Random Pictures
Still, what else is new, trying to find a spot to post some of my old random pictures and hopefully this may be the place!
That being said I shall post an old very old picture taken on one of the back roads between Norfolk & Colebrook, Ct noted for the lines of Sugar Maples which, in their day, produced some pretty fine Maple Syrup. The sugar shack as I recall is the building in the background.
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The photo is a beauty tsula..We had many sugar maples where I grew up, and one of our jobs was to tap them for the syrup.
Thanks, Kavika. A lot of the folks do not really know just what hard work it is to get them their favorite Maple Syrup or Maple Sugar! Not too hard grabbing a bottle from the shelf. It was big business when I was a boy and still is if you wander up to Vermont or New Hampshire any time of the year. Takes a heck of a lot of sap to boil down to syrup.
It's still big business in northern MN as well tsula. Most of the tribes there are involved in tapping.
This IS THE PLACE!
Keep them coming!
Thanks Mac. In keeping with that I shall try this one out and you know of my love for the stone walls, many of which I had a hand in building, have appealed to me say, here ya go! This is/was an abandoned farm on the outskirts of Norfolk, Ct. Surprisingly good cross country skiing in the winter although it doesn't like it now.
From the other side of CT, but I know these areas. Very nice pix tsula, wish it was fall now.
This photo reminds me of Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall.
Something there is that doesnt love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing: 5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, 10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go. 15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
Stay where you are until our backs are turned!
We wear our fingers rough with handling them. 20
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across 25
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, Good fences make good neighbors.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
Why do they make good neighbors? Isnt it 30
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall Id ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesnt love a wall, 35
That wants it down. I could say Elves to him,
But its not elves exactly, and Id rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. 40
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his fathers saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, Good fences make good neighbors.
Thanks Grump.
Fall in Ct no matter the state side is special. The smell of burning leaves can not be imitated!
Thank you for your visit and kind remarks, Lilac Dragonfly ! I think that I have a picture of the drop pails we used to hang on the trees. I'll try to find it for you and that was really hard physical labor back in those days but the end results were well worth it.
For Lilac Dragonfly a scene of collecting Maple Sap, the base ingredient to Maple Syrup, as we did it in the days of my youth. There were trees, if they were big enough, you could have 3 or even 4 pails on them.
Now, of course, if a line of trees can be found, they are all strung together and the collection is done by big vats at the end of the line. Catch the snow!!
Let's see now, I just picked up on this so please remember that these are the memories of more than 70 years ago and heck I had trouble finding my way home yesterday!
1. No it doesn't harm the trees as long as you don't get greedy and bore too many holes. I have seen huge maples with 4 pails on them but never any more than that and I have never seen a maple die from this exercise.The sap stops running on its own after a period of time as it is spring and, after the winter freeze, the trees are drawing this through themselves to bud and sprout their leaves. 2. The sap is mostly crystal clear,and no it isn't sticky at all but you do need to keep washing your hands, or we did, as I recall. You do need to keep the pails covered though in order to prevent twigs and stuff getting into the sap which we had to put through strainer cloths before we added it to the boiling vat. 3. We collected the sap daily but I can remember times when the conditions were just right that we emptied them twice a day because it keeps on dripping and will just run over the tops of the pails.
Traditional Ojibwe ''sugaring''...
Now that is really neat, Kavika. Thanks
Thanks tsula, my nookomis (grandmother) would take me sugaring with her...
The farmer I worked for bought the rights to the trees we tapped so gathering the sap became one of my farm chores.
It's quite the process Lilac. Happy that you enjoyed the info.
Did you keep any of the sap and make syrup tsula?
The one thing I am eternally vigilant for...is a sale on Maple Syrup
He always gave my (e'tsi) Mother a gallon. A thick slice of warm homemade bread slathered with Maple Syrup. That's a reward in itself!
tsula, Blue Wolf, Lilac..
Ojibwe Fry Bread....add wild blueberries and maple syrup..Now that is heaven.
I'm not gonna go there because if I do I'm never coming back! Heaven, indeed!
I like to use it when I make baked pears, or instead of Karo syrup for Walnut Pie
Great article, tsula. You keep adding pictures so I have to come back to see the new ones. Thanks, I like it.
Thanks Grump much appreciated! With that in mind and seeing thedust storm in your neck of the woods, let me show you a picture of something we have suddenly crop up on us. While we were having lunch one day everybody started running out the door so we followed and this is what we saw just off shore! Seemingly came out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly!
These two are special images!
Congratulations.
Beautiful Spring aand Fall both great times of year. Use to like winter but to old to take advantage other than maybe hunting. Would be a great time to protest our Congresses in action. That cannot agree on when to take a bathroom break never the less anything to help our country. Just keep things like tax deferments in place to pay companies to move overseas. Sorry off topic I rant again. I feel sorry for the little children.
Lilac,
The next step in the process (when it does become sticky) is to render it in large vats. You bring the sap to a slow boil and keep it there for about 18 hours. This boils away much of the water and gives it the thickness that you identify with maple syrup. The temperature is tricky to maintain. If it's too hot, the syrup will burn and be spoiled, if it's not hot enough, it won't thicken correctly. The modern syrup makers use gas or electric cookers with thermostatic controls. The old way (using a wood fire) means that someone who knows what he's doing has to tend that fire 24/7, to keep the temperature just right. In both cases, the boiling sap has to be skimmed regularly to remove the impurities that float to the surface. One of our local farmers (southern Michigan) has a large grove of Maple trees on his place and does it the old fashioned way. Since he's also getting his fields plowed and ready to plant at this time, he doesn't get much sleep in the springtime. He gets his wood for the fire by picking up the branches that fell during the winter. Since that's not enough, he also has a deal with the local lumber mill to buy their slashings and scrap. They then bottle and sell the syrup along with Maple Sugar at a stand beside the road. In spite of the fact that a chemist will tell you that it's the same stuff, I think that his tastes better than the syrup made with the gas or electric heaters. It absorbs a bit of flavor from the wood smoke.
Depending on the size and health of the tree, you must boil away between fifty and eighty percent of the water before the syrup is ready to use. That means that you need between five and eight quarts of sap to make one quart of syrup. Since it has a strong flavor and is still fairly thin, most of the large commercial makers mix it with corn syrup to bring the amount back up to where they want it and to make it thicker. That's the stuff you buy in the store under the name of Maple Syrup. Not even close to the real thing for flavor, but a lot cheaper. Unmixed Maple Syrup is, for obvious reasons, very expensive.
Those are really nice pictures Tsula. You have the eye for picking out great subjects.
Beautiful water spout. Haven't seen any since I lived in Fort Walton Beach.
Thanks for stopping by! Never saw one before or since. I/we're in Ormond Beach and that one was in Ormond by the Sea right off A1A.
Things changed even as I grew up. we went from hanging multiple buckets on the trees to an automatic collection from many trees into a central vat. Took a heck of a lot of the hard work out of it too except you still faced the boil off!
Grump.......nice. May I continue the Frost-ing?