Issue # 18 The Miscellaneous Adventures Digest
Issue # 18 The Miscellaneous Adventures Digest
Tapping the Sap and introducing Nature Happenings!
Firstly, happy spring! This week, we share tales of our birch sap collecting adventures. Plus we introduce a new section to The Digest: Nature Happenings, where we will feature something interesting, beautiful, useful or seasonal that we’ve seen or heard in the natural world each week, starting with one of Emma’s springtime foraging favourites, cleavers.
The Sap is Rising
This weekend we headed to the woods to take part in our favourite end of winter ritual: collecting birch sap. We have set out to tap the sap since I can’t remember when, even before we moved to the woods I think. For us it has become an important marker of change, an event that binds us so closely to the seasons, to the woods and to our favourite tree, the beautiful and extraordinarily generous silver birch. Is it a stretch to say it also helps us to feel connected to the whole of nature and even the cosmos? No, actually I don’t think it is. These cyclical events are adaptations to our precarious position in the universe, spinning off kilter around the sun. Infinite unfathomable universe aside, it’s also just a really fun, magical thing to do.
The sap starts to rise in birches from around the end of February and keeps pumping until the buds burst sometime around the end of March - there’s usually a short window of about 2 weeks when the trees are flowing at their fullest. Geographical and seasonal variation can be wild so an eye for what else is going on in nature is key for making sure you don’t let sap collecting season pass you by. We like to keep an eye on the buds of hazel trees which seem to start to open before birches and thus are a good indicator of arboreal activity. The sap seems to flow better early in the morning and then slows down again in the evening; it can take a full day to collect enough to drink so we rose early, packed tools, various receptacles and headed out in search of trees to tap. This was also a good opportunity to take our beautiful woven bottle sling out into the wild, made by the incredibly skilled, Lorna Singleton. Lorna asked us to test it out and give feedback before she makes a batch of them - we absolutely loved it!
There are several ways to tap trees for sap. The typical way is to bore a hole into the base of the tree and insert a carved wooden tap, down which the sap runs and drips into a kettle or similar. We have done it this way in the past, but always feel uneasy about the potential damage we could be doing to the tree. In recent years however, we have found that snipping a branch instead yields similar results without inflicting too much damage. Birches undoubtedly produce enough sap to tolerate losing some through injury; broken branches and damaged bark are all part of being a tree but care should still be taken and thought given when selecting trees to tap. Our preference is for medium sized, healthy looking birches with plenty of small branches around finger thickness to choose from. We only tap one branch on each tree and choose trees a good distance from each other to minimise impact.
The search for suitable trees is part of the joy and as with most experiences in nature, we typically find more than just birch sap on our collecting missions. On this day we also find frogspawn, a toad wandering across the path, willows with flowering catkins and notice a general uptick in the volume of birdsong amongst many other small things. After much scrambling through brambles, jumping over streams and finding plenty of birches with branches hanging just out of reach, we found three good trees on which to leave our little jars hanging. To check if the sap is flowing, we snap a tiny twig and see if a bead of sap forms, or take a knife and make a tiny puncture mark in the silver bark in the same way a woodpecker does.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve done it, the moment that the branch is snipped and the first drop of crystal clear sap begins to appear is enthralling. This simple act is a window into the processes that are happening unseen all around us. A key, unlocking one of nature’s secrets. Sap is rising steadily in birches, but in all other trees too, harnessing their stored reserves of energy in preparation for bud burst. They have sensed the time is right. Imagine the overwhelming number of unseen forces happening in nature right now. The stretching and squeezing, contracting and expanding, the divisions and unions of cells and the movements of myriad microscopic beings. It’s a lot to think about, but perhaps we should think about it more often.
But why bother harvesting the sap? Many people ask “What does it taste like?”. The simple answer is it tastes like ever-so-slightly sweet water. Perhaps like a pint of water mixed with a teaspoon of sugar. But in truth it’s much more complex than that. It has a certain freshness that’s hard to describe and is like nothing else. It comes out of the tree so pure and cold, full of goodness and vitality. You could boil it down to make syrup, or brew beer or vinegar or add it to your sourdough starter, but by far the best thing to do is drink it fresh, perhaps from a wooden cup carved from birch, and soak up some of nature’s wild spirit. Sometimes you can almost feel yourself becoming more treelike; stronger, rooted. I guess the taste is subjective, linked in part to how much you value the whole experience. I think that’s true for most experiences in nature; more and more I’ve realised that a deep connection to nature is based on how you think about the natural world and the way it makes you feel rather than the things you know about it. Although a little knowledge can be quite enlightening. More on that another day perhaps…
We left our jars hanging in the woods with the sap steadily dripping away and went canoeing on Coniston before heading back in the early evening to check on our harvest, full of anticipation. We found our jars, all nearly full of sap, glowing like lanterns in the woods backlit by the fading sun. I don’t think the trees are quite pumping at full flow, but I can’t tell if they are just getting started or if we have just missed peak tapping season. On some occasions we have collected over a litre from individual trees. Nonetheless, this was a good harvest - enough for all three of us to drink a cup of our favourite spring tonic and toast the end of winter and the coming of longer, brighter days.
If you have any tips you want to share, or questions to ask then please let us know!
Disclaimer: It is wise to get permission from the landowner before tapping trees, it is wiser still to ask permission from the trees.
Nature Happenings
Early spring is full of the joys of new green shoots appearing daily. I love to walk familiar paths and see old friends popping up, reminding me of all that is to come over the next few months, and I get particularly excited when I see the cleavers (Gallium aparine) emerge. Part of the bedstraw family, you can identify cleavers from their whorls of leaves which grow along a very sticky stem (hence one of its other common names, sticky willy). They like wastelands, edges of paths and fields and anywhere else they can get a foot (leaf?) hold. Starting small, they soon flourish and can take over entire hedgerows (another of its names, robin run-in-the-hedge) where over the year they slowly turn brown and set seed as sticky burs that cling to anything that brushes past them, thus spreading far and wide.
The reason I am so happy to see them each spring is because I love to make a refreshing drink from the stems and leaves. Cleavers are known for their ability to help clear our lymphatic system, helping brighten skin and flush away the toxins that have built up in our systems over winter. I drink it regularly for as long as the stems are vibrant green (from March - May) and can recommend it wholeheartedly.
How to make a cold cleavers infusion:
Pick a couple of hand fulls of cleavers (being careful not to pick anything else along with them), give them a quick clean, break the stems a little by twisting and scrunching them, and add to a jug of cold water. Leave in the fridge to infuse overnight and then drain and drink the next day. The taste has a mild cucumber flavour, wonderfully refreshing and full of goodness. Enjoy!
That’s all for this week! You can also catch us chatting all things nature connection, simplifying our lives, parenting, wild swimming (and more) in to the latest edition of The Do Good Podcast, do give it a listen over here.
As always, we love to hear from you in the comments, let us know if you’ve tried tapping birch or making a cleavers infusion - or if you have your own favourite spring rituals, we’re keen to build a community of likeminded folks here, so don’t be shy!
And, if you enjoy our weekly newsletter then please do share it with your own followers, friends and family - all word spreading is gratefully received!
Thank you and have a great weekend all.
Andrew, Emma and Benji
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Corrr, I have never tapped a birch but I would love to. Think I need to go with someone more experienced than me one year, definitely feel I'd need a guide for this one!
What an incredible thing to do and drink! I felt like I was on that adventure with you all and imagined the taste of the birch sap💚 You are so inspiring