With unseasonably warm weather the past week we began tapping our maple trees. A generation ago it was unheard of to tap your trees in February in this part of the world, these days however most of the big operations start tapping in January. This winter has been topsy turvy from the get-go with our low temperature currently at -25 F and our high 55 F all this month. Inconsistent temperatures meant that the warm sun of late February created soft ground, snow melt streams and the sounds of dripping to remind us that it was time to tap our maples. Chad and Gwen are the masters of our sugar bush and they have been hard at work preparing the sugarbush for this season’s sap run. In our house Lewis and Lovett are in charge of tapping the few maples around our house.
In the nostalgic pictures of years gone by children tap maple trees with hand crank augers, metal spiles with galvanized buckets that hang neatly on the side of the tree. We got rid of our supply of metal buckets and spiles when New York state banned them because of the zinc oxide in the galvanized coating, which concentrates in the syrup as we boil down the sap. To be honest I can imagine that someday we will learn that all the plastic we use now was not a great idea either, but for now we use a plastic tap with a thin tube (called a drop line) which carries the sap down into a waiting plastic bucket on the ground. We collected sap for a few days last week before the weather turned cold again and the clouds brought us a fresh cover of snow. Have you ever tried fresh sap? We use it to make our morning oatmeal, brew a sweet herbal tea with or even carbonate in our seltzer maker for a “maple soda!”
I love the magic of harvesting the sweet sap of the coming spring. The Waldorf kindergarten Lovett attends and Lewis fondly remembers always taps a few maple trees, so we leave it up to our kindergartener to remember when it is time. All it takes is a drill, a hammer, tap, line and bucket, and the tree generously gives us her “sweet sap.” Some of us even drink it drip by drip right out of the tree.
The pigs are enjoying their last few days on the farm, soaking up the “warm” afternoon sun and burrowing in the piles of hay during the cold nights. Susu loves to hide out in their burrow holes as they are out and about. We have yet to find a consistent source for new piglets (I have dreams of starting our own breeding herd), and each year we imagine what their early life was like from the habits and instincts we see and don’t see. Pigs are intelligent and creative creatures, which is one of the reasons we love them so much. They learn our patterns, know the sound of scooping grain, and much more. One pattern we have noticed this year is our batch of pigs seem poorly educated on the finer points of how to bed down and keep warm in the hay.
Last year our pigs were marvelous builders of intricate hay tunnels, moving flakes of hay from one side of the barn to the other to get things just right. In hindsight, I wonder what their mothers taught and showed them as youngsters. This year our pigs are happy to flop down on the top of a hay pile and call it good. Perhaps it is the warmer weather and only occasional cold, or perhaps they learned different lessons as little piglets?
I had a good chuckle this week while reading my friend Garth’s blog post for his family farm Cairncrest Farm. He wrote about his thoughts on a recent article published by the Guardian. The article is titled: ‘Incredibly intelligent, highly elusive’: US faces new threat from Canadian ‘super pig’. I find joy in the headline alone. Pigs are such fun creatures, and while the article is sensational I am reminded of what a pig’s true nature is. Apparently there are some feral pigs that are a cross between wild boar and domestic pigs that some folks are calling “super pigs.” There were a few hunting reserves that bred the pigs for their clients and they thought surely if the pigs escaped they would not survive the harsh Canadian cold. Oh how wrong they were.
The pigs survive extreme weather by tunneling up to 2 meters under snow, Brook said, creating a snow cave.
“They’ll use their razor-sharp tusks to cut down cattails [a native plant], and line the bottom of the cave with cattails as a nice warm insulating layer.
“And in fact, they’re so warm inside that one of the ways we use to find these pigs is to fly first thing in the morning when it’s really cold, colder than -30, and you will actually see steam just pouring out the top of the snow.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/20/us-threat-canada-super-pig-boar
I am left even more convinced that pigs are happier and healthier when they are outside and allowed to be creative and explore. No doubt it is cheaper to cram thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of pigs in a barn who never see sunlight, feel fresh air or taste dirt. In my opinion it is also without a doubt better for the pigs, and for the meat they give us, for them to have that which they are so often deprived.
Reber Rock Farm Blog 