The past couple of weeks, Maggie and I have been enjoying some relaxation and continuing education. Two weeks ago we made our annual pilgrimage to the Madison Garden Expo. We attended wonderful seminars on heirloom tomatoes and small scale grain growing, and bought pussy willow and corkscrew willow cuttings from farmers who, it turned out, live not too far from us in Soldier's Grove. The cuttings are sitting in a maple sap bucket filled with water, slowly putting out roots. Last week, the local chapter of the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association held their annual winter meeting. We did not win a door prize this year, but did get more tips on nursing bees through the winter. Gardeners and farmers make the most of winter's respite.
But now, it is back to work. March is an unbelievably busy month.
Despite snow on the ground, it is a good time for thinning trees. The weather makes for cool working conditions, there are not leaves or bugs yet, and the ground is still frozen to keep rutting to a minimum. We noticed several logging trucks on the road and loggers on a couple of properties in the area. I took down a few Ironwood trees, which are both native and invasive. Our woodland has not been well-maintained so we have quite a bit of Ironwood and Poplar. I once read that 77 is the average number of stitches required to fix a chainsaw injury, so it is not my favorite chore. On a more positive note, Ironwood supposedly makes a good media for shiitake mushrooms, so I cut ten logs and set them aside to haul back to the house for inoculation in April.
March is also the time to learn how many trees came down onto the trails in the woods without the help of a chainsaw. So far I have found three. Sometimes it seems a wonder that any trees are left standing after a winter of storms. One small tree managed to fall exactly onto a deer blind that belongs to a group of hunters we rent to. It will take some noodling on how to best get this one down. It looks like an ash tree, one of many we are slowly losing to the Emerald Ash Borer.
Despite swearing I would not tap maple trees until March, and with snow in the woods, I caved in and tapped the last weekend in February. With the purchase of a UTV last year, I put it to work hauling supplies to the back woods. I tapped 15 trees, which I think is a record for me, and all are Sugar Maples and not a mix of Sugar and Red Maple. Hopefully this will not be like last year's fiasco, where my tapping was followed by 2 weeks of cold weather and little sap. Today got into the 40s, so a good start.
My workshop continued to slowly take shape during the winter, with one addition being a white board I rescued from work as we were moving locations. I have a running to-do list, and work for March includes not only maple syrup, but getting the coop done, setting up a brooder for chicks, and starting the first batch of seeds (peppers). Looking at the list, I realized I needed to add fruit tree pruning. Even with 4 inches of snow on the ground, it is time to get ready for spring.
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