Maple Syrup Harvest

On the West Coast? Are you kidding?

Nope.

We've got bigleaf maples. They produce sap that actually has enough sugar in it to make it viable to produce syrup. And they've got a long harvesting season (from mid-November to mid-February most years; in the east, it's only a few short weeks). Of course, we have to collect more sap to make the equivalent amount of syrup, but what the heck!

Thanks to the Forest Discovery Centre's Maple Syrup Festival, Dave has now got a new hobby. So we got the book, picked up a kit from Bees 'n Glass, got some wine kit bags from Valley Vines to Wines for sap collecting and cleaned them out, and all we needed was Dave's drilling expertise, and a little patience.

We got started at the very end of the season, yet the weather cooperated to give us some hope for success. After a week's worth of collecting, we ended up with about 20 litres of sap which boiled down to 500 mLs (two cups) of syrup. YUMM!!!!! This is definitely something we'll be looking forward to doing next winter.

Water Collection

We now have 1200 gallons of water storage available!! Here are two of the three tanks (one in the background):

We get lots of rain during the fall, spring, and winter, but precious little during most summers. Since we are putting in a lot of food plants (greenhouse, orchard including soft fruits, veggies, grain crops, root crops), and we live on a well, we figured we needed to put in some water storage. We still recycle our laundry water (you'd be surprised at how much water goes down the drain just from your washing machine). These tanks will definitely help a lot. We might need more, but this will have to do for this year!

Greenhouse Modifications

While the greenhouse worked beautifully last summer, and its design was always intended to extend the season on either side of summer (which it did at least this past fall, and we think it will do really well later this spring), the light levels inside were not ideal in the middle of summer. So Dave spent a week or so recently adding some windows, some of which had always been in the plans, but the rest we'd not had the materials for originally.


The door was reclaimed, having been stored in our barn, and the opening windows were reclaimed from a house that we got from a used building supplier. This is the north face, where no light (other than ambient) comes in.

This is the west face, with three windows we'd acquired from our cousins when they replaced their windows this summer, plus a shower door (and another one of the reclaimed windows) newly installed. The apex is now enclosed with plexiglas. This face gets a lot of heat and sun in the afternoon.

This is the east face. Again, another shower door, and another window from our cousin. There is some sun in the morning over the trees and around the hazelnut in the summer, but not enough to warrant putting a lot more windows in this end. The holes at the top will be vents.

Dave also built hinged wooden vents at the base of the south wall (you can just make them out in the lower left-hand corner of the above photo), that we'll have open in the summer to let air & pollinators (hopefully!) in.

Now we're reconsidering our options for the planters inside. As you can see from last year, we used oak half-wine barrels:

They worked very well; however, there is a lot of "wasted" space in there. We might build some raised beds instead. Last year, there just wasn't time, budget, or energy; this year, we'll see!

There's Always Room for Jell-O

OK, not actual store-bought Jell-O, not when you've got a pantry full of beautiful canned fruit juices, straight out of your garden. This is the best fruit gelatin you'll ever have, and I doubt you'll want to go back to that awful chemical stuff once you've tried it.

Fruit Juice Gelatin

Each tablespoon of gelatin should gel 2 cups of liquid. The original recipe from Joy of Cooking calls for a total of 1 cup water (1/4 cup cold, 3/4 cup boiled), and 1 cup of juice. I use all juice, what the heck!

Soak:

1 tablespoon gelatin

in

1/4 cup cold fruit juice

Dissolve it in:

1 3/4 cup boiled fruit juice

You might wish to add up to:

1/2 cup honey

for sweetening, depending on the juice you're using (e.g. unsweetened cranberry juice, you might wish to try 1 cup of Sprite or 7Up or ginger ale to the 1 cup of fruit juice, or perhaps all juice with more honey).

Let set in refrigerator about 4 hours or more. If you want to do this in a jelly mold, make sure to chill and wet the mold before pouring the jelly into it. I've not tried that, but it would be neat!

If you want to add pieces of fruit, wait for the jelly to set mostly (but not entirely) so that the fruit will stay suspended.

You can also replace 1/2 cup of the juice with 1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt for a bit of a different flavour.

Crochet Project

Last year, I purchased a Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet for my art. A few months ago I decided that I needed to protect the tablet somehow, because I travel quite a lot with it. I place it in a pocket in my bag, but I still wanted something a little more substantial to protect it. So I took up one of my trusty little steel crochet hooks from my Grandma Hillaby, a couple of fine Mercerized cotton yarns (yes, bamboo yarn would have been much more appropriate, but I had this in stock and didn't want to spend any money), and my favourite crochet pattern (I've created two baby blankets out of this pattern to date) to create a little Bamboo Pocket!


Here's the pattern, for anyone who might be interested. I believe I started with 87 chains (there are 8 full repetitions of the wheel across the body of the pocket, plus the 3 stitches to start, and 4 stitches to end the first row. I just crocheted a "scarf" (i.e. a rectangle), folded it in half, and single crocheted the pocket together at the two edges. I attached a button at the top inside to just keep it closed. I had thought of doing an envelop flap, and I might do so still at some point, but the holes in the pattern fit a little button nicely, so I think this'll do fine for my purposes.


Catherine Wheel

The circular motifs are achieved by working one row of clusters and one row of shells. Try a piece starting with 27 chains.

Row 1: (wrong side) 1sc in 2nd ch from hook, 1sc in next ch. *skip 3ch, 7dc in next ch, skip 3 ch, 3sc, rep from * to last 4ch, skip 3 ch, 4 dc in last ch, turn
Row 2: ch1, 1sc in same place. 1 sc, *ch3, 1dcl worked over 7 sts, ch3, 3sc, rep from * to last 4sts, ch3, 1cl over 4dc, turn
Row 3: ch3, 3dc in same place, *skip 3ch, 3sc, skip 3ch, 7dc in loop of cl, rep from * to last 5sts, skip 3ch, 2sc, turn
Row 4: ch3, 1cl over 3 sts, *ch3, 3sc, ch3, 1cl over 7 sts, rep from * to last 5sts, ch3, 2sc, turn
Row 5: ch1, 2sc, *skip 3ch, 7dc in loop of cl, skip 3ch, 3sc, rep from * to last st, 4dc in last st
Rep rows 2-5 to desired length.


For two colour Catherine Wheel, work as above, changing to the second colour on row 2. Change colour on every alternate row. Here's a video; it's about 20 minutes, but she goes through the whole pattern - very helpful if you don't figure out patterns easily without help from someone showing you what to do. It's a little different pattern than the one above - the demonstrator only does 1sc rather than 3sc in between each 3ch/cluster/3ch combination (and obviously she must only do 1sc wherever it says to do 3 sc above), but you get the idea of how to do the cluster stitch really well by watching.

Renos Progressing

The original house layout was this:

A few years ago, Dave constructed these beautiful built-ins at the window end of the living room:


This year, Dave's built a pair of china hutches to go into the dining room:


Then in October, Dave framed in the new walls between the dining room & living room, to house the new built-ins, and installed them:


Here is the new layout of the house:


Along with framing the walls to house the built-ins, Dave moved the entry from the hallway into the living room down towards the other end of the hallway from it's original placement:


This has already improved traffic flow and has made the living room both physically (because it's blocked the draft from the front door) and psychologically more cozy. A huge side benefit to all this construction is the addition of a "hall" closet (it's actually in the living room, but close enough).




Dave has a beautiful piece of furniture that he'd built to hang jackets and store shoes on; however, it takes up a huge chunk of the hallway. Now, we can move all that stuff into the new closet when it's completed, and repurpose that furniture piece somewhere else, thus opening the hall even further.

What's Eating You (or rather the other way around...)

Thanks to minouette for this - sounds like fun so here goes:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

1. Venison - kind of hard not to when we hunt & eat what we hunt ;)
2. Nettle Tea - does nettle beer count?
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare - but am not keen to repeat it; it was a Japanese version.
5. Crocodile/alligator - yup, in Queensland
6. Black pudding - Dave has and loves it. I think I'll avoid it but wouldn't put it in the strikeout list.
7. Cheese fondue - thanks Elizabeth, especially for serving with new fingerling potatoes, yummy!
8. Carp
9. Borscht - having had an unfortunate, life-altering experience with beets at a very young age, I can't even get past the smell to get anything beet-related into my mouth
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich - love it but can't eat it any more; no more peanuts for me.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - is there any other kind?
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffles
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - Practically anything alcoholic we drink in our household is fruit wine we've made not from grapes: apples, pears, blackberries, raspberries, plums, rhubarb (not really a fruit, though), while we don't make it yet, blueberries too.
19. Steamed pork buns - unless you're religion prevents this, how can you not?
20. Pistachio ice cream - allergy
21. Heirloom tomatoes - Um, yeah. See also here and here.
22. Fresh wild berries - Definitely. Leetle teeny tiny ground-covering blueberries in the Cariboo are our current favourites; next to impossible to find, and getting more than a mouthful is a challenge, but so much flavour. Also try this lovely pie filling version for wild huckleberries.
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans - staple. With salsa, of course!
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche - I hope that gelato form counts?
28. Oysters - thought this one would be a strikeout if you'd asked about a year ago, but I've since been converted, at least to the deep fried variety.
29. Baklava - while everyone in my family adores it, I'm allergic (dratted nut allergy)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder - Manhattan & New England, and all sorts of other seafood chowder combos
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut - ugh. Cabbage.
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac
37. Clotted cream
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail - never again. So sick of ox tail stew from childhood experience. Ugh.
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects - probably have without knowing it, so won't eliminate it from the running
43. Phaal - not likely; not a huge curry fanatic
44. Goat's milk - not again if I can avoid it
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - mmmmm
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin - not again if I can avoid it.
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - not again if I can avoid it.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini - don't like gin & don't like martini's
58. Beer above 8% - "I live in Canada" - ditto
59. Poutine - "I live in Canada" - ditto
60. Carob chips - rather a shock as a kid; don't want to repeat it.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin - not on purpose, but it's probably in something I've eaten.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - "They should add beaver tails to this list" yeah, and whales' tails
68. Haggis - hopefully, I'll never repeat that event. Ugh.
69. Fried plantain - also barbequed / deep fried bananas are great, too.
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette - I think so?
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill - Probably wouldn't.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie - the things you try as a kid!
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong - love it.
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict - hate hollandaise.
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - well, rabbit - does it make a difference?
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse - not knowingly, but I did have non-duck "duck" in France, so maybe it was horse?
90. Criollo chocolate - maybe?
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor - don't like lobster
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake