EUREKA!!

Okay, it's not a total and complete Eureka!... it's a kind of, sort of Eureka! As the rain has continued to pour down on us, I have spent time trying to find additional crops for the little farm. I am trying to find a more perennial scheme. The plan is to plant once, have a minimal investment in maintenance and be able to harvest every year. That's the skeleton version of permaculture.

So, over the weekend I tried to make final decisions about what to do with hazelnuts. While doing that research over the internet, I found a site where the owner was making a call out for suppliers. He was needing various kinds of nuts, organically grown. He was also needing black walnut syrup. Of course, I'd heard of maple syrup, but never black walnut. So, more internet research.

This could work! I have black walnut trees. Just in a quick glance I counted seven that would be big enough to tap. It seems that sugaring can be detail oriented, but it certainly isn't rocket science. Equipment can be home made. I can do this! This could fill the hole as another cash crop for the little farm. The best part... I don't have to plant anything. The trees are there. They're ready! I have until spring to get an evaporator built and to find pans. Other then that, it is a matter of spouts and covered buckets, or milk jugs in a pinch.

There is a part of me that wants to get so excited about the possibilities that I find... another part, is the real fear that for the want of a couple of hundred dollars, I just won't be able to pull off a very workable plan.

Oh well, keep on, keepin' on. My life here is good. Better then it has been in many, many years. I think I've found the happiness factor. The last hurdle is the money situation. I'll keep looking and hoping and eventually, there will be that Eureka! moment and it won't be kind of , sort of.

Louie