Spring Time

Spring was long in coming in these parts. As mentioned in the previous post our syrup season ran very late, which meant lambing season started just when we were cleaning up at the sugarbush. Lambs come when they're ready no matter what the weather is like. Our first lambs arrived on May 24th courtesy of Hazel, a two year old ewe. Last spring she had two stillborns on a blustery cold day in April. This year she had triplet boys and they're all doing well. One of her lambs, Julio, is now being fed by bottle as he wasn't getting what he needed from mom.

Later that same day Freckles had her own set of triplets and suddenly we had three times as many lambs as last year. 

A quiet period followed until June 3rd when Mirabelle birthed her lamb and a stillborn ram lamb. Oddly, three weeks prior she went into what appeared to be labour showing all signs such as not eating much, spending time on her own in various corners. In retrospect I think she was indeed in labour but for whatever reason she didn't actually birth the lambs and one made it later on while the other didn't. Her single lamb is doing very well now though and has lots to eat! 

On June 6th the lambing season came to a close as Henny had her set of triplets! In all we have ten lambs; six rams and 4 ewes. 

A couple weeks passed without incident until last weekend when I noticed Freckles seemed to be in pain. It turned out to be mastitis and it came on rather quickly. What I think happened is her lambs were feeding so aggressively that they cut her udder with their teeth (she has scabs on her teats) and due to the pain of open sores she wouldn't let them nurse. When a full udder doesn't get emptied infection sets in and that's called mastitis. At the best of times it's a tricky balance getting feed right when ewes are nursing in order to produce enough milk but not too much. Freckles' lambs were growing really well and she's a terrific mom so it's too bad this has happened. Anyhow, we had the vet out and Freckles has been on painkillers (Flunazine) and antibiotics (Borgal) for a week and likely more. I was stripping the milk out of her udder for a few days until it hardened so much that I couldn't get nary a drip. Poor Freckles didn't look like she was going to make it but the drugs seem to be working now and she's been eating but isn't herself otherwise. 

Meanwhile this has meant I've had to bottle feed her lambs: Jerry, Jolene, Jasmine and Julio (Hazel's lamb). This is the year of "J". 

At first I was feeding them with a single bottle one at a time. I was getting to work late and up at night too late so something had to change. I started feeding them with four bottles in my hands, but this was difficult. 

Then I mounted six baby bottles onto a scrap piece of 2"x6" and lashed the bottles in with a strand of clothesline. The result is the multi-milker, until I come up with a better name, and it works amazingly well.

Birch Syrup 2013

What a strange spring we've had here...again. Last spring was so warm (hot even) that we lost all the snow in early March and the bush was so dry we decided to not have a syrup season. This was followed very soon after by an epic flood on May 28th, 2012, go figure.

This spring was more like, well, winter!

We had snow up until May 10th and the last snowfall occurred on May 7th I think it was. In any case winter held on for a very long time this year which resulted in a difficult birch season. With such heavy snow this winter all our main sap lines were buried prior to the sap run which meant we had to hang about 1000' of new lines to transport sap from the back of our bush. 

Tapping day was particularly memorable as May 5-6th were very warm but we still had two to three feet of snow on the ground. T-shirts and snowshoes those days and boy was it a slog! I was happy with how smoothly the tapping went with my new drill. I finally decided to upgrade from a brace and bit to a new 20V Dewalt drill. I charged the batteries with a 700W Eliminator throughout the two days and the system worked perfectly. 

Tapping each tree took a fraction of the time and with Paul and Mike placing buckets ahead of me we were able to do 645 trees in two days.

Back in 2011 we had a lot of snow as well which forced us to collect sap in a different way. Previous to that year we used the ATV and a sap trailer to collect from all over the bush. But with so much snow on the ground we couldn't use the ATV at all and ended up carrying our sap tank around and pumping from various locations into the main sap line. This winter I made a sap tank sled that I've dubbed the sap rickshaw/rickski. It's made of a pressure treated wood frame, downhill skis from the Sally Ann, a couple old hockey sticks and a Krazy Karpet. It worked wonderfully for hauling buckets as well.

This year saw a number of technological advancements aside from the drill and sap hauler. We also started using reverse osmosis this year which meant we needed a power source from a generator. 

The generator then allowed for the use of a refrigerator, pressure washer and wet-vac for cleaning the evaporator and sap tanks. It also let us charge two Eliminator battery packs throughout the day which then meant we had LED lights in the sugar shack and an HD TV that picked up the hockey playoffs!

The sap run was brief this season. After tapping we had four solid days of flow then the temperature dropped again freezing the whole bush, stopping flow and freezing our sap lines. We lost two days like this then resumed the season for another 6 days. The last few days of the sap run were very warm and as a result the sap changed and was no longer good for syrup production. 

In the end I can't say the season was a tremendous success but certainly not a failure. We tweaked all the new systems and I think we'll be very prepared for next season. The reverse osmosis was amazing this season and it significantly reduced boiling time which made the end product lighter and better tasting. Time to prepare for next year!