More Signs of Spring

We're getting a snowstorm today. Owain has a snowday and Gwynneth just got a call that her evening class is cancelled. Spring in Vermont is very much a two-steps-forward-one-step-back proposition.

But never mind what the weather is doing outside, inside it is spring.

I have started tomatoes, broccoli, onion, some herbs, and some flowers. I'm going to plant some cabbage and kale when I get the chance.

My makeshift greenhouse is my south facing bedroom window. I have some very bright lights to add supplemental lighting and seed flats. It's a very warm window, so I haven't needed hot mats. The biggest dangers are the marauding kitties who like to snack on green shoots (Uh, you know you guys are carnivores, right?).

Starting seeds this way has been a hit or miss proposition for me for many years. It's much more cost effective than buying plants in the spring and for many plants it is impractical to direct seed them in a climate with this short a growing season.

I have always wanted a nice garden. We're getting there, but the problem has always been that so many other things demand attention. I've got a million projects around here in various stages of being finished. Largely because I learn as I go.

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I learned none of this growing up. Every skill I have that requires working with my hands, I learned as an adult. Plumbing, woodworking, gardening, animals--all of it. I learned using books, websites, neighbors and trial and error. Sometimes when we hire a professional, I sort of hang around watching what they do and asking questions.

I have this thing about liking to work by myself. The complete opposite to Bryan. I think I always fear that people will judge my work. Like spring in Vermont, my skills are sometimes a back and forth proposition. A lot of it I end up ripping out and doing over, but my mantra is always "It goes easier the second time."

For all of my homesteading stuff, I have to be willing to do it over. I can't get too invested in how much effort I put into something, because then it's just too heartbreaking when I inevitably need to redo things. I suppose there's a certain Zen to it. 

I am convinced that anyone can learn anything, given the time and the right books. I'm certainly a good example--the first thing I ever built was when I was in my thirties.

The snow will stop coming down soon and tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. This is what they call a "sugar snow" because it makes the trees produce more sap. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring by the calender and astronomically, but it'll be another few weeks until the ground is thawed enough to plant anything outside.

In the meantime I'm tending my little seedlings.

Sugaring

No matter what the calender say, spring starts in Vermont with two things: seeds and sugaring. The seeds are planted in flats, protected from drafts, put under lights and carefully nurtured. The sugaring requires a drill, some buckets and lots of time.

I love sugaring. There's something really pleasant and contemplative about watching water boil and turn into liquid heaven. The only reason to make pancakes to me, is that they are a maple syrup delivery device.

The sap buckets sprout on the trees long before the snowdrops, but the weather has turned. Even if we get a cold snap now, we are aware that it will only last a day or two. The snow has taken on the specific texture that skiers say they enjoy and I warn the kids not to make snowballs of to hit their father.

Winter is shrouded in silence or it roars with wind. Spring announces itself with song, even before the birds return. In the sugar bush the sap drips into the galvanized steel buckets creating a high pitched musical plink.  A dozen of these on a sunny day sounds like a couple of people riffing on high pitched steel drums. The base line is provided by the stream that is a chuckling  then a roaring as the ice breaks up.

We have snow on the ground up here in the mountains, but it's mostly gone on the valley floor.

My neighbors for whom sugaring is a commercial exercise are up and down the street with their tractor and our grey muzzled dogs play together, running up and down the trails.

Maple sugar is a wonderful thing. It is the only form of sugar that does not lend itself to the Plantation System. A sugar  bush can only be tapped for about 6 weeks out of the year. The rest of the year the maples just grow happily in their forest with only minimal help and protection from humans.

Sugar Maples are only found in North America. From Cornell University:

Distribution and Habitat: Sugar maple is one of 148 maple species found in the Northern Hemisphere, which includes about 90 native and introduced species in the United States. The range of sugar maple in North America extends from Nova Scotia and Quebec at its northern edge, west to Ontario, southeastern Manitoba, and western Minnesota, south to southern Missouri, and east to Tennessee and northern Georgia (Figure 2). Sugar maple is most common in New England and the Great Lakes states as well as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Yes, it is expensive, and likely to get more so. Due to the recent warm winters, the season has been growing shorter, especially for the valleys.

Sugar maples can be grown in other places, but they will not yield sap without the specific weather available in these specific parts of North America. Thomas Jefferson apparently tried to sugar in Virginia, to no avail. In order for tapping to happen, there must be warm sunny days and freezing nights.

Maple syrup can be boiled down into dry sugar and stored almost indefinitely  The chief component is sucrose (like table sugar), with very little fructose, which is being implicated as a culprit in obesity.

There are no GMO maple trees (yet) and since the trees are North American, there's no need to look for the free trade label.

Soon, the snow will be gone and we'll be into the planting part of the spring, until then, I'll be busy watching water boil.

The End of The World, Again.

I keep saying that I'm not prepping for the end of the world, just the end of my world

Here in Vermont, many people's safe ordered worlds have ended.  Property damage is bad in many areas.  A friend in  Upstate New York tells the story of a co worker who now has nothing left but the scrubs in her car and the pajama's she was wearing when the Sheriff banged on her door, yelling "You have to evacuate now!  Not ten minutes from now!  NOW!"

I read a statistic that said that, after a major disaster, 40% of small businesses fail.  I see farms that just won't be able to make it past the crop failure this year,  business that will just have to shut their doors and be done with it.

I also see homeowners who, without flood insurance, will just say "screw it" and  never return to their home, maybe moving in with family or friends.  The saddest part is that some of these people TRIED to buy flood insurance but were told, "No.  Your house came through the 1927 flood.  No way it's going to flood now."

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic, but all I have to do is talk to my friends in Louisiana to feel that I am not.  An area with no road access is called a "wilderness".  Going by this, we've got more a bit more wilderness today than two weeks ago.

The political bullshitting has already started, with Congress creatures from both sides wondering where the money is coming from.  I got an idea...How about we start means testing Congress creatures?  Like we do with other government program?  If you are worth more than $1 million, how about you donate your Congressional salary to a fund for recovery, rather than taking it out of Medicaid funds? And if you're a pauper, living just on your Congressional salary? How about you donate 100K out of it.  I'm sure you can get by on 50% (roughly) more than what the median US income is (median income is 42K.  Congress creatures make about 175K).  That'll give us 5 to 7 million to get started with.

Better yet, let's go back to taxing the rich at 90%.  That's how we built all those freeways in the first place.

I'm just ranting because I'm frustrated.  In the end, it isn't even about how much money there is or is not.  This is the new normal. I keep hearing that phrase.  Usually with a shrug and a "What are you gonna do?" sort of gesture. Disasters will happen, because they always happen.  People will get on with their lives, doing what they have to do.   In three days time, we're on to the next news item.  If CNN's really lucky, some celebrity will do something egregiously embarrassing, and they can stop talking about disasters for a while.

When that palls, they'll move on to the end of someone else's world.

Don't come to Ripton today.

This from the Ripton Fire Dept:

Route 125 from both East Middlebury and from Hancock are closed.  Route 7 in East Middlebury is closed. Old Town Road is closed.

The rest of the roads are somewhat iffy.  

Waiting for Irene

We just hightailed it back form visiting friends in Virginia, yesterday.  We didn't want to risk being caught up in the evacuation crowds, nor did we want to leave the homestead for as long as it might be if we rode out the storm with our friends in VA.

So, we're mostly set.  Three days worth of water for each person.  Food for a week (for animals and people). Doing laundry, in case we lose power. Got a power invertor to charge laptops.   Repairing a window so its done.  Picking up the yard.

What worries me: Wind ripping up corn.  Trees falling on chicken coop.  Trees on house.  Hopefully, that won't happen.

Best of luck to everyone on the East Coast.

Thoughts going out to the Midwest

My thoughts go out to Joplin Missouri as they face their second day of tornadoes.  I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like.  We had a couple of close calls when we were in Shreveport, and Michigan is also tornado country, but we have never had a stretch of weather like this spring.

Yesterday, someone emailed me pictures from Iowa and Louisiana of towns that were flooded by the Mississipi.    All the buildings will need to be rebuilt, but because of the advanced warning, no lives were lost.

Hoping the rain dies down and the wind stops.