Homesteaders with Horses
(Page 2 of 4)
February/March 2007
By Jessica Klick
When I moved here, I signed up for a driving clinic in Brattleboro, Vt. At the end of the five-day course, I could get the harnesses on and off and hitch up the horses with confidence.
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Makin’ Maple Syrup
In the early spring, we use the horses to collect sap for maple syrup. We don’t sell our syrup. We make it for fun and for our own use, and we invite friends and family over to help and to socialize.
When a tree is big enough to be tapped, we drill a small hole in the tree, put a spout into the hole, and then hang buckets to catch the sap. When the sap starts running, we hitch the horses to a sled that holds the gathering tank, and drive our team down to the sugar lot. Whenever we come upon full buckets, we stop the team and empty the sap into the tank.
Millie and Donna are old hands, and they know the job as well as we do. John and Louisa are starting to learn the routine. We simply walk up to the full buckets, and say, “Step up!” and the team hauls the tank up to where we’re standing so we can empty our buckets. When the tank is full, we empty it at the sugarhouse on our property (see photo), where our sugaring partners, Melvin and Peggy, boil the sap down to syrup. In a good year we might produce 50 gallons of syrup.
Growing our Food
Ted is the caretaker of the horses, and I am the caretaker of the garden. I like to search through catalogs to find the tastiest, most unique and most nutritious varieties that grow in our climate. I’ve decided that if I’m going to make the effort to grow my own food I might as well reap all the taste and health rewards I can.
I love making salads with unusual greens: purslane is a very healthy green; Italian dandelion produces well all season and has a bitter taste that we like; and sorrel adds a lemon flavor to salads. I grow plain old lettuce as well. My favorite varieties are ‘Speckles’ and ‘Devil’s Tongue.’
For winter storage, we keep our potatoes and squash in a cool room, but we freeze most of our produce. My husband does most of the food processing. He bakes pumpkins and stores them either as frozen pies or puree. He also freezes a lot of tomatoes after removing the seeds and skins. He blanches other veggies such as beans and peas and freezes them, as well as homemade soups. (We really need to get a backup generator in case of power outages.)
