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Tag Archives: natural living

Birch Sap Harvesting

Thing 1 is taking botany this year for her science. She’s been wanting to try out tapping birch trees to harvest their sap for a while now. This past weekend she got her chance.

Our days are longer and warmer but our nights are still plenty cold. Perfect time to tap a birch. I bought some tree taps at the farm store last week and two new 2 gal buckets with lids. Once we got to the cabin she went out, drill and supplies in hand.

The “Slow drip” tree in the foreground.

She settled on two old trees, one next to the sauna, the other up by the smoker. Taps in place and smaller buckets hung catching the few drips that morning. As the day went on, the sauna tree seemed to be the better producer.

She went out and checked late afternoon and wow! Full bucket in the sauna tree! Holy smokes it works!

Overnight the temps fell and we froze up solid. The “slow drip” tree froze up but the sauna tree had overflowed it’s bucket!

Slow drip, froze solid.

We broke off those sapcicles and ate them. Nature’s “Otter pops”!

All in just over 24 hours she got two gallons of birch sap. Impressive for her first try!

Now begins the process of cooking down the sap for syrup. I’ll let you know how long that takes!

Sauna tree’s cup runneth over.

Time to go so she whittled some birch twigs to fit the drill holes to plug the trees. Covered that with duct tape of course. And thanked the trees for their donation to our diet.

Lucky 13

I don’t know what all the fuss is about the number 13. It’s always been normal for me.

It warmed up and rained on all our fresh snow last night which made for an ice rink in our driveway and a one-way only hill.👇🏼 So we stayed home from service. Enjoying a relaxed start to our day. Hopefully catching up on much needed rest.

Since I fully stocked the kitchen yesterday I feel like making all the foods. Eating all the fruits. And making some sort of bougie NA, no added sugar drink. I’ve got grapefruit seltzer, grapefruits… Hmmm. Off to check Pinterest for recipes.

Here it is, fresh squeezed grapefruit, juice of half a lime, salted rim and grapefruit seltzer over ice. Tasty!

Cold sandwiches and leftovers for lunch.

Pizza for dinner.

Life is good.

Little Phoebe

Did you know that Little Phoebe means the cardinal number 5? I was today days old when I learned that. 🤓

I’m five days in y’all and I really just want a cookie and a glass of wine.

I’ll have butter chicken & iced tea for dinner instead.

I haven’t noticed any real changes, other than the aforementioned desire.

Ditch the Sugar

It’s been a long time since I did a sugar cleanse, must be 20+ years! Whoa!! I think it’s time to overhaul my diet again.

Our diet changed drastically when we moved to Alaska almost 9 years ago. Being a newbie I was unaware of local buying clubs and honestly, didn’t have the cash flow to buy in bulk anyway. I tried to maintain a few constants like whole grains and no sugar but…. sugar crept back into our diets as did white rice.

Change happened gradually but mostly due to finances & Dean having a sweet tooth didn’t help. He often brought candy home to the kids in our early years here. They were thrilled, I was not. Also, cooking with natural sweeteners only is quite expensive here. What I used to buy a gallon of honey for will only buy a quart here, if that. Maple syrup is pretty expensive too. So unbleached sugar has been a regular part of our diet for several years now.

I’m planning 30 days w/out refined sugar, HFCS, alcohol, and all that stuff. Maybe a week of no sugars, fruit included, to jumpstart the process. Then I’ll add whole fruits back but leave the rest of the sweets alone.

Oy. Can I do it? I feel like I need a huge grocery shopping trip to prepare myself! Stock up on protein snacks and unsweetened beverages.

Also, I picked up a rectangle loom at the thrift store last week to start loom knitting again so I have something to keep my hands busy.

We’ll see how it goes. With a house full of sugar eaters and bakers… I’m sure it’s going to be a challenge!

I know that I will feel better and that’s my encouragement!

The plan is to start tomorrow, MNO with the Solstice Sisters tonight. Wish me great success!!