The Old Homestead

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This week we had the chance to review the archives of the Pelham Historical Society. Our objective was to confirm the possible presence of an old homestead which may have previously been on the site of our current Victorian manor.

We have suspected this was the case for a few months now as we continue to uncover walls and foundations not original to the Victorian structure.

With the help of the president of the local Historical Society, Mary Lamb, we were finally able to not only confirm the presence of a homestead, but as well get the entire history of ownership of the land now in our possession.

To begin, Josiah Ward, son of a Quaker family originally from upstate New York, acquired this land in 1865. The Victorian home, which we now refer to as the Ward Manor, was built circa 1880.

From an old town map of 1862 , we were able to identify not only the location of the Victorian home, but as well the fact that some brick or stone structure indeed resided on this site prior to 1880.

Old Town map showing the location of the Ward home prior to the 1880 Victorian manor

1862 Town map showing the Lot of Robert Casselman and his homestead in the same location

It now remains for us to better understand how the old homestead evolved over time based on the foundations we have uncovered, and how the Victorian structure was assembled atop this old homestead (since it seems we clearly have some of the original homestead walls within the current house).

In the process, we were also able to identify the entire history of ownership for this land.

As recently as 1802, the site was still Crown land. "Patent" to the land was then transferred to a Ernest Martin.

It eventually had another four owners before coming into the hands of a Robert Casselman (a bit ironic since our glass gallery is called Scholaert Cassel; Cassel being my home town in Flanders).

It was Robert Casselman who eventually sold the property to Josiah Ward.

On the home front this week, our little nursery has surprised us. Less than a week after seeding, our Coir pellets are already showing various degrees of germination. In fact, some of our seedling will soon have to be transplanted into small pots.

Our sprouts, Broccoli and zucchinis after less than a week

To date we already have sprouting zucchinis, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, tomatoes, onions, leeks  and dill. Germination has started with the cucumbers, artichokes, and melons.

It is amazing how some of these tiny seeds are already creating some pretty sizable plants.

Some of our seedlings (in particular the peppers) do not seem to be doing much. In this case, we suspect we may have to get some heating pads.

As an aside, we have been living under some rather cramped conditions over the past few months. We are so tight for space that Christine decided to leave a Rutabaga on a window sill. The result is that the root started to sprout. Tristan and I are thinking of propagating this thing by taking two cutting like you would potatoes (we'll see what happens, but this means we might be adding Rutabaga to our family vegetable garden).

Christine's addition to the vegetable garden

With the colder weather we faced this week, the Maple sap has pretty much stopped flowing. This gave me a chance to carry out a final process to the inventory we had on hand.

As we were experimenting with temperature and viscosity, we were left with a variety of syrup "grades" (from very light to dark).

Furthermore, we found what is referred to as Maple "sand" in our jars. It turns out that Maple sap contains some minerals (calcium and magnesium nitrates). These tend to form into a sandy residue during the syrup making process.

Maple "sand"

We actually found the amount of "sand" depended greatly on the batch and it seems the tree location as well.

There are two ways of extracting this "sand". Maple syrup producers tend to use filtering (using a thick felt filter).

Not having this on hand, we tried a coffee filter but the pores were much too small to allow for the flow of the syrup. Instead, we used the second method: decanting. After a few days, the "sand" settles to the bottom of the syrup, so the process is just a matter of pouring the top layer of syrup slowly without disturbing the residue at the bottom of the container. We found this was much easier with colder more viscous syrup.

Using what we had on hand we finished our syrup by combining all of the decanted material into a large pot and taking it to a final boil. This provided us with a consistent batch which we then bottled using containers supplied by Atkinson (these guys have everything you could possibly need to process Maple syrup).

This actually pretty much concludes our Maple syrup experiment. The next week or two look very good for the production of sap so we will keep processing as much as we can. I suspect that by the end of the season, we will have a lot of syrup, not just for our own consumption but to hand out to friends and family.

On the farming front, we continue to do our barn Spring cleaning and this week Tristan was thrilled to find some old forged iron pulleys next to the barn foundations. So I leave you this week with a picture of his new treasure (I fear he's become a collector).