Welcome to the Sugarbush!

 Miriel plays with dolls more than the other girls did, probably more than all of them combined.  :)  She reads them books and puts them to bed- shhhhhhh! Baby. Seeeeping.

The girls and I went to the farm on Saturday to play in Grandpa's snow cave. 

Hehe. So fun.

It was barely below freezing and it felt positively tropical after the previous week.  We played outside for a long time.

Gus loved it.  Foof-foof! 

Hooray for barnyard snow piles.  :) 

They are a bit too steep and pointy to sled down easily, but they tried! 

Little miss Miriel preferred being pulled on the sled while eating an icicle. 

Checking out the icicles on the cattle shed.

And back to the cave, which they decided needed furniture.  haha.  Silly girls. 

Then it was time for cocoa... and cookies. 

So. Earlier this winter I learned that you can tap several kinds of trees for sap, not just sugar maples. Any variety of maple tree, or walnut trees, or birch will produce sweet sap (sugar maple has the highest sugar concentration) that can be boiled down into syrup. 

Aaaaand we happen to be in possession of no less than eight maple trees in our yard.  Eight!  Seven silver maple, one red maple, and an autumn blaze that we just planted. Sooo... guess what we decided to do?! 

Look at my cute little tree tappers.     

As soon as the temp got above freezing we strapped on our authentic Adirondack pack basket (purely for aesthetic reasons- and for carrying the drill) and headed out into the woods yard.

They wanted to help put in the taps.

I bought a combination of 9 taps and the buckets and bags to go with them.  So far all but one of the trees is producing at least a little bit of sap!

Cadence and I 'did a craft' one morning; Paw Patrol fleece tied pillowcase.

The red maple has sap in the bag! So exciting.

Bob and some guys got together on Friday night- they ate Duck, pheasant, and quail... the girls and I got to hang out with Meg and her kids.  :)  Maria had a really cute, fun craft for the girls to work on.

David was very sweetly reading books to Miri.

Saturday was lovely outside.  We started boiling down the sap that we had collected.

It boiled and boiled while the girls played and Bob worked on burning the stick pile.

Snack time outside watching the sap boil.

In the almost 10 years that we've lived here we've burned sticks in the same place as the previous owner, and while we technically should have a fire pit, it's so far from any houses no one's ever said anything.  Until Bob was just finishing cutting everything into small pieces and burning a few at a time... controlled and safely... and one of the neighbors came out screaming obscenities at us.  *ugh*  Put a damper on the day.  So out of the blue. We were both like- we have got to get out of town. :P 

But, Maple syrup!!  It boils down to so little volume, it's hard to get an accurate temperature on my candy thermometer or on the meat thermometer... :P

Two gallons of sap boiled down to just under a cup of syrup, and it tastes so good.  So fun and satisfying!  Then we ate half of it on waffles Sunday morning. 

 Otherwise it's been pretty quiet here.  I sang at Helen's funeral, Miri went to the doctor, the girls are busy with school, they are loving gymnastics, piano lessons, lots of everydayness, which we love.

Also, we collected 5 gallons of sap today and it's taking over the fridge!  Good thing we like syrup... and if we're stuck in town we might as well turn it into an urban homestead.  Or something. Ha.  

Blessings.