After some weeks of hemming and hawing about brush mowers and walk-behind string trimmers I finally pulled the trigger on a DR model. Remember those late night ads? Marketing works, kids! That said, I had forgotten about the ads until someone mentioned it.

So this trimmer is a revelation with what is essentially weed-whacking on steroids. The typical gas-powered handheld numbers are all I’ve used. With the DR, being able to manhandle 40lb of spinning fury on top of a Briggs and Stratton between two big wheels was really fun…and a sweaty workout. It has instantly replaced both my regular trimmer and push lawnmower and is less work than both, to boot.

I have started the huge task of clearing the invasive strip of tall grasses, weeds, trees, and shrubbery that are invading my field. Over the course of the Summer, I’ll be clearing as much as I can. It will all culminate with a huge bonfire this Fall. That’s the plan, anyway!

Onward!

The 2016 sugaring season got underway early this year. Thanks to an incredibly mild Winter which saw record-setting temperatures throughout- the sap was flowing early and often. Some tapped at the end of January but I waited until the 3^rd week of February. Last year, I had 6 taps flowing. This year I decided to up that number to 26.

Relatively speaking as far as sap collecting was concerned, I was slightly disappointed. I figured there would be so much sap, I couldn’t boil it all with my equipment. Realistically speaking, the outcome was pretty much on-par with exactly what I was capable of processing. I made around 96oz of syrup (¾ gallon) last year but I didn’t keep track of how much sap I collected.

This year, I have been keeping prodigious notes. We’ve had some cold spells, which have slowed the flow but every day or three I’m collecting between 5 and 10 gallons of sap. Yesterday, I finished a 20 gallon boil, the highest so far this year. It yielded an ounce or two over a half gallon, about 66oz. The running tally so far is about 2 gallons of finished, 66 brix syrup.

I suspect there are only a few more days of sap running as the temperatures have been trending up. No more freezing nights and warmer days. The buds should be popping soon. Overall, it has been a successful season. Despite having tapped 26 trees, at least 10 of them produced poorly. Bad enough that they shouldn’t have been tapped at all! But this is part of the learning process and nature’s ebb and flow–you never know what you’re going to get year-to-year.

Being a homebrewer has made this an easy hobby to take up, although it’s rapidly becoming its own beast. Making syrup is not only fun but completely addictive. Using a 40 quart commercial braising pan and my 72,000BTU burner, I’m able to rip through sap pretty well. One of the strategies I learned this year was to preheat the sap before adding it to the pan. This has helped cut the boil day down from all day to most of a day. My recent 20 gallon boil started around 1pm. I pulled it from the big burner and finished it on the stove–another 90 minutes–at 8pm.

I’ve been very happy overall with the 2016 maple season. When the season officially concludes and my sweet, sticky maple nectar is packaged up I’ll update this post with additional notes.

4/5/16 update: So in the end, I was able to craft just over 2 gallons of syrup. Much of it was packaged up for gifts and the rest, shall we say, will make ourselves and our breakfast guests happy. I also made a few gallons of a maple wine which I plan to age for a year and open during the 2017 maple season. My goal will be a sweet wine, destined for pairing with a dessert.

5/29/16 update: So the maple wine is tasting really good, if not a bit hot. I used the stalwart Lalvin EC-1118 and didn’t actually take measurements! I figured I’d wing this one. I fed it for about a month, degassed, and added nutrients during the first week or so. Once fermentation stopped I kept adding syrup until it was sweet enough for my liking. Now it will age. I haven’t decided if I want to oak a portion of it but I think oak would really complement the maple.

2/2/17 update: Closing in on one year of bulk aging. Moderate sweetness with no burn. It has smoothed out nicely and definitely has an assertive maple character. Prior to bottling, I will infuse some with coffee and vanilla beans to play with the flavors a bit more. Very happy with how this turned out. Label design underway!

My first year with a real garden has proven to be an up and down experience. There are many things I will do differently next year, but overall the “seat of my pants” approach that I took this Summer has taught me a lot. For example–the deer can be an issue–despite my hope that abundant food would keep them at bay. It mostly has, but their preferred path of travel takes them past the garden as well as the apple and cherry trees. But I digress, this post is about the epic tomatoes we are currently struggling to manage.

The result of a bad wind storm and not enough support via stakes and strings has caused a bit of an armageddon. Many have been and will be lost. Despite having given away several dozen pounds of them, we can’t process them fast enough. As a result, some are rotting out there. We have more sauce and crushed tomatoes than we know what to do with and will be enjoying the fruits of our labors all throughout the cold Winter months.

Lessons were learned as you might expect. Turns out that a little bit more planning would’ve made things a lot easier to deal with. Next year, there will be fencing to fend off the deer who like to munch on random, tasty garden things. Having a garden surrounded by ample food in the wild doesn’t outweigh the simple fact that the deer trail is next to fresh veggies. The plant rows will be better spaced–and straight! The tomatoes will be staked far better and stronger, and there will be a dedicated area designated a berry patch with raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries. More leafy greens like spinach and lettuce will play a bigger part, too. All in all, it was a great experience but with some improvements in planning, process, and harvesting it will be even better next year.