That property gives us many things. The three, hunters all, go up in November to hunt deer, so our freezer is invariably full of venison. I'm iffy on the idea of eating Bambi, but free meat is free meat, so I've found recipes that let me (and my step-daughters) pretend that Bambi is actually Bessie.
In an effort to attract more deer to the property, the brother who owns it plants turnips, beets and other deer favourites. Sometimes in the fall, these veggies find their way into our house and grace our table, sometimes even beside a deer, er, cow, that they were intended to lure.
My favourite gift of that land comes in this time of year: maple syrup. In pictures:
A fantastic shot by my husband, capturing a single sap droplet falling. I confess to drinking straight from the bucket... the sap is cold and refreshing, and only very slightly sweet.
After only two hours, there was a good 2" of sap collected.
There's a collection of older metal pails as well as the newer plastic ones. All in all, they have about 80 trees tapped; not enough for commercial purposes but enough to keep most of the family in syrup for the entire year.
The trees aren't on lines, so collection is manual. The snow was still deep so it was good wet fun slogging up to the buckets and back.
Knitting while waiting for the day's boil to complete...
The finished product... many liters of sap later. It is sooo good!
Ooops! Boiled too far... a tasty mistake.