Crocus flowers are starting to sprout up around the yard — years ago, Anya and I planted crocus bulbs randomly throughout the front yard. Some have split into three or four plants already, and some are still single little flowers. We’ve even got some sprouting up elsewhere — maybe they’re spreading seeds too?
We collected nine gallons of sap with SG of 1.009 = 2.3 Brix
We ran all of the sap through the reverse osmosis system at 60psi and had sap with SG 1.011 = 2.8 Brix
We ran the concentrated sap through the reverse osmosis system a second time, this time at 80psi and had sap with SG 1.022 = 5.6 Brix.
The “pure water” output SG was about 1.003 — we re-ran this through the RO as well.
At the end of the day, we have about 4 gallons of sap at 5.6% sugar, another gallon from the “pure water” run that’s a lower SG, and four gallons of water that’s removed.
Notes for the future:
We’ve got all the bits and pieces to assemble our maple reverse osmosis system — four 150 gallon per day filters, a pre-filter, pump, pressure gauge, and a valve to control how much pressure we allow to build up in the system. Plus some tubing and connectors, of course!
The proto-ducks are in the incubator at March 13th — at 21:13. April 10th will be 28 days, so there should be tiny little ducklings.
We’re about to start incubating eight duck eggs, so I wanted to record the temperature and humidity settings that I’ve found for the chicken, duck, and turkey eggs (well, future turkey eggs! We managed to get five male turkeys last year)
| DUCKS | |||
| Start | End | Temp | Humidity |
| 1 | 25 | 99.5 | 55-58% |
| 26 | 28 | 98.5 | 65% |
| 28 | hatching | 97 | 70-80% |
| CHICKENS | |||
| Start | End | Temp | Humidity |
| 1 | 18 | 99.5-100.5 | 45-55% |
| 19 | Hatching | 99.5 | 65-70% |
| TURKEYS | |||
| Start | End | Temp | Humidity |
| 1 | 24 | 99-100 | 50-60% |
| 25 | Hatching | 99 | 65-70% |
It was something like 72 degrees today — which made for a good ducky day. I’ve been breaking the ice on the pond, and it was finally warm enough for them to go swimming. I’d filled a tub with warm water a week or three ago so they got to splash and clean up, but this was the first time they’ve been able to swim around since everything froze over in January.
The pepper seeds are in their little pots and (hopefully) will sprout in the next week or so. Anya put a few of her herb seeds into pots as well … but she’s got more seeds to start.
Next up, I want to get the broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, ground cherries, and tomatoes going.
We started soaking our first seeds for the garden this year — Anya has quite a few herbs getting ready to be started, and I have an assortment of peppers.
We were finally able to get the starplates to build a 1V geodesic dome for the new chicken coop. Super excited — and we’re going to have a lot of construction going on this year. A greenhouse tunnel for extending the growing season, a chicken coop, a duck coop, a pig shelter, and hopefully a sheep shelter too.
We’ve been getting double-yolk duck eggs — some are huge!
