Walnut Syrup Part Two

So here are the photos of the final straining and jarring up of the walnut syrup. Usually, we strain as the sap comes in the house before it goes to boil, but this time we were working with frozen chunks, so straining came after it was syrup.

It is more jelly like than maple syrup, but sweeter. Not so much walnut flavour as the boil smell hinted at (you know, making my house smell like German Chocolate Cake....), more of a plain sweet. This may be because it was very early sap (see the light colour). Early maple is like this too, the later sap is darker and more maple-y.

We got just shy of 1 quart. Not bad for 4 stock pots of sap, actually. This is just the beginning of sugar season, friends. The new cold snap and deep freeze means y'all have plenty of time to order supplies and get your own syrup made this year. So easy. So very worth it.

Three trees in your yard? That can provide 2 gallons of syrup and that's enough for my whole family for a year AND sugar my coffee every morning. That's a pretty amazing thing that even an urban homesteader can do.

Still need convincing? Ok. Here: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/sweets/5602/2
Does your coffee sweetener have iron, magnesium, calcium, and potassium and like 5+ more minerals that you might take a multivitamin to get? No?

Seriously. SERIOUSLY. GO TAP YOUR TREES.

Oh and this. Make this and dream of summer.

Walnut Syrup

Walnut sap is/was flowing. What do you do with walnut sap? Ah, good question.

Turns out, the same thing you do with maple sap.....boil it to syrup! Oh my house smells so good right now, like German Chocolate cake. Sugaring season is my favourite part of winter/spring on the farm and almost makes the cold bearable. Maybe we are all just sugar drunk on sap, though.

Some observations and questions though.
1) little gelly blobs keep forming in the sap/syrup boil. I searched online to find out what this is and only found another sugarer asking the same question. Anyone know?
2) This sap seems to take longer to boil down.
3) They are flowing earlier than the maples. This may be a way to maximise our syrup and better tell when the maples will start flowing?
4) Our walls are NOT sticky. Not even a little bit. Nor is the underside of the shelf above the boil or the back of the stove.  Our windows are not even fogging up.
5) If you use bags instead of buckets, remember to collect before nightfall and don't let it freeze in the bags. Destruction happens.

Nesting At Home

From the moment my bags hit the floor at Grampa's and the kids jumped off the stairs into my arms, they have been randomly hugging me and cooing, "Aw, Mama...." It is especially endearing when Isaac says this. He then kisses me and says, "I you love, Mama."

Of course the minute I got home they also, all three, burst into fevers. Four, if you count Chad. They have all been a sweet, sorry lot this weekend.

So, I brought out the pot and made soup with a whole head of garlic, stocked up on cranberry juice and tea, and cancelled all outings for the week. I feel a slight pressure in my head too, but I am taking elderberry and trying to keep it at tickle level instead of full blown plague.

All three kids are really into legos. We have to get more regular blocks. Imaginative building is so much fun!

Getting Home Again

I have not yet shared the details of my bus ride and night spent in Memphis, in part because I was trying to freak myself out into a panic attack at the thought of returning home the same way. The trip home also had a 3 hour layover in Memphis at midnight. The biggest problem I experienced with the Megabus was that the long layover and bus stops were not marked, just random street corners, and not in a populated place with eateries. Memphis was the worst. Only a liquor store, three blocks away. I was terrified that I would not make it back to the unmarked loading point, either from being mugged or forgetting my way back.

There's more, I will share later, but suffice it to say, that one night a few of us writers at the retreat were up late and working hard, sharing stories, and it came up again how I had taken a three day bus ride to get to the island, I confessed that I had never really had so much contact with the homeless and that I knew better how I was going to navigate the trip home, though it was still making me anxious. I even did an impersonation at one point of the redheaded polygamist's daughter, Jazz, that was helping her felonious husband flee to Mexico. She had a very distinct accent.

Then, one of the writers, asked if flying out of Savannah would work for me, Friday morning.

!!!!

He bought me a plane ticket home. A plane ticket. This meant instead of 36 hours of cross country starvation on a crowded bus, in possibly another blizzard/ice storm, I would travel for 4 hours and be home by lunch on Friday.

Oh, yes. I cried. I held myself together until I got to my room and then I sobbed like a little baby. I had not realised how homesick I was until that point either, but I imagined my babies jumping into my arms as I set my bags down at the front door and I just cried. I tried to text Chad to tell him, but Isaac was having a nightmare and he couldn't talk or text. I tried calling again the next morning, but he didn't answer.

When I did tell him, I could hear relief in his voice. He knew I could handle the bus again, but getting me home early was so, so welcomed.

Dr. Baxter, your generosity is deeply, deeply felt by my whole family.

*As a funny side note: I have not flown for many years and not since the TSA security thing was developed. So of course I set off all the alarms and had to be searched 3 times, in almost all possible ways, and have my hands chemically analysed. Of course. Why? Forgotten lip balm in my pocket. I had to unpack all my bags and explain it all. Then they stuck their hands in my pants pockets. IN. MY. POCKETS. You know, Megabus didn't even check my id, let alone violate my person.

Still, totally worth it to fly. Totally. Worth. It.