serve meat from local farms. We kind of pride ourselves in our level of “awareness” on the topic of meat…which is why it was a shock when we realized what we had just eaten, without even thinking twice about it. How many other awful things are we consuming without a worry in the world? Shiver.

So, without further ado, this week’s challenge is to eat better meat. And if you can’t find good meat {no hormones, grass fed/vegetarian fed, family farm, local, organic, free-range} then eat NO meat.

This is no simple task, especially for Wisconsin-born-and-bred-brat-loving kids like us. The Duluth Farmer’s Market is not open for the season yet, and although our grocery store does a fantastic job offering locally grown produce and all kinds of organic goodies, they are slacking in the meat department– they don’t stock anything but Gold n’ Plump {don’t be fooled by the packaging that claims their chickens come from family farms!} So, I wrote the grocery store the following letter:

Hi Super One,

I am a loyal customer and never shop anywhere else for groceries. Thank you for doing a great job to stock organic and locally grown produce. It’s really important to me to support family farms. Your prices on these types of foods are excellent- far cheaper than Whole Foods for the same brands.

I just have one bone to pick…You only carry one brand of chicken: Gold n’ Plump. I have a problem with this because of how Gold n’ Plump treats the chickens that come to them. Yes, they might come from family farms in MN, but once they arrive at Gold n’ Plump they are treated terribly. I am really bummed that I don’t have any other choice but to buy this brand. I would really appreciate it if you could stock another option in addition to Gold n’ Plump. There are several excellent local farms that can provide FDA approved meat, all grass-fed and free-range:

Earthwize Natural Meats is a coalition of small-scale family farmers committed to sustainable, environmentally responsible farming and to providing healthy, natural foods for their customers. Beef is available year round in variety packs of 25 to 50 pounds. Pork is seasonal and is sold in variety packs of 30 to 40 pounds. Chicken is seasonal (spring through fall) and is available as whole chickens, which average 5 pounds and are packaged six to a box. All meat is frozen and processed at plants meeting USDA standards.

Earthwize Natural Meats – Mark Thell, 2100 CR 4, Carlton MN 55718 – (218) 384-9350.

E-mail: thell@computerpro.com
Website: http://soarizona.net/greatbeef/earthwize.html

Green Pastures Dairy, owned and operated by the Hedquist Family, offers Minnesota Farmstead™ 100% grass-fed, all natural, raw milk cheese. Spring through fall we milk our totally grass-fed cows and use this highly nutritious milk to make our hand-crafted cheeses. May through September, 100% grass-fed ground beef, and pasture and whey-fed pork. No herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers are ever used on any of our pastures, and no hormones or antibiotics are used in our herd.

Green Pastures Dairy – The Hedquist Family, 2353 Bromfield Road, Carlton MN 55718 – (218) 384-4513.

E-mail: cheese@greenpasturesdairy.com.
Website: http://www.greenpasturesdairy.com.

Please let me know if buying from these farmers is a possibility. Thank you so much!

-Tonia

…If you’re in the same boat, please write a similar letter to your local grocery store. Stores should respond to the needs of their customers, so if enough of us do this, we might make an impact!

Now for some green inspiration from around the internets:

A good friend contemplates minimalism {and mentions Itty Bitty! Thanks Cheri!}

My cousin-in-law bikes across America in search of sustainable communities.

You never had me fooled, Wal-Mart.

Get green, be well.

Partake in a crunchy giveaway.

Have a bunny-friendly Easter.

Is there a Trash-to-Treasure contest going on in your town for Earth Day? More info here and here.