The sap ran, and then ran away!

News from the Sugarbush

We started the week with a very strong sap run, collecting 60 gallons of sap on Monday. Luckily, our RO system was able to get it down to 30 gallons of concentrate, which we were able to boil down to about two gallons of syrup on Tuesday. Things got a bit more challenging towards the end of the week, as the high winds started blowing our sap collection buckets around. We do our best to weight down buckets with logs or rocks placed on top of the lid, but with the wind gusts Friday and Saturday even that wasn't enough. We had to fish half a dozen buckets out of Buttermilk Creek, and at least one bucket seems to have escaped the campground for parts unknown. If you happen to see a white 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the lid rolling around town, please let us know where it ended up.

We also started trying to figure out our finishing filter and canning unit. This is another piece of new equipment this year, and was a bit of an impulse purchase when I was buying the RO system. In previous years, we've skipped the final filtering step on the syrup, since cloudy syrup still tastes good and a little sugar sand on the bottom of the jar never hurt anyone. But we've also had the occasional jar of syrup grow a bit of mold at the surface, and while that isn't dangerous either, it's understandably off-putting to most people. The new system will let us filter and can the syrup at a high temperature, making this year's batch more aesthetically pleasing and mold-free. We've got about 6 gallons of nearly-finished syrup at this point, so once we get the canner up and running we should finally have some finished jars to show off.

We're starting to run a little low on split kindling, so if you find yourself reading the news and wanting to smash things, consider coming down to the sugarbush and smashing some firewood. We have tools that make it fairly easy, and it's a great way to earn some syrup. Standard hours are 10am to 4pm Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It's impossible to predict how long the sap run will last this year, but running out of firewood would definitely end the season early.

We've got some nice up-and-down temperatures this week, so I'm hopeful that we'll get a good amount of sap. If the season and our kindling supply can hold out for another couple of weeks, I wouldn't be surprised to see us hit 8 or even 10 gallons for the season.

Other News of the Commons

Greenwave Initiative of Oceana County reached out recently and invited us to participate in their Earth Day event this year. It's going to be April 26th, 10am-2pm at the Oceana County Council on Aging in Hart.

We'll be doing a biochar demonstration, and because I hate letting heat go to waste, we'll also be making our first attempt at community soup stock. The idea is that people can save up their chicken bones and veggie scraps in a ziploc in their freezer over the next few weeks, and then bring them to the earth day event, where we make a giant pot of soup stock over the biochar fire. If you're interested in getting involved in this project, email stonesoup@montaguecommoners.org.

In the Broader Movement

Dance For Democracy Fridays are continuing to grow. We had gorgeous weather for it this week, and more than twenty people came out to join us. It's a great opportunity to blow off some steam, and it helps show people that they aren't alone in their discomfort with what's going on. If you'd like to join us, and possibly find a new favorite song, come to the Weathervane at noon on Fridays. We dance for half an hour and then go over to North Grove to write postcards to Congressman Moolenaar.

Solidarity This Week

A very broad coalition of organizers and organizations is calling for a national day of protest on April 5th to reject Musk's takeover. People around the country are organizing busses to DC, as well as organizing satellite protests in their own cities and towns. I'm still finding out what's in the works locally, but it's a good thing to have on your calendar. This is one of those cases where turnout can make a big difference. We need a massive number of people to show up and demonstrate to our elected representatives (especially national Democratic leadership) that the popular will is opposed to the big tech takeover of our government. By holding simultaneous protests around the country, we can demonstrate how big our numbers are, and disprove right-wing narratives about paid protestors being bussed around the country by George Soros.

If anyone has any old sheets that they aren't using, I'd love to make a couple more banners before the 5th. If there's enough interest, we could even meet up for a banner painting day.

Recommendation Corner

I just started a re-read of NK Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for some speculative fiction right now. She has a real gift for world-building, and her multi-layered approach to storytelling reminds me a lot of Octavia Butler. Her short stories are very good as well.

This Week's Nails

You made it to the end of the newsletter, so you get to see this week's nails! I'm still working on my swatching project, so it's another set of 10 different polishes. My cuticles have been getting destroyed by all the sugarbush work, but that's why I'm a community organizer and not a nail art influencer 😉