Tapping our Maple Trees ~ A Team Effort

Might be some snow today, and the sap is running!


This week we have been tapping trees in earnest.  Our goal is about 400 taps, and we don't want to miss a run, so we are starting earlier than usual.  For sap to run it must be below freezing at night and in the high 30's or 40's during the day.

We have WWOOF World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farm participants here. Two young women who are here for a few weeks to help with whatever needs to be done.  They have been eager to learn about producing maple syrup.

We first tapped trees with good sun exposure, which are likely to run the most.  This was trees along both sides of the road.  On the road we used the 2 wheel cart to haul tools and buckets. Christine, one of the participants at our Yarn and Yoga event, and Lee Ann, our regular helper both came to help for the day on Wednesday.  They both agred  it was loads of fun being outside on a beautiful sunny day treking through the snow to the maple trees.

We actually had two teams of 3 the first day.  One to drill the hole and insert the tap, another to hammer it snugly into place, and a third to put on the bucket and the lid.

Next we tapped the cow lane trees and the mid wall, along the edge of the fields. For this we used the sleds to carry what we needed.  Some of these trees are in clusters so we use tubing so that several trees drain into a single 5 gallon bucket.

And today it is snowing. This is a good thing as Bubba will be pulling the pung with the sap tank.  The pung is an antique rig with 2 sets of runners and a box and shaves. The box is big enough for 2 seats, but we take one of them off to make room for the tank.

The next day we did trees more into the woods and along stone walls.  To date we have put in over 300 taps.


Soon we will fire up our wood fired evaporator.  Here is a picture of Mary Ann last year showing a youngster how she keeps the fire fed. 








Maine Maple Sunday will be here before long....it is the 4th Sunday in March each year, so for 2013 it will be March 24.  We will be open at 8am for a pancake breakfast featuring fresh maple syrup and our own maple lamb sausage.  We expect another great team of helpers in the kitchen, lambs in the barn, and helpers to collect sap.

 This is a picture of the Maple Breakfast from 2012.  Good turnout indeed!

Our Sheep Needed a Haircut

Shearing Day 

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
10am to 4pm
All are welcome, no experience required
Pot luck lunch. 

 RSVP info@awrinkleinthymefarm.com
 Dress for the weather.

Shearing is, if possible, in the spring before lambing which results in a cleaner environment for baby lambs…. and in the fall when fleeces are extremely clean. In a short time the fleece grows long enough to keep the sheep warm in cold weather.  Also, lambs like to climb on their mother's backs, which makes the wool much dirtier when it is long. 
 
Cutting or shaving the wool off of a sheep is called shearing. It's just like getting a hair cut and shearing doesn't hurt a sheep.  Some sheep are sheared manually with scissors or hand blades. Usually electric shears are used because it is faster.

 A professional shearer can shear a sheep in less than 2 minutes and will remove the fleece in one piece. The world record for shearing sheep is 839 lambs in 9 hours by Rodney Sutton of New Zealand (2000).  In many countries, including the United States, there is a growing shortage of qualified sheep shearers.

Sometime we shear our own sheep, but when there are more than twenty to do we have Jeff, a professional sheep shearer.  We usually shear about every eight months because our sheep fleeces would be too long for local mills to spin if we sheared once a year as was traditionally done. 



Mary Ann shears a few sheep at a time in between when fleeces are too short on shearing day and will get too long before the next one. This time our shearer, Jeff Burchstead, arrived around 10am, cleaned his boots with a bleach solution and cleaned his shears with a disinfectant. He takes this work very seriously and pays careful attention to biosecurity.

 
On shearing day this time rounded the sheep up into the back of the barn and had sorted the white ones out to a separate area (white sheep are usually done before gray, and gray before black).  We also had cleaned up the hind ends and picked the sticks and hay off their fleeces.  Because our sheep have been rotationally grazed on pasture and out in the rain their fleeces were very clean this time.

We had a great team of fiber people to help. In the barn Kalyn and Barbara guided the over to the shearing area.  Kathy recorded the number and name of the sheep.









Jeff shears sheep very efficiently with electric shears. Jeff likes to establish a rhythm with the shearing and enjoys connecting with each sheep and the process.


  

After each sheep was shorn Mary Ann guided them to the back of the barn, put betadyne solution on any small nicks that were noted. Because our shearer is skilled and careful it takes a little more time and nicks are few and small. As each sheep was returned to the flock there was lots of talking amongst themselves.  I think maybe they don’t recognize each other as the look so different without their fleeces.


Robyn swept up the undesirable wool including bellies, top knots, and manure tags.  This wool is set aside to be used to make manure tea for the garden or mulch for the blueberries.  Janet labeled the bags with the date and name of the sheep. At one point she commented about how organized and calm the shearing process is at our farm. 


It is nice when the fleeces come off the sheep’s back in a single piece though some of our fleeces are very open and end up as separate locks.    Marty carried the fleece to the skirting table where a team of 4-5 people skirted the wool and put it in a labeled paper bag. 







Skirting
It was hot!  Over 90 degrees, and the sun would have been brutal without the tent we used to make shade. To produce high quality fleeces are skirted fresh of the sheep’s back. Skirting involves removing undesirable parts of the fleece.  

  VM vegetable matter or hay and chaff. The VM is picked out by hand. Second cuts (pieces too short to spin), wool that has been rubbed felted, matted or "cotted" is removed too.  are also removed.  After the neck wool is removed, you look for the tail end. The wool with manure is removed and placed in a bag to be used in the garden as manure tea. As this was done each fleece was evaluated for length of staple, softness, crimp, cleanliness, and other qualities


At the end of the day
By 3 pm we had shorn 25 and the fleeces were all nicely skirted and each one in a labeled bag.  The sheep in the field looked much more comfortable on such a hot day.

The next step is to determine weigh the fleeces (our sheep produced 88 pounds of wool this time), evaluate which are best for hand spinners, roving or yarn and washing the fleeces using solar hot water.  I have to say, our sheep have produced incredibly soft and beautiful fleeces.