First syrup Sunday at the homestead ...

Shane put in roughly 85 taps today. Here is a sampling of a few
I love hearing the ping ping ping of sap collecting in the buckets.
With the taps we will put in in Fryeburg, we should be boiling 100 taps worth this coming weekend!

Winter in Maine...

Making Syrup

We put in 64 taps this year

This is the most sap I have ever seen in one place.

And more sap.

After...

3.5 cords of wood, thrown and stacked, and man do I feel it!
 
 

Bring it on Winter! We are ready!

Our new heating strategy

A fan  at the top of the basement stairs to pump air up into the space between the first and second floors. Lets hope it works!

Winter really IS over.

The garage has been switched!

I guess considering the oppressive heat we are having this week it's a bit redundant to point this out. I just thought the picture was neat and a perfect example of how linear my dear SP can be.

SIgns of Spring

I think I have spring fever.
It's not fair, as I should have spent the last few months engaging in all the winter recreations I so love. But the weather has not cooperated.
This morning I had the urge to walk Baby to preschool.
So close, and yet so far on a cold March morning.
I will have to take solace in the fact that I have spring blooming inside, while the outside remains brown, wet, and gloomy.
Soon enough... soon enough.

Just some winter pics

I have been incredibly busy, between 3 kids, 2 classes, my brother and hockey. I haven't done much more than work work work (and search for MooMilk). I am feeling pretty overdone and tapped out - what spare time I have is spent TRYING to take care of me with a little exercise. I feel pretty out of touch with my blogging world, but hopefully soon I can find a balance in my busy life (read - hockey ends at the end of the month) and get back to the more important things to me.

I'd like you to think that we live in a winter wonderland - but really it's been a winter drought. So, in the hopes that you picture myself white a wonderful - here's a few pictures from when it recently was!
See
that
house?
It's
mine!
That's
how
far
from
the
road
we
are
and hence why we have nothing but dial up.















These are the snowshoe/cross country ski tracks we have going all around and about our house. And yes, that is Dear Daughter on her way home from the bus stop. Yes just like cable and high speed internet, the school bus also STOPS at the end of the road.
There's a large sled hill next to the house. But when I am home with the youngest and he wants to go sledding, it's really hard to be folding laundry or washing dishes AND being at the sled hill. So this year, my adoring husband came up with an EXCELLENT solution right outside the front door.
Why

didn't

we

think

of

this

sooner?









I call this a Boy Sandwich...




























Really, it took us 6 years to discover that we could sled in our own front yard!? Geesh!

My peas reseeded. Can they come inside?

I was amazed to discover that my peas reseeded this past month.



























Do you think I could transplant them into a pot and grow them on the windowsill in my bedroom?
Inquiring minds want to know!

Putting the garden to bed.

The annual ritual of putting the garden to bed is always one with mixed feelings. At times I want to see how long I extend the season, clipping broccoli in smaller and smaller amounts and waiting to see how tall the reseeded peas will get before one last till of the soil. The hard frosts are happening more and more often, the tomato's are long gone, and even the corn stalks no longer seem something I want to work, even for a porch side decoration. I knew the second I heard Shane start Tillulah up that today was the day we would put the garden to bed for the winter. Tillulah called the family from the house because even the midgets wanted to take part in the excitement.


I immediately set to work and gather the last of the seeds I was saving. More to come on that adventure, when I finally tackle the paper bag brigade on the front porch. Once I snapped all I wanted of the broccoli seed of the stems, I threw the monolithic beasts in our friendly wheel barrow and walked it to it's final resting place: the compost bins.


SP had to capture a picture of me in my favorite camouflage of all - plant material!


On my way back from the compost I couldn't help but acknowledge what a pretty process this all is. It was in that moments pause that SP decided, now that he has prepped the edge, that it was Mommy's turn with her baby. So here she is, making me all sweaty.


Now if you haven't run a tiller before, it is quite a work out, particularly for a 5'3" female. So to no surprise I quickly lost my wool layer! Tillulah really is a wonderful beast - I have to throw my weight into it to make it around the corners. No wonder I feel so sore right now.

But no matter how much I want the season to not end, I don't want to get caught by winter. Last fall, our first snow lasted until April, and all the beets, carrots, and leeks were buried with it. This year, the last row of leeks will remain after today's work, destined for some Thanksgiving meal. Let's hope the snow doesn't fall in earnest before then!