Have you ever heard of Birch Water? It is also known as Birch Sap. The first I ever heard of it was just last year when shown how to collect it. We actually did a different technique than what I did just now, but its not possible to do that with the trees we have here. There are actually just 2 silver birch trees on this piece of land but they are big ones at least. Its nice to be able to walk in the forest without falling into snow pockets on the ground! Enjoy some pictures of the piece of land and cabin that we occupy. I shall also do a "Tour of the outside" when the snows gone and we have tided up - something im not looking forward too!
The way I learnt last year is to take small plastic bottle and to find thin branches on the tree and have with you a sharp knife and some rubber bands or string. You cut about a quarter of the way from the tip of the branch but not a straight cut, the idea is to expose as much of the flesh of the branch as you can by slicing diagonally sideways and creating a point with say 3 inches of exposed flesh of the branch. We left the bottles up tied onto the branch with the tip hanging into the bottle, and the next day they were all pritty much full. This technique is much more friendly to the tree than the method I just tried here now.
This other method is for getting more quantities of the birch sap BUT if its not done properly it can harm the tree.
It dosnt matter what drill you have, the important thing is that the drill bit is the same size as the pipe you are going to be using. I was lucky as I dont have many drill bits, to find the tube from a solar shower fits the bit I have perfectly as seen here
The First Tree
This is the setup and as the tube will fit the whole perfectly, theres no need to do anything else
With everything ready it was time to start drilling, its good to mark the drill bit with tape at the required depth, but I could not be bothered to.
It started to drip (look closely on bottom right pic) but then stopped, leaving me to believe that Ive left it too late already, or because the tree is up growing on rocks that theres not much water to draw from the ground. Plus this one has an very thick crusty bark and properly should be drilled deeper, something Im not willing to do.
This is the important part. Tomorrow I must go find a small pot of pine tar. I want to own some anyway, and of course I can get this from the nature but its not possible at the moment so to keep the tree as I found it, I will go buy some of this tar to fill the whole that I made with the drill. If you use a bigger drill bit then you would have to but a wooden dowl in the whole (a round piece of wood to plug it) followed by a layer of natural tar completely sealing it off so it wont get any fungus infections in the future. Respect the nature!
We went to the other tree , but this one had been topped by a tree surgeon friend who came before winter and offered to top the trees so we will get more sunlight on the land. It was dripping more though than the other one did and so its now hopefully filling up the water container in place. This one had to be tied on with rope to secure it
I took the tube out to check it and as I thought, the hole was slightly blocked with wet sawdust from the drilling and so I scrapped it out with a twig and plug the tube back in, which made it flow alot faster! In the bottom photo you actually can see the stream in the tube.
Heres my last post which teaches how and why to be making An Organic Fertilizer from just Stinging Nettles.
if anyone has suggestions for better tags to be edited, then please suggest im open eyes!
