Codman Maple Syrup

At Codman Farm, we've begun collecting sap from trees and putting the sap in the evaporator. An evaporator is like a big stove where the sap can sit and the fire below it boils all the water out of the sap. When there is no more water boiling out of the sap, whats left is called the condensed sap, and that is then boiled on a regular kitchen stove and filtered. What comes out of the filter is the final product of maple syrup. The down side to making maple syrup is that you have to constantly feed the fire and it takes 40 gallons of sap straight out of the tree to make one gallon of maple syrup. Yesterday I took home a small cup of Codman Farms' first pint of maple syrup and it is delightful.

Last Lambs

There were two sheep who had yet to give birth until last week. One mother gave birth to two lambs, both surviving. Unfortunately, the other sheep went into labor but her cervix did not dilate. This forced the farmers to make a quick decision on whether to perform an expensive Caesarean section which wouldn't have been clear if the mother would have survived, or to put the mother down. The decision was to put the mother down because we didn't want to spend money on a procedure that would most likely not work. Last year, the same thing happened to another sheep and they spent the money on a Caesarean section and both mother and lambs died.