9-15 April, 2012 - Birch Syrup, More Snow and Trucks Mired in the Mud

I posted a couple of pictures on last week's blog showing the taps I made for harvesting Birch sap to make syrup.  It's been a learning experience!

I've been using quart jars for my "buckets" on all of the trees except one.  I used an old plastic juice bottle for this one and I like it best.  I tapped the tree then tied a section of baling twine around the top of the bottle for a hanger.  I cut a hole in the back of the bottle and slid the tap into the hole.  The nice thing is that it keeps the debris out of the bottle.  We're going to be saving these up next year so I can make greater use of them next spring.

We wondered if cold weather would stop the sap from flowing but it doesn't have much effect. The ice builds up around the inside of the jar and over the top but the sap keeps flowing.  Those are birch sap ice cycles hanging from the jar.

This is Scott on one of my early morning rounds.  He got up early that morning and wanted to go with me so we bundled him up and I took him along.  It was the morning the jars had ice in them.  I took this picture around 6:33 AM.  The temperature was about 25 degrees.  He's not usually up at this hour.

When I bring the buckets of sap in I strain them through our canning funnel using a coffee strainer.  I fill the jars with clean sap then either dump them into the kettles or into a clean bucket for storage.

Most of the debris is pieces of birch bark or leaf fragments.

This is what it looks like when you put a fresh batch into the kettle.  We added another larger kettle to the stove top.  We keep a low fire going non-stop in the wood stove trying to keep the sap just barely simmering and evaporating.

You keep adding sap as it boils down and the mixture keeps getting darker until if becomes a beautiful mahogany brown.  This batch needed to go a little longer but we couldn't wait.  It smells and tastes wonderful!  It takes probably at least fifty to sixty gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup.

We're storing the extra sap in buckets in the root cellar.

We took the bicycles for a ride during the week and explored a new road.  We couldn't get where we wanted to go because the road was too soft and waterlogged so we took a side road across a section of National Forest.  That's Susan and Scott by the railroad crossing.

This is looking north from where Susan and Scott were in the previous photo (which I took from the hill on the right side).

We found out that it made a loop through the National Forest and came out behind the Fortine golf course.

I welded up the sides on the trailer.  I'd made them where we could take them off but we've been using it awhile now and never took the sides off so I made them permanent.  Before they rattled like crazy on our road.  Now it's a lot quieter.

We went to Kalispell yesterday and Scott was playing with my hat trying to keep the sun out of his eyes.

Scott meets our oldest daughter's horses or horse and a half horse as I classify them.

Scott was up early again and is helping me check the storm reports on my computer.  I'm from Kansas and they had several tornadoes roll through last night.  None where my mother or sister live though.

I've been wishing all week that the syrup season arrived during a colder part of the year because running the stove keeps the cabin too hot and I got my wish.  It snowed about three inches last night and this morning. 

This is one of my sap bottles this morning.

This is what the yard looked like.  We got about three inches total.

I'm writing an article on vehicle recovery and needed to take some photos so ... against my better judgment and in the pursuit of cash I intentionally drove my truck into the mud.  Unfortunately I got it a little more stuck than I'd planned on!  The axle is dragging in the mud on the right front wheel.  The tires kept sinking in the clay and even when I was winching it out the tires rolled the mud behind the wheel instead of rolling out of the trench.

One of the tools I'm illustrating is using a Hi Lift jack as a winch.  They work great for this but you're limited to moving the vehicle only about three feet before you have to re-set everything.  My jack's release pin stuck and when I went to relieve the pressure to re-position the jack the head flew down the shaft and blew the foot off the bottom.  I had enough pictures of it already so I went to the come-along to finish up.  I have an 8,000 lb. Warn winch but the article is about using manual (low priced!) equipment.

Odie is surveying the trench I cut.  The shiny place on the ground just beyond her and on the other side of the trench is where the front axle dragged on the ground.  I drove into the situation earlier in the day but as the sun warmed the ground it made it soft and the tires just kept sinking deeper.  I broke one of my chains but I got some good photos (and a lot of exercise!) out of it.  It's the first time in my life I got stuck on purpose!  Hopefully it's the last time as well.

1-8 April, 2012 - Tapping Birch Trees, Charging Batteries, Bicycle Rides,and ...

Susan has her first non-fiction book published on Kindle and it must have hit a niche because it's selling very well.  She sold 59 in the first four days.  It's outselling her fiction book "Tale of Two Preppers" which was her top seller (and is still going strong).  It's easy reading and doesn't overwhelm the person who is just beginning to store up extra food for emergencies.
 

It's beginning to look a lot like spring now.  Most of our snow is gone and we've had some absolutely beautiful days this week.  So we put them to use...

The infant seat and rack was given to us by one of our kids to pass on to the next person who needed it.  We never dreamed we'd be the next people needing it though.  The seat comes with a rear rack.  To use the seat you slide it onto the rack then lock it into place.  It works great.

We installed the bike seat on Susan's bicycle.  Since the seat wouldn't fit on her bike rack we had to switch them.  I've got the old one off so Scott and I are installing the new one.  I had to find some longer screws to hold it in place on Susan's bike.

All ready to go on our first test drive.

Scott is our test subject.  This is his very first ride on a bicycle and he loved it.  Scott is at the age when he mimics the sounds and words he hears so when some dogs began barking at us Scott barked back at them.  (And I had the pepper spray aiming toward them in case they wanted to do more than just bark.)  We rode in to Fortine to get the mail.  We drive down to the pavement so it was only about nine miles round trip.

I didn't start my S-10 at all last year so I expected problems when I tried to start it this spring.  I wasn't disappointed!  The battery was dead so I tried jump starting it from the Cherokee.  That didn't work, so ...

I took the battery out and started the generator and used the fast charger on it.  The battery was so dead that it took about an hour before the charger began showing any charge.  When a battery is that dead it takes a lot of voltage to overcome the resistance inside the battery.  Once it begin to take a charge the resistance decreases and it becomes easier to charge it all the way up.  I ran a load test the next morning and it passed so I put it back in the S-10.

But the truck still wouldn't start so I hooked up the Cherokee and we towed it to start it.  It still took a bit of towing to get it running but we did.  It acts like it has a carbon track in the distributor.  I just drove it back home and parked it in the driveway.  I'll check it out more in a couple of days.

I made a chicken feeder and attached it to the wall inside the chicken house.  I was feeding them in a bowl but they wasted so much of it that I made a feeder. 

Susan took advantage of the sunny weather to trim some trees.

Scott loves being outside and he did a bunch of it the last week.  Here he's posing with the dog (Odie).

Now he's tasting the wire around the old horse corral.

And now he's playing on the trailer.

...he's taking inventory of the cabinets.

He and Odie are plotting something.

I did some book swapping in my room and Scott helped there too (when he wasn't reading the books, that is).

He's been driving his car outside too.

And riding one of Grandpa's bicycles.  This is a Schwinn mountain bike I found at the dump.  It needed tires and shifter cable. 

He's now helping me do my Sudoku puzzles.

While the generator was running to charge the battery I plugged in the lead melter and melted a few pounds of scrap lead.

These are the steel bolts from telephone and power poles that hold the insulators for the power lines.

The insulators screw onto lead threads cast onto the top of the bolts.  I melt them down and use them to make bullets.  They're pure lead.

Bacon and eggs for breakfast.  The bacon is organic from a local farmer.  He's kind of famous in these parts for killing a grizzly bear with a .410 shotgun.  We buy sausage from him also.

The four eggs on the left are from our chickens. Not only are they larger, they're a deeper orange.

I tapped some Birch trees (eight) this afternoon.  I made the taps out of pieces of plastic pipe cut to about three inches long.  I cut one end at an angle to pound into the tree.  I drill a hole using a brace and bit then hammer the tap into the hole.  I go in until the cut-out just enters...

I then pound a nail into the tree and hang the jar under the spout.  I use a jar with a ring and screw the ring down on some baling twine used as a "bail."  Between 2:30 and 7:00 (pm) I got almost two gallons of sap off those eight trees.  We'll boil it down into syrup.

Had company over on Friday.  Note the ages and their occupations.  Each one had access to the Internet using their assorted electronics.

26-31 March, 2012 - Book Finished, Root Cellar, Spring Planting

I finally got the book ready to go to the publisher.  I pushed some long days this past week to finish it up.  The total length ended up being 188 pages plus 14 pages of photo captions for 144 photos.  We'll see how many they actually use!  It's so nice to have it done ... for now!  Monday I need to start on an article that was sent back with a request to make some changes.  I dug my archery target out of the snow and have it set up on some bare ground so I can start shooting again.  I've missed that over the winter.  

We have/had two roosters and since only one is needed I butchered on of them.  This one was chosen because he displayed some aggression towards me.  Bad mistake and the last one he made.  He was sure good eating though.

Since the weather's warmed up and we have bare ground again I've been letting the chickens out to look for seeds and bugs.  We're down to four hens and one rooster now.  These three are our oldest hens.  They're hitting around five years old now but still laying well.  We'll be sorry to see them go and hope to hatch out some replacements before they die.  Two of them will actually hatch out eggs and we'd like to see that trait in their progeny.  They are laying eggs again but the numbers are inconsistent this time of year.

The cat took a break from the outside to get some sleep inside.  Scott must be asleep because the cat doesn't dare close his eyes if Scott is up.

We've started our outside work now that the snow is leaving.  Susan got the ladder out and did some limb pruning.  WE also have some trees to take out soon.  One is big and bowed and I'm not looking forward to cutting it down.  There'll be pictures when it happens!

Susan took part in a talent show with some friends last Friday.  They did some numbers from the Andrew Sisters.  They were pretty good but we didn't stick around for the awards.  Our son was treating us to a movie so we sent to see it right after her number was done.

Scott loves being out of the house and somewhere in his wanderings (he leads, we follow ... usually because he's got a grip on our finger) he ends up by the U-Haul camper.  He remembers he has a toy box inside so we make a short stop there so he can visit them.

He's "helping" me do a Sudoku puzzle while I'm laying on the floor by the wood stove.  He does his best to sit on the book then scribbles on whatever's showing under his feet or legs.

He's helping wash dishes now.  I now have to get out two sponges because he wants one too.  Everything takes three times as long to get done now but it's a lot more fun doing it. 

Scott's uncle Tristan and his wife came for a visit.  Tristan and Krystina are his favorite aunt and uncle.  He really gets excited when they show up.

While putting the photos together for the book I scanned some of them that showed us building the root cellar.  This is the beginning where we all pitched in to get started.  I marked off where to dig and we got busy.  It was all dug by hand by Susan and I and the kids.  Starting on the left you can see Becky, Emily, me, Tim (behind me and Tristan), and Tristan.  It was one of those projects that the kids worked on while I was at my job then I worked at it when I was home.  If they hit an obstruction it waited until I got home to take care of it.  I remember once when they had a bunch of tree roots in the way and one large rock to deal with.  Emily was about 10 at the time and she and I worked on it one Saturday morning.  For some reason everyone else was gone so it was just her and I.  She took a little garden trowel and began excavating around the rock while I used a mattock to cut through the roots.  She talked non-stop for about an hour while we worked.  All during that time she was digging around the rock with the trowel.  When I finished with the roots she had it worked lose enough that I could pry it out with a bar.  We hooked the chain around it and pulled it out with the pickup.  Have I ever mentioned that we have a lot of rocks around here?  We put in a lot of hours getting this place habitable.  Those are good memories. 

When we had it deep enough we put logs across the top of the hole then nailed boards across the logs.  We put a sheet of plastic over the boards, then six inches of dirt then another sheet of plastic then more dirt then another sheet of plastic and another layer of dirt.  The multiple layers of plastic keep the dirt over the roof from getting saturated too deeply with water.  We hope this keeps the weight down and helps insulate the cellar.  It must do alright because the temperature stays relatively constant (45 degrees + or - 5 degrees) no matter how high (95 to 100 degree highs) or cold (down to 25 to 30 below)

The cellar filled the first fall and ready for winter.

The door is on now and it's looked like this for about eight years now.  The only thing we should maybe have done different is we do not have a vent in it.  It hasn't been a problem though.  Our root crops keep for almost a year when stored there.  Condensation can be a bit of a problem with metal cans or jar lids.

 

The package says to plant as soon as the ground can be worked so Susan was busy planting snow peas today.

She also thought it would be good to get the winter squash started.

...and get some flowers in the planters.

Okay ... It's April Fools Day!

Have a good one!