Mike, I’m not sure tar paper will be much help at -30 F. I also need to be mindful to keep the snow clear from the opening.
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Mary and I went out today to see if there was a market for Birch syrup. It was a rainy day, so gardening wasn’t going to happen.
We went to 6 places, had the head chef or owner sample the syrup and 5 out of the 6 purchased from us on the spot. At $240/ gallon I’m going out tomorrow to tap more trees.
It has such a unique and interesting taste, it was fun to see the expressions when these people tried it. I wasn’t expecting such a reaction. Understand, it’s labeled a syrup but can’t even come close to comparing it to Maple syrup. It’s more of an enhancement for food. Much like vanilla extract is. I think as a glaze for chicken, pork and fish, especially salmon.
This is virtually new in the lower 48 states. Alaska, Canada and Russia has been making this for a while.
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They used to make it in lower northern penninsula in Michigan. I knew a guy who made it as a kid growing up, but he came from a very poor family. I am not sure it was a common practice though.
You can make really good money at it, but it is a lot of work, and it is probably a good niche for your operation. I would be looking for a sap pan (or a great excuse to buy a big brake) and a bunch of other things to turbocharge your rig. It is a lot of boiling. lol
Legally they can’t call it honey anymore if they do that. A lot of it was done by large commercial operations to thin it, and keep it from crystallizing on the shelf. Mostly imported honey from Mexico. It is very similar to what Aunt jamima and Log Cabin used to do with Maple Syrup. They mixed in various amounts (it was a decreasin percentage over the years) of maple syrup, and the rest was essentially corn syrup and sugar water. Even the syrup they used was “buddy” bitter syrup. They changed the laws so they couldn’t market it as maple syrup any longer. Now, they don’t even contain any maple syrup, it is all artificially flavoured. Part of that is due to banning of paraformaldehyde so you can’t keep the holes open as long so you can’t run later into the spring.
We used to heat ours, not even very hot, it was on double boilers even. just hot enough to make it run through a filter to get the wax out, you don’t want to melt the wax. I doubt it killed any fungus or bacteria. You can let the wax settle to the top, but we processed and bottled about 1-2k lbs in one day.
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I started a page on Facebook called, livingoffmyland.com
It is all about discovering my freedom in northern MN.
My wife and I have been foraging what we can find on our property and turn them into jams, jellies and syrups to sell at local farmer’s markets and online. Currently we are having a hard time just keeping up with two markets per week so we will wait until the fall and winter to promote online sales.
I am having difficulty calling this homestead a farm because the accountant and insurance company wants to know what crops we grow or animals we raise. I explain we just use whatever is in the woods, they both let me know they don’t have a category for that. We have made jams and jellies from edible wildflowers that bloom on a weekly basis. Uniqueness and having people able to taste before they buy has been key.
We are currently on track to make about $3000/mo from what we forage from the woods and sell at farmer’s markets. This doesn’t include online sales. Now we have to decide if we want to continue at this pace. So far we are having fun. If it becomes ‘work’, then a reevaluation will be needed.
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Tell them you make fruit (syrup), livestock (honey bees) and vegetables (edible flowers).
Funny you mention that Bill, I remember when gardening became a job and I didn’t like it any more. I had to do something else for money so I could enjoy gardening again. But you seem to be doing very well. Stick with it. Nothing better than being at home living rather than being away from home making one…
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Yes, I did mention that Billy. They called it a hobby. Apparently a dollar amount will change it from a hobby to making a living.
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I assume you are promoting online sales at the farmers markets, by handing out like fliers or business cards so you are doing some promoting. 
By definition of the tax code, you aren’t growing and selling “agricultural and horticultural commodities” thus not a farm by the taxcode. Processed goods don’t count.
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I imagine that Sean is right about the definition. But I’m pretty sure honey production would qualify at some volume level. Did they tell you what level that might be? I am curious how they measure that…How much profit does a business have to make before it is a business.?
Luke has been doing guest speaking in all the bee keepers’ orgs lately about different laws related to bees. One of the newer ones, as I understand it, is that bees are legally considered livestock now in AL. Gives bee keepers a stand against telephone companies, etc that want to spray their rights-of-way. Also makes it more possible to insure their hives. But all those definitions are different state to state I think.
Another one he has been pushing here lately is a shield liability law to protect bee keepers from being sued by someone who gets stung by a bee. As it stands now a person can sue the nearest bee keeper if they get stung. I think West Virginia is the only state so far that has passed it (but I could be out of the loop on that). He’ll be giving that speech on Thursday this week at the state competition…
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Indeed, this is a funny one depending on who askes. Why they ask. And for what purpose they ask.
From ~2006 to 2012 I maintained a state registered business name of, 'Ma Natures Farms.
I intended to cut and sell firewood; mill-cut custom dimensional lumber from our own-owned DF trees; seasonally holly swatches w/berries; and expand into cultured brown truffles.
The 2008 melt down wiped out the custom dimensional lumber sales.
I took pity on the young builder-bob’s, good’ol boys out of work with just a pickup truck and chainsaw hustling firewood to feed the kids by 2009. Then due to too many of them shorting wood cords-sales our State Department of Weights and Measures (part of out State Patrol) stepped in demanding state business licensee’s and sent in sales revenue reports in addition to just weight and measures compliance.
My state revenue laws say I must “farm” produce at least $300. an acre per year for 3 in every 5 running years to be a legally recognized farm. And I started getting annual “mandatory” you-must questioners from the Federal Dept of Agriculture for me to list out all my “farm activities and resources”.
Three tries in different ways of inoculating for brown truffles did not take.
So . . . I went out of the 'Ma Natures Farms business.
Then there was liability insurance considerations/expenses I had skipped by.
And our County Assessor had disallowed our acreage as property tax Farm reduced for not having any fields or livestock showing up on their aerial photo survey.
No longer active “farming” was why I then had the time and resources to woodgas-for-power pursue.
An overlooked unregulated activity here . . .
so long as you don’t make burn-ban times smokes . . . get caught violating/raping regulated installed emissions systems . . . bump into our State’s “Wood Heating Devise’s” restrictions regulations.
Ha! At least without the truffles coming to fruition I avoided the food-purity policing regulations to the public!
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Honestly Sean, I don’t have enough time to handle any business from online sales right now due to the amount we need to make in order to keep up with our markets. Maybe this fall. This year we are just testing products to see what people like. I haven’t even had time to do any wood working to see if any of that would sell.
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I guess I often forget just how spoiled we are here in AL. Much less regulation than in so many other states. They do make us get a grower’s permit now in order to take products off the farm to sell. That’s a new thing sorta. But if you produce it on the farm you can sell whatever you want… except marijuana I guess.
There used to be some regs about selling tobacco, but no one cares any more. Same thing with the cotton sale laws. There was a time 80 years ago when you couldn’t haul cotton in certain counties etc. Kind of like hauling fire ant hay through Florida when the ants first arrived. But now there’s not enough cotton to matter anyway…
Hey, even moonshine laws have lightened up a lot. Gov’t is encouraging more stills to help the economy…as long as folks pay the taxes.
They just lightened up the cottage industry laws so we can sell canned food, baked goods, etc. products without a health dept inspected kitchen. Still have to have it if you are selling meat, sausage, etc or doing butchering for people.
But we don’t even have to collect any sales tax on products produced and sold on our own “homestead exemption” property. Don’t pay property tax on “homestead” land…at least not much…
So where do we get hit? Sales tax. Everything here has sales tax. food and all.
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My brother in law from California came to visit me with his Son that just finished college at UCLA and heading to Japan to teach.
We were walking to show him my potato and onion garden and suddenly he bends down and pulled a weed from the path. He asked me if I knew what it was and told me to roll it in my fingers and smell. It smelled like pineapple. Now I recognized this weed since I was a little kid yet I never knew this. So this week I looked the weed up and found out it was wild chamomile. So I decided to make a syrup from it. Wow, it’s really good. So, we’ll see if the people like it too.
Now I watch where I walk, even on my driveway being care not to step on weeds.
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So how do you make syrup, boil the heads in sugar water until thick?
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From my understanding, to extend the shelf life it needs to have a sugar content of 66-67% sugar content.
To maintain the benefits of chamomile I don’t allow the water to boil. I steep the heads in hot water. I used 1 cup of the chamomile heads to 2 cups of water. Because of the density of the heads, I did this 3 times. I strained the heads with a flour sack towel. I then reheated to about 170 degrees and added sugar slowly, about 3 cups. Sometimes it needed to be reheated to dissolve all the sugar. Then I went through the canning process.
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Don’t give away all your secrets, Bill, you are on to something here! 
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I know you are kidding around Mike. Really, everyone shares their secrets here on DOW, I hope I can contribute too.
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The federal government backed away from moonshine laws and eased the process of getting a permit like 10-15 years ago. It was designed to help people make it easier for people.
The problem stems from the Reagan era “Corporate America”.The large corporation bought up all the smaller regional brands, and it was almost impossible to get a small local brand started. So there were no local brands to fill the void. Then a lot of the corporate brands were purchased by foreign companies. The smaller voids were filled with foreign brands because corporate america didn’t want to deal with small quantities. It is a problem that exists in every sector.
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I understand. Online sales are a pain in the butt, but setting up at farmers markets can also be time consuming, and expensive.
Now that posted that it is good and the recipe. I have a whole field of chamomile and other weeds that I was just going to mow down after the butterflies quit using it. But now, I can make vast quantities of sugar water and flood the market. lol Seriously, I might try to make some and it might make a good gift. Thank you for sharing.
I started to read to my daughter, and I got tired of childrens stories so I put her to sleep reading about various topics. Herbs was one of them. And a chamomile, plantain, and ground ivy were used as an healing balm. However, I think she is more interested in crayon make up.
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Hey Bill, I did you try calling it a productive forest.vTat is what the county calls mine for tax purposes.
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