Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[greybeard]

Last fall we went to the Syrup Festival in Henderson, Texas. They celebrate making syrup from sugar cane. They had a mule driven crusher mill and a big pan with a wood fire under it to boil the juice down to syrup. We bought 2 cans. I love that stuff. I have many childhood memories of going to my grand parents and feasting on my grandmother's biscuits and sorghum syrup. They bought it locally every fall.

@greybeard use that syrup in your pecan pie!

I've seen it done at my grandfather's place, from start to finish. Cutting the can, stripping off the excess leaves, getting the mill ready and the mule harnessed to it. Cooked off in long pans with baffles in them to move the juice from side to side slowly as it makes it way down the pan to the end. Skimming the residue off was a constant part of it.
Some people add sulfur to their ribbon cane syrup to retard it from sugaring up...getting too thick to pour..I prefer it not be in there.

You 'can' buy sugar cane juice by the 55 gal plastic drum from one of the cane mills in Louisiana. It's in Iberia Parish, about 30 miles south of Lafayette. You have to bring your own container. (this may have changed in recent years)
You can also buy sugar cane itself from the farmers right in the field, which is a lot cheaper than buying it from a farmer's market one stalk at a time.
It needs to be pressed and cooked down within 48 hrs at the most, otherwise, it will begin to sour quickly.

 

[Baymule]

That was a close one with Teresa's eye. You sure don't mess around with an eye injury. I'm glad she wasn't seriously hurt. I bet she has a whopper of a headache.

@greybeard what wonderful childhood memories of your grandfather cooking off syrup. I bet it tasted good too. I loved my grandmother's biscuits sopped in that syrup.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Ya oughta get a kick out of this then....

 

[greybeard]

You know it's almost harvest time in the cane fields when you see the sky full of smoke. They set fire to the fields to burn off the excess leaves. I've seen it done both ways..with the cane still standing while other times, they cut the cane down into long windrows and burn it that way.

Within a day or 2, the roads are full of slow moving cane buggies on their way to the mills...you also know it's harvest time because of all the smoke (steam) belching from the tall stacks at the mills and the sweet smell in the air. .

They haul it either straight to a mill or to a gathering point where it's loaded into bigger containers pulled by trucks to the mill. At the mill, the cane is first chopped into shorter pieces, then ground into even small chunks and then pressed. The dried stuff is called Bagasse and is just fiber, that most mills burn as fuel.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

Hope Teresa’s eye is okay! Definitely not something to take a chance with!

 

[RollingAcres]

Poor Teresa! I hope her eye is okay.

 

[Mike CHS]

We have been finding broken eggs in one of our coops and thought we had another possum and we also had a couple of hens getting out and finally found a spot where they had worked an area under a gate large enough for them to get out. This morning I heard them fussing and happened to see an armadillo trying to work past the fence post I had put on the ground. By the time I got my shotgun and got back out there he was at the limit of the range but I did manage to get a shot in. I hit him but never was able to find him when I went looking.

 

[RollingAcres]

You know it's almost harvest time in the cane fields when you see the sky full of smoke. They set fire to the fields to burn off the excess leaves. I've seen it done both ways..with the cane still standing while other times, they cut the cane down into long windrows and burn it that way.

Within a day or 2, the roads are full of slow moving cane buggies on their way to the mills...you also know it's harvest time because of all the smoke (steam) belching from the tall stacks at the mills and the sweet smell in the air. .
View attachment 48462

They haul it either straight to a mill or to a gathering point where it's loaded into bigger containers pulled by trucks to the mill. At the mill, the cane is first chopped into shorter pieces, then ground into even small chunks and then pressed. The dried stuff is called Bagasse and is just fiber, that most mills burn as fuel.

Wow that's quite interesting. I've never had cane syrup before.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

At IN State Fair, there’s a working historical display. It’s really neat. They have a barn built in that manner that houses animals appropriate for that time, volunteers dress in period dress, there’s a cane press with a draft horse turning it, a steam engine running a saw, etc.

 

[Bruce]

It wasn't bad at all but not something I would care for on a daily basis.

Me either. I can't do maple candy, too sweet. We only do "needs maple syrup" food a couple of times a month. I generally only make "hot breakfast" on the days DW doesn't work, which means Sunday. And most of the time it is omelettes. Of course in the winter when eggs are scarce, one batch of waffles feeds 4 with only 1 egg. Omelettes take 8 eggs.

Now I wouldn't touch the fake stuff unless I am out and don't have anything else.

No reason to lower your standards! Eat something that doesn't need syrup. Or factory farmed eggs. Oops, running out of options! Regardless, if I have to choose, there is ZERO percent chance I would eat something with fake maple syrup. I can do fruit syrups though. Corned beef hash is often an option.