Robins are back - I hope they survive this late winter storm

Three days ago I was listening to robins singing in my yard, watching a flock of juncos passing through on their way to Canada, and hearing flocks of geese overhead, honking their way back north.  Today we are getting buried in snow again -- at the same time Washington D.C. is having record breaking 90s -- in April!  Talk about global weirding.

Jet Stream, April 11, 2013
(Map courtesy of acuweather.com) 

The instability of the Jet Stream is a big contributor to all this strange weather.  I can remember when it pretty much stayed put up in there Canada, circling the arctic and dipping occasionally into Minnesota but no further south.  Now, as you can see from this map, it has gone crazy.  And with it comes all this weird  weather.  That huge dip is pulling cold air south, where it meets warm air from the Gulf and produces severe storms, including early tornadoes along the front.   It also traps warm air on the East Coast, resulting in those record-breaking 90s yesterday. (For more on how the Jet Stream is causing more severe weather lately, read this article on Climate Central.)

Last year's crab apples provide
food for spring birds

Meanwhile, birds on migration are getting caught in the storms.  The winds have been very strong today, so I suspect we will have a major bird drop around here (which is different from a bird dropping!)  A bird drop is when migrating birds come down to wait out the bad weather.  Sometimes you get to see some unusual species when the weather clears -- if the birds survive.

I find myself wondering what those robins on my land are eating today.  The Juncos can find seeds on tall grass stalks and the harrier hawk who returned a few days ago will no doubt find a rodent or two around the chicken coop.  But the ground is still too frozen for those robins to find any worms.  In the past I have seen them picking on frozen crab apples still on the trees.  So maybe that will help.

Minnesota drought map 4/11/2013
(Click pic to enlarge)

In spite of this snowstorm, we are still in the midst of a serious drought here.  Today's drought map shows my county, Pine, in the "severe" category.   (For more on the drought, click here.)

Last year it was so dry in late summer-fall that we headed into winter about 7 inches below normal in precipitation.  With the ground still frozen, all that this snow will do is run off -- which helps the wetlands downhill from my place, but won't do much for the garden.  In fact, it is so dry that, for the second year in a row, I decided not to tap my trees for maple syrup.  They grow along the edge of seasonal woodland wetlands that normally provides them with plenty of spring moisture during the melt-off, but this year it is bone dry.  I saw on the news that some syrup producers are getting a decent run -- guess it depends on where you are.  But for everybody it is very late, because of the abnormally cold spring.  In the past, syrup production would begin in mid-March and be over by now.

All of which goes to show that the climate is indeed changing.  Better get used to the new normal -- whatever that turns out to be...

2012 heat wave: Spring has never been so early here!

Lately the news has been full of photos of cherry blossoms and daffodils blooming a month early in places like Washington, DC.  Here in Pine County, Minnesota, things are not that far along yet, but signs of spring are still unseasonably early. 

On the right you see a bouquet of budding twigs that include (from left to right) forsythia, false spirea, pussy willows and black maple.  For many years it has been our custom to cut a bouquet like this for Passover, then watch as the buds slowly open during the eight days of the festival.  Well, this year we are going to have to do something different, because Passover is still almost three weeks away and buds are swelling now.

Nor are budding trees the only early signs of spring.  The Canada geese are back, along with robins, starlings,  red-wing blackbirds, song sparrows, juncos, mourning doves, and the phoebe who nests in the rafters of our shed each year.  Pheasants are calling, grouse are drumming, and last night -- believe it or not -- I heard spring peeper frogs and the ones we call "clacking frogs" calling in the marsh across the road.  This is the absolute earliest that any of this has happened here as far as I can remember.

Those swelling maple buds meant that I didn't get any maple syrup.  Normally you start tapping the trees when the days are around 40 degrees and the nights are still below freezing.  But when the temperature soars into the high 70s like it has done this March (smashing local records for days in a row), the nights stay warm, the trees bud out, and the sap flow stops.  Everybody I've talked to around here says the same thing:  Their maple trees dried up overnight.  I never even bothered to tap mine.  Which is probably just as well, because we are also in a drought.  All of our snow seems to have moved way down south.  Arizona is getting buried, while Minnesota stays high and dry.  We only got one decent snowstorm here all winter, and within days it had melted away.  Yesterday we got a nice steady rain, which was a good thing, because with all that dried grass around, not to mention some very early lightning storms, the fire danger was extremely high.

All of which adds up to one thing:  Climate change is real, and it is here.

Warm days, cold nights -- maple syrup time!

It has been two years since I've been able to make maple syrup -- 2009 we were in a drought and I did not want to stress my trees.  Spring 2010 there was no snow left  (believe it or not) and a burning ban was in effect.   But this year should be perfect!  We had a wet summer in 2010,  plenty of snow cover, and now the sap is running!

This is always one of the most pleasant times for me to be outside.  The weather is mild, and the birds are starting to claim their territories.  On Monday, when I was putting the spiles (taps) in my trees, I heard chickadees and blue jays calling, woodpeckers drumming, and a flock of crows having an argument out in the woods.    No grouse drumming or turkeys gobbling yet, but it won't be long.

Commercial syrup producers would probably die laughing at my primitive backyard setup.   But it gives us enough syrup for our own use, and saves a lot of money.  When I checked in the grocery store recently, pure maple syrup was $7.99 for an 8-ounce bottle -- and that was for a local product.  (The Audubon Center of the North Woods, only a couple miles from my home, makes it every year as a fundraiser.)  I imagine if commercial shipping were also involved, the price would be even higher.  We usually get a gallon or more of syrup a year, which I can in pint Mason jars.  Add that up, and it's a pretty valuable crop!


These are some pictures I took in 2008, which show the process. For "buckets" I use gallon milk jugs, which are free.  For spiles I have the old-fashioned metal kind I got years ago.   I cut the top off the jug to make it more like a bucket, then add a wire loop for a handle.  This works well, and at the end of the season I just remove the wire, wash the jug and recycle it. The spiles I save for next year.

By the way, you don 't have to use sugar maple trees. ALL maples have sugary sap, and many make great syrup.  Mine are boxelders (also known as "split-leaf maple"), which many people consider "trash trees" but I see as a valuable resource. The syrup I get from these trees is excellent.   Plus, the leaves are the food plant for Cecropia moth caterpillars.

My boiling apparatus is simplicity itself: two rows of cinder blocks with some old refrigerator grates on top.  Then I build a trench-style fire between the blocks.  For pans, I use disposable aluminum baking pans.  (The best kind have wire handles, although the ones in the pix don't -- I can't always find them here.)   I suppose this isn't as ecological as using  heavier  kitchen pans and washing them, but if you have ever tried to clean a pan that was used over an open fire, you will know why I prefer this for cleanup.  (Yes, I know about soaping the bottoms of campfire pans, but again, it's a horrible mess to bring into the house.  And don't worry about that dead grass you see near the fire -- it's actually wet straw I stomped into the mud to avoid slipping on the layer of melting mud that forms over the still-frozen soil.  Believe me, it was way too soggy to be a fire hazard.)

 As you can see, syrup in the early boiling stages doesn't look very golden.  There is a sort of whitish stuff that precipitates out -- this has to be filtered out later or the syrup will be bitter.  I use a piece of ordinary felt inside a kitchen strainer.  Timing is very important: If you strain too soon, the white stuff slips though, but if you wait too long, the syrup is too thick  to go through the felt.  Some people use a hygrometer and measure the specific gravity, or a candy thermometer to measure the temperature.  I just go "seat of the pants," having learned from years of doing this.   If it's still too thin after straining, I just boil some more.

It takes a lot of sap to make syrup -- about 30 gallons for one gallon of product, so you have to keep adding sap all day.  During this time, I do a lot of yard cleanup.  The firewood comes from stuff I saved up last year, plus any dead wood that the wind might have brought down, etc.  You need a continuous hot fire for this, so smaller stuff such as lower dead branches work great.     In this next pic, you can see that the pan on the left (pan A) has a higher sugar content than the one on the right (pan B).  That's because  as the sap boils down, I ladle it from   B to A, then fill pan B with more sap.  I also pre-heat the cold sap in big tomato juice cans before adding it to pan A.  This keeps thing boiling constantly.

To keep the syrup from boiling over as the sugar content rises, you need to add some sort of oil to break the tension on the surface.  Native peoples used various animal fats, and the pioneers used to hang a strip of bacon over the pan and let is slowly drip in.  Nowadays a lot of people use butter or margarine (which is why Mrs. Butterworth's syrup advertised itself as being made with real butter - an innovation in its day.)    This is why, if you keep kosher, maple syrup is off-limits unless it has kosher certification.   I use 100% vegetable oil so I can gift the syrup to both my kosher and vegan friends.   So, if you buy syrup and are concerned about animal products in your food, then it is a good idea to ask what kind of oil or grease they are using.  Especially at flea markets and roadside stands!

This pan is just about ready to take inside for finishing.  At this point, I ladle it through a tea strainer to get as much ash out as possible (with a wood fire, that's inevitable) into a stainless steel deep kitchen pot (one with a heavy copper bottom, less likely to scorch).  I then douse the fire and carry the syrup into the kitchen, where I finish boiling and straining it.  I let it sit overnight so any leftover impurities settle to the bottom.   

In the morning it's easy to pour off the clear syrup, leaving any sludge behind.   (I add the sludge to the chicken mash -- they like a sweet treat, too!)  I then sterilize my canning jars and can it the same as for jelly.  Done right, it keeps for years -- but once you open a jar, refrigerate it or it will get moldy.

So there you have it -- the first crop of the year on my land.  But enough blather -- time to go out and collect that sap!