Maple syrup

Subconsciously I suppose I always knew that maple syrup came from actual maple trees although the exact conversion process never entered my mind. That has all changed now. Martha's folks own 15 acres of land, a decent portion of it being hardwood forest, outside Waupaca, Wisconsin. We got married on that land and are eternally grateful to all that Fran and Marci did to make the "blessed event" be such a memorable day. We visit that land nearly every time we are in Wauapca. I say nearly because deer hunting season makes it off limits. Downtown Baghdad is a safer (and warmer) place than rural Wisconsin when deer huntin' is open. There may be more bullets flying in Baghdad but in Wisconsin there are guns mixed with beer, cheap beer, the kind of beer that is sold in 30 packs for $12 and drank first thing in the morning by both men and women. Yes, that kind of beer.

At the highest elevation and sitting on the western perimeter of the property Fran built by hand and without electricity a 500sqft shed. That was more than 25 years ago. Over time the shed fell to ruin but a few years ago he began to work on it and it is now a half cabin half workshop. It just might be his pride and joy. Should Fran and Marci ever lose their house to a tornado or be driven from town by a torch wielding angry mob due to their political leanings the shed would make a more than feasible new home, a fresh start. There is no internet or running water but $5,000 would be enough to have a well dug to address the water issue... and the internet, it can go to hell, what has it done for anyone lately? The shed is heated by a wood stove with infinite fuel being provided by naturally downed trees in the woods. The land is quite arable so with Fran's insatiable appetite for drudgerous and back breaking labor I would safely say that a parcel of non wooded land could be tilled, with a shovel of course, to grow enough crops to feed a small army. If the lust for red meat should ever darken the door of Fran and Marci then all they would have to do is pick off a few of the deer that graze on the land. Have you ever had freshly killed venison cooked on an open fire? Holy shit is all I can say.

There are hundreds of maple trees in the woods. There may even be thousands but I can't be sure. It's very possible that Fran has conducted a detailed trees census so he would be far better able to quantify the maple population than this urban reporter. Getting the sap, that once boiled down will become syrup, out of the tree is simple, almost so simple that it is counterintuitive.

Step 1: Bore a 9/16" hole about 3" deep into the trunk of the tree at waist height from the ground.

Step 2: With a hammer beat a metal tap into the hole. The tap is basically a piece of tubing that provides a pathway for the sap to run from the tree. While inserting taps myself, Fran and Pat Mahoney speculated that the Native Americans (Indians) could have used animal bones as taps. If the marrow was removed then the bone would function well as a tap. Depending on the size and condition of the tree multiple taps can be put in one tree. The law of diminishing returns applies though. Sometimes it is better to single tap many young trees than to multi-tap a few mature trees but what the hell do I know?

Step 3: Hang a large plastic bag on the tap so that the liquid sap can be collected in the bag.

Step 4: Retreat to Fran's shed and drink some Beck's beer, light the wood stove, eat thick slices of local cheddar cheese and handfuls of non local tortilla chips, be happy doing nothing other than getting lost in the sounds of wood crackling in the fire and the long and lonesome whistle of a passing freight train.

Step 5: Let nature do its work. The freezing nighttime temperatures and mild daytime temperatures stimulate the sap to run from the trees into the collection bags. It's the freeze-thaw action that only allows maple syrup to made in the winter. No, winter is not over yet. It's a six month season. The sap is nothing like the viscous sticky goo from a Christmas tree. Maple tree sap is pretty much water with a small sugar content. That surprised me but it does explain the 30:1 sap to syrup ratio. I tasted some of the sap to validate all the information that Fran and Mahoney were dispensing. No word of a lie was told that day.

Step 6: Consolidate the sap. The collection bags need to be emptied on an almost daily basis. This involves trudging through the snowy woods with 5 gallon buckets into which the sap is dumped. Once the buckets are full the sap collector (the sap mule) must reverse trudge out of the woods and dump the sap into a storage tank. Some trees produce nearly a gallon of sap per day while others produce fuck all. I think there are 100 tapped trees. I called Marci today and she said they had 300 gallons of sap in the tank! The sap output depends on the age and health of the trees but also on the location of the trees relative to the edge of the woods. This made no sense when Fran said it but I couldn't argue with the facts; the trees deep in the woods were pissing out vast quantities of sap while those on the edge were weeping out only paltry sums of the precious juice. Maybe it is natures attempt to maintain balance with man. If all tress delivered the same amount of sap then there would be no incentive for man to sweat. He would merely have to drive around the edge of the woods and make a journey of a few paces from maple tree to storage tank on back of pickup truck. Nature is smarter than you or I.

Step 7: Boil the sap. This is the end of the line for the weak sugar water that we know as sap. A large outdoor fire is built and a steel pan is set over the fire. The sap is teamed into the pan and boiled. The water content evaporates into the air and the sticky residue, the maple syrup, is emptied into quarter gallon jars. Fran has a 35 gallon boiling pan and from what I have heard it may take 24 hours to boil down all 300 gallons of sap. Two or more shifts of able bodied (but often drunk) adults are needed to manage "the boil". The fire must be kept so hot that the steel pan glows orange. Efficiency is improved by preheating the sap beside the fire so that it does not go to the pan full of ice chunks.

Step 8: Enjoy the fruits of the labor. The maple syrup can now be put on pancakes, used to baste ham, added to stir fry as a natural sweetener or given away as a gift.

I learn something valuable every single time I visit Wisconsin.

Paddy On The Road

Happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all! I hope you all got to quench your thirst and redden your knuckles today, God knows I did. T'was a fine day to be shure, divil a bit of doubt about it.

Actually, I cut my hand at work on a wire braiding machine so the cause of my wounds is not really that exciting. And while I'm in confession mode I might as well tell you I am not drinking today... because I drank all my beer on Saturday and Sunday. Ah feck it, I may as well keep digging my own grave here... I hate cabbage too, can't look at the crap. I'm the worst excuse for an Irishman, ever.

While leaving a moderately upscale St. Paul coffee shop yesterday evening with Martha and the youngsters I grabbed a copy of the Irish Gazette (LINK). It's not a bad free rag at all and does a decent job of communicating reasonably interesting and relevant snippets of information from the old country. Lest we start making comparisons to the New York Times let me make it clear that this publication is dangerously cheesy, but in an innocent and likable kind of way. My favorite section is "News from Ireland" (LINK), not for the content but for the practically derogatory illustrated character that appears at the top of the page.

I call him Paddy O'Shea. Let's enter Paddy's twisted world.

Paddy's house/hut
Shure, tis no more than a thatch cottage. The thatch looks decent but the lack of chimney, door or window is worrying. I know damn well there is a fireplace in there, so how does he deal with the carbon monoxide issue? Is he so tough that he is immune to toxic fumes? Nobody is that tough. Perhaps there is logic to the absence of door or window and the fumes leave the dwelling via those holes. But if that is the case how does he keep the rain and thieves out? The answer is simple but twofold; he has nothing worth stealing and he doesn't give a shite about the rain, it only makes him stronger (but emotionally weaker). No, that can't be it, doesn't add up. I give up. Like Paddy himself, the house is an enigma covered in pig shite.

Paddy's street
Badly paved road or depressing river of mud? Did the British take the road? I can't tell. Those wavy lines imply some kind of rutted mud track suitable only for ass and cart.

Paddy's attire
The quintessential Irish farmer's multipurpose suit. In that suit this man can bale hay, go to mass, fight, converse on ecumenical matters with the parish priest, down a half barrel of stout, dance like a lunatic, flawlessly impersonate Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (LINK), fix the PTO on a tractor, pick up women, beat women, herd cattle. Wait a second... tailored suit + heroics = James Bond!

Paddy
Standard Irish cap (in the process of being tipped to bid a neighbor/enemy a good day), big hands, twine possibly being used for a belt, full beard, one thick eyebrow, nervous demeanor, shy, legendary tea maker, poet, lover, work machine...

And now back to readin' me paper.

Meat Sweats

I pinched this text from a wikipedia article. I believe it is highly relevant.

Meat Sweats
A term used to describe a well known malady and byproduct of mass animal protein consumption.

Degrees of severity
Meat sweats are generally categorized on a scale of varying degrees starting at third degree, being a mild meat sweat, to a first degree meat sweat being very severe in nature. Generally, pork and chicken dishes will result in third degree meat sweats, depending on the gross amount consumed, and beef will result in a first degree meat sweat. A first degree meat sweat can result in a temporary debilitating condition causing one to feel symptoms of lethargy, depression and severe apathy. The spiciness of the meat consumed, in a counterintuitive outcome, does not necessarily increase amount of meat sweats that one experiences. This may have to do with the nature of meat sweats, which have a base of lipids rather than perspiration.

Meat Sweat Moans
Upon onset of severe cases of Meat Sweats, a hyper audible moaning or wailing sound has been witnessed by several parties. Although it can not be confirmed, many scholars maintain that this wailing is a direct result of mankind's mammalian instinct - and this moan is an innate trait used to warn off predators during time of mass carnal feeding.

The Death of Har-Mar

Martha took this shot of the Har-Mar movie theater (part of the Har-Mar mall) in Roseville one evening this week. It could be the last time we see this place. My feelings are mixed, but not 50/50 mixed, I'm leaning more towards displeasure. Yes, I got engaged there, in an old photo booth to be exact, and I'll miss the place but the building is far from beautiful. Ok, it may even be ugly but what will replace it I am sure will be simply disgusting and because of that I am obliged to mourn the loss of a place that actually stood out from the rest of the strip mall crap. The Har-Mar movie theater had class, not a ton of class but just enough class to get by.

Over the course of the last six months a dedicated team of workers have been methodically disassembling the Har-Mar movie theater. I know this because we go to the Har-Mar mall all the time, they have one of the best Barnes & Noble (LINK) book shops around, and with each visit we note the progress of the job. Now that I think about it I am confused as to why they are working so carefully. Most destruction jobs are brutal and quick. This one is a very special case, very clinical. First they stripped the light fixtures and all the seating out, then the bathroom fixtures, then the popcorn machines, then they rolled up the carpets, then they brought in a digger and broke up the concrete floors to get down to bare earth. Only when a hollow shell remained did they remove the massive (and incredibly tasteless) cheap glass chandelier.

Azure

I'm not sure why Martha doesn't care for this Polaroid that she snapped a few months back. I love it. I absolutely love it. It conjures up distant memories of warmer days, back in September of last year, before the snow and ice came down from Canada and cooped us all up indoors, like frozen shit-monkeys. Like you I am also confused as to what a shit-monkey is or why it seemed all too logical to say that. It is what it is.

I miss my (LINK) shed. It's off limits for now. Not even the 40,000BTU propane heater I bought was able to make it a remotely enjoyable place to be. Winter is really grating on me. Another month or so and it will fade thank God. Perhaps in a few years I will be able to insulate the shed enough for it to hold heat.

To hell with this crap...