We are not done tapping yet, but after just a week our 12 trees (sorry, I haven't counted the taps!) have yielded a good 14 quarts, or three and a half gallons of syrup. In today's market, that's a value of more than $200.00!
We were able to use my in-laws' old taps and homemade burner, but I did have to buy a $4.00 thrift store pot to boil with. After one day, we realized that the pot would not keep up with sap production, so we invested in two buffet pans (steam table pans, I believe, is the official word for it) at $40.00 each. That felt like a lot of money, but they do boil down the sap much quicker and we have already recouped the investment.
Picking up the fallen branches and burning them has done a lot for the grove's appearance. We still have a long way to go, but it made me so happy to kill two birds with one stone last week: cleaning up the woods, and then using it to fuel our sap fire. Hubs did the same thing with the front yard and also our little row of grapes near the orchard. I would love to make this a yearly tradition, where March is the official Clean Up Month around here.
While both Hubs and I have helped with making syrup before, neither of us had been through the process 100% on our own. Each day we were able to refine our system a bit more for efficiency and efficacy. As in, more and better syrup for less work. You can see how different some of our early batches were:
The last and darkest batch wasn't strained before we boiled it down, plus I think I overboiled the whole thing (it actually boiled over when I wasn't looking). It was very dark and very thick. After that I became more familiar with the boiling-down process, and we started straining both before AND after the final boiling down. This helped a lot with the color, but our current batches still have a little bit of sediment from the ash. I'm not too worried about it.
Thrifting
A couple of weeks ago I went thrifting. Here's what I found and what everything cost:
And, a little garden update! I repotted most of my seedlings and some houseplants on Saturday. The seedlings—most of which are tomatoes—are doing well. The smallest seedlings are lavender (to the right), and the pots to the far left are basil. Also in there are a few marigold seedlings.
At the beginning of the year, I bought six months' worth of personal care and household supplies, mostly for ease of record keeping (Walmart receipts are a bear to record, since they often contain items from 4-5 budget categories). Now I'm very thankful I did that, since I don't have to worry about paying higher prices for things like toilet paper, toothpaste or laundry detergent. Another comfort is that I have the skills to make things that often sell out during a pandemic; things like bread, hand sanitizer or even toilet paper (hello family cloth!) should we really need some.
I'm not expecting any severe shortages, but I do believe we'll be paying higher prices for many things in the coming year if this pandemic gets out of hand. So it helps to have some frugal skillzzz.
Have you noticed any shortages at your local stores? Do you think we are at the brink of a recession?
Til next time,
-Bethany