While we were embracing (somewhat reluctantly) snowfall after snowfall over the last week or so I spent more time than usual in the kitchen. I get hungry when I am stuck inside.
And once my housekeeping in the barn is up to date, then I am stuck inside the house and the house has a fridge. Not that there is a lot in it at this time of year. We eat out fo the freezers in the winter.
When I cook a chicken (I grew about 50 during the summer for winter food) I save the carcasses into the freezer until I have three or four ready to make a chicken stock.
We all know now to make stock, I almost always have a stock of some kind on the stove. Lately I have been making a chicken stock reduction. So instead of big jars of broth. I have one small jar of chicken stock, so reduced, that the flavour is full and rich and a joy to drink.
A small amount of this jar is used to ‘start’ the next chicken stock, so after a winter of stock making, the latest reductions are the tastiest I have ever made.
Molly. 
There is nothing in the garden and the greens in the glasshouse are having a hard time due to a terrible lack of sun. We have not seen sun in ages. This winter is so dark. So we really are eating out of the freezer. 
There might be some sun tomorrow? That will warm our hearts and get these glasshouse greens growing.
My greatest fear is that the climate change we are enabling due to the continued pollution of our air will result in even less sun days in the future. My only answer is to plant more trees to try and clean our air. But planting the right trees is pretty important too. We need to be planting big long lasting trees – and more evergreens. I need to focus on these this year. Trees with deep roots and a high reach and a long life. Much of the Fledgeling Fellowship Forest trees are flowering trees to encourage birds and butterflies. These are for the edge of the forest.
This year I am going to be focusing more on the big old native trees of the area. Maples and more Walnuts. And pines. Though I am not a great fan of the pinus family. But trees are not for me. Trees are for the next generation who will have even more trouble with air quality I think – unless we work really hard on the Clean Up.
Here is an interesting study on the subject of trees and air quality that I read the other day.
Speaking of maples – Our John is thinking of tapping his trees soon. Just as soon as the daytime temperatures start to rise. Maple syrup season is approaching. Last year the temperatures rose way too fast and we got no syrup.
I think I may take over the sugaring this year – last time he RUINED my best cheese pot and still did not cook it down for long enough. Though the maple syrup was very tasty!
I hope you have a lovely day
celi
WEATHER: Extra rations and extra straw for the animals tonight – it is going to be very cold.
Sunday 02/11 20% / 0 in
Flurries or snow showers possible early. Cloudy skies. High around 20F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.
Sunday Night 02/11 10% / 0 in
Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low -3F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Sun
6:52 am 5:22 pm
Moon
Waning Crescent, 17% visible 3:56 am 1:47 pm
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
57 responses to “SUGARING SOON”
The sudden onset of spring is why we do not tap maples here, although the native bigleaf maple happens to be a sugaring maple in the northwest. I get very little from it before it starts to foliage, and it is not very good.
That is such a shame – it is an amazing sweetener, we have good years and bad years – we don’t have too many trees, just enough to supply the households for the year.
Well, it is our excellent climate that facilitates growing so many other things. The Santa Clara Valley was once famous for apricots, prunes and cherries that grew better here than anywhere else in the world, including Turkey.
J > The best thing to grow on your land so that it helps make the environment as healthy as possible notwithstanding climate change, is to grow what … Well, to let Nature do the growing. Fence it off, let it go feral. Minimal intervention. Then see what Nature does with it, and learn what bounties Nature can afford to let you harvest : fencing materials, firewood, fruit, rabbits, game birds … A little of many different things, and as little as possible to be bought or sold, but rather used yourselves, or bartered. Our 15 acre Hebridean croft
[oops!] … has broken with tradition and will no longer be dominated by sheep (though we love them, the future can’t be held hostage to sentiment), nor by human planning and tidiness, but rather by the inscrutable unfathomable wisdom and adaptability of Nature.
Gosh – we have some designated areas of wildness but I applaud you letting your whole farm go wild – what do you do about invasive species? We have a terrible thistle that has overtaken the banks and would take over my pastures too if let to grow. Or maybe me and the cows are the invaders at that point. c
J > As the ecology of a plot of land adapts following changes in grazing or cultivation, or for that matter a wildfire or exceptional flood, there may be a succession of stages in which certain species dominate. Some of these species may be considered invasive (and if not native, they may be – but that’s another matter) by humans, but that’s subjective, or at least relative to nearby land uses and a wider environmental debate. There may be times at which certain species may need to be controlled in some degree – for example by topping thistles before they distribute seed : this may have the side-effect of hastening the next phase of change. (We’re currently doing just this with ragwort.) But, ultimately, and especially if grazing and other impacts on the land are light or occasional or varied – so that no one impact prevails (eg not intensive sheep grazing, but mixed grazing by sheep, cattle or horses, poutry, all relatively light), and given years of lying fallow, then almost all land will become increasingly diverse in ecology, according to the prevailing soil and climate. We’re not re-wilding in one go. We’re doing it gradually, letting Nature show us what we can do, and us playing a supportive role. There will still be livestock, but few : if we want more, then they’d have to spend the winter indoors.
Can we puhleeze have some of your winter? We’re in the mid 70’s here in Central CA and, in fact, broke a 1930’s record for warmest day. Just a little snow or rain? Look like we’re headed back to drought mode after a on3-year reprieve. The bark beetles are multiplying and fire season is just around the corner. We need reservoirs, not a billion of dollars speed train to no where. It won’t feed the masses, whereas the saved water would. Just one cold snowy month would be magnificent!
Love Miss Molly’s photo!
I am off to California next week and my son there says the almond trees are already in blossom. California is a hard state to grow naturally in, I imagine. Not a lot of water there. Imagine what would happen if you let Those orchards go back to nature – as John above is doing. c
Is that Mr. Feathers in the barn? And the gorgeous orange kitty – Marmalade or the new mouser? Where has the Moon kitty been? The one with the sad face (Blue Moon)?
Yes that is Mr Flowers. The cat is LuLu and Moon is in there – being a nuisance as usual.
Despite the snow and frigid temps, spring is coming. Tapping maple trees is among the first signs.
yes – just a little bit warmer in the days and he will be out there – fingers crossed
Oh, home grown maple syrup…
Your chicken stock looks wonderful, and if we ever got enough carcasses to enable me to cook my stock down that far, I’d do it too. I make 4 litres of soup every week for the Husband to take to work with him, and I need every drop of stock I get, whether it’s chicken, ham bone or plain old vegetable stock.
I always save a little stock from the last stock to start the new one – a chef told me that – he knew a chef who literally had his name on his stock! It had been going for that many years.. c
Well, I certainly did not anticipate having a wonderful lesson in tapping maple trees and making maple syrup early on a Monday morning: a little new knowledge I do appreciate! And you should put chicken stock of this quality into small containers and sell it as a very effective flu and cold medicine sans side issues. Actually the young plants in your glass house do not show sun starvation just the heralding of spring . . . .
I love my chicken stock too! Another month I think before we can think about spring – it is still February. Sugaring is a cold job. Lots of winter to go yet. c
Ask your neighbor to the north if you can have the seedlings from the black walnuts the squirrels planted and forgot about. They come up every spring. Meant to tell you last spring but other things intervened. Or, ask if you can pick the nuts after they drop in the fall.
Plant more trees! Good idea .. 😀 wonderful images Celi. I bet the stock is delicious. Love that kitty …