Maple Syrup Sap Bag Holder

 Big time winter storm hitting us right now so I guess there will be an extra post this week!
Here's how to make cheap maple syrup sap bag holders. I used 2 inch PVC pipe. I bought a ten foot length and cut each piece 5 7/8 inches long to get 20 pieces from the ten foot length of pipe after allowing for the saw cut. 1 1/2 inches from one end of each piece I cut two notches on opposite sides of the pipe. These notches are two saw blade widths wide and just through the wall of the pipe. I used a stop block to keep them  a consistent distance from the end of the piece but just eyeballed them for width. Next I flip the piece end for end and drilled a one inch hole about a inch from the other end of the pipe. All these measuremets are approximate and are not critical. I would have used a smaller drill for the hole but that was all I could find that was about right. You just want it big enough to go over your taps. Leave enough material above the hole to support the weight of the sap bag when it is full.

The bag is held on the holder with a zip tie pulled tight into the notches. You could use a twine I suppose but zip ties are fast and easy if you have them. Of course for these to work your tap has to have some sort of end that will catch the edge of the hole. We will use plastic line taps for these since they have a end that will hold the bag on. If my taps wouldn't work that way I would drill a second hole higher up to hang them from a nail. My finger is where your tap would be.

Here is another view of the notches. I started out with a single saw cut but it was to narrow for the bag and zip tie to pull into it and hold the bag on. Put a second notch on the opposite sides of the pipe.

Alpine Dairy Goats

Our Alpine does, Cupcake and Carmel, enjoying their supper. The keyhole feeder is the best design I've ever used for feeding goats. As long as they don't have horns it really works well to save feed. They have to lift their head to back out so they usually don't drag a mouth full of hay out with them. Both of these does were exposed to a very nice Alpine buck but only one got bred. I guess the other will be at the  local livestock auction soon. A dairy animal that does not get bred back is a pet. We have some pets but we can only afford to feed so many. We milked goats as a commercial dairy producer at one time and I think we will always have some goats. They are a great animal for anyone on a small acreage who wants their own dairy products. We presently milk a Jersey cow also because it is so much easier to make butter from cows milk. Goat milk, being naturally homogenized, needs to be ran through a cream separator first. It is one step we are happy to skip right now.

Usnea, Herbal Medicine

Yesterday i was out cutting firewood in the swamp. One positive side effect of that is that I am usually able to find some Usnea  growing on the upper branches of maples and tamaracks. It seems to like the growing conditions in the densest parts of the swamp. I don't pass up an opportunity to collect this powerful antibiotic. Usnea barbata is the species usually found in commercial preparations. While that species does not grow here there are plenty of other species in our area. I think the one in the pic is Usnea angulata all though that is based on merely looking at photos so is probably not even close! Usnea is a lichen and it contains usnic acid which has been shown to inhibit gram-positive bacteria such as those that cause strep and pneumonia. Gram-negitive bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella are not effected by usnea. I would be reluctant to use commercial preparations of this lichen unless I was very sure of the source of material. Usnea is known to concentrate airborne heavy metals in its tissue. I want to know any that I use was collected from areas without a lot of industrial air pollution.Usnea has a slightly sweet, very, very, bitter taste.It's active principles are best extracted in a tincture with a low concentration of alcohol [ 25-30%] since most of it's compounds are water soluble. The USDA plant data base list 86 species of Usnea in North America and it grows almost every where in the world so some species may grow near you.

This is a pic of some growing on the upper limbs of a red maple. The other is on a tamarack and I am not sure if they are the same species. They look a little different to me. Wisconsin has a dozen or so species but I don't much more than I've said here. It is one area I plan to study more as there are also edible species of lichens.

Wood Lot Management

We heat with wood and use it for cooking most of the year. In a typical year we use about 15 -18 face cords of wood. A face cord is 48 inches by 96 inches times the length of the pieces, in my case 16 inches. What species of tree the wood is from makes a huge difference of course, some woods being much better than others. Some such as oak or ash are much denser and so contain many more B.T.U.'s of heat. Woods such as balsam fir or aspen are not as dense and so give you less heat for the same size pile. This figures into my decision on whether or not to cut down a particular tree but it is only one consideration. The picture shows a yellow birch which makes very good firewood being dense and drying well after it is cut. My decision to cut this tree however was made based on the tree's health, which you will note, is not optimum. It was apparently damaged in the past and rot has set in. It was also crowding several nice young maples and is in a area I manage for maple syrup production. For these reasons this birch went to my firewood pile for next year. I try not to cut strong healthy trees for firewood as on 30 acres there are more than enough damaged or diseased trees to fill that need. I also take almost all of the tree including the branches down to about 1 inch in diameter. The remaining brush I put in piles and leave them as cover for woodland residents such as chipmunks and song birds.

 
Here is the wood from the yellow birch and a white ash I cut that day. The two trees provided about 3/4 of a face cord of fire wood, about 1/20 th of what I will need for next year.Today  I will look over some black ash that will probably be cut. Those grow in the swamp so I have to get them out now while we are still froze up.

Llama Jail

 Here is a pic of Sandy, our guard llama. He is in llama jail until it warms up enough that we can shear him. He has figured out that he can simply walk under the electric fence by lifting it up with his neck. His thick coat prevents him from getting the shock that would convince him to stay on his side of the fence. He does not stray very far but there is always the danger he will get on the road. What really upped his sentence was his pruning job on my new apple trees. I have an eight foot tall fence around the orchard to keep out deer but that didn't keep him out and he munched on most of my new trees. He is a excellent guard llama having chased a bear out of our sheep pasture several years ago so he will get another chance. Well, another month or two and he will get a hair cut and a parole from llama jail. Mean while he is becoming good friends with a calf in the next pen over.

Hand Hewn Beams

                                                                                                                                                                                                

     This is a method that I use to make hand hewn beams. The first step is to brace the log in a way that will prevent any movement during the process. I use a combination of pipe clamps and sand bags to hold the log. Once you have the log held securely use a level as in the first picture to mark both ends at the point that will give you the flat area you want. Now mark a line from end to end on each side to connect the level marks. I used a chalk line which makes that very simple. You can see the blue chalk line in the second picture. Next make a saw cut down to the line every 3-5 inches. If there is a knot I make several cuts close together at the knot.                                                                        

I used a chain saw but you could use any type of saw. A adze is the tool being used in the third picture. Notice the way I am holding my foot. This is done to prevent the very,very,sharp adze from finding your ankle! Make sure you are wearing heavy soled shoes for this job. I am not sure how to do this project without a adze. I found mine at a antique shop and payed a few dollars. You can find new ones but they are of course more expensive. Anyway, once you have the saw cuts down to the chalk line start chipping of the wood down to the line. How carefully you do this will determine how flat and smooth your beam will be. A wood that splits easily will work best, one with wild grain will be more difficult. Once you have the top done you simply turn it over and do the same thing on the other side keeping the sides parallel. If  you need a square timber the sides are traditionally flattened with a broad ax. I only do that if I absolutely have to have it square. For many uses, such as floor joist,you may only need one flat side.

Hunting Shed Antlers

If you live in an area that deer live in this is a good time of the year to get out in the woods and look for shed antlers. Deer such as the WhiteTail Deer, which is the local species, shed their antlers and grow new ones every year. The pic shows a couple of shed antlers and a drinking cup I made with a shed antler and a cow horn. Antlers can provide interesting material for various  projects such as tool and knife handles , drawer pulls, buttons, or whatever else your imagination comes up with.Hunting for shed antlers is a good excuse to go for a nice walk in the woods. Find a well traveled deer trail and follow it. Keep a sharp watch if you do find a shed antler as supposedly when the deer losses one antler  he tries to knock off the other so he is balanced. I've never found a second but I have talked to people who have. Any antlers us humans do not pick up soon get eaten by rodents for the mineral content. The big shed antler in the pic has the ends of several tines chewed on. The weather here is supposed to be nice tomorrow so I think a walk in the woods is call for!