Boiling down

Today we had the chance to see the sap – to- syrup process in action. Some local friends have a sugar bush. They use the tubing method to collect sap from about 75 sugar maples on their property. The sap drains downhill through the tubing into a large tub at the bottom. Their sugar house is a wonderful little log cabin nestled in the woods by a stream and the large collection tub sits right outside the back of the building. From the tub there is a pipe that carries the sap, which is the consistancy of water, to a tap inside. From here they fill a bucket and pour the sap into a preheater which warms the sap before it goes into the boiling pan. This particular set up uses two boiling pans, one that drains into the other. The first one contains less concentrated liquid; the second pan contains what will eventually be syrup. These pans lie atop an altered wood burning stove that is regularly stoked with hardwood and forced air to keep the fire hot and the sap boiling. It’s a long, slow process to concentrate the sugar in the sap into maple syrup. Depending on the sugar content of the sap, it can take from 40 – 70 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. But here in Vermont it can be a social occasion, the gathering of friends for food and fellowship… and syrup tasting. Yummmm.

We have some sugar maples on our property and have toyed with the idea of trying to make some syrup. This summer we’ll try to ID the trees and acquire the required gear (probably the traditional buckets at first and we won’t have the sugaring house). Then next Spring we can drill a few holes and set about the adventure for ourselves.

One more

I’ve finished another postcard for the fiber store: “Full Moon” is 4″x6″.

Artwork

Finally, I’m doing some artwork. Yesterday I took a 2 hour class on nature sketching. I wasn’t sure what I would come away with but at least it would be an opportunity to sit and sketch. There were about 8 ladies there and the teacher was a local artist from Bridgewater, VT. She provided us with a plethora of subjects to sketch. I was overwhelmed with all the stuff – fake flowers and leaves, several animal figures, and a nest with eggs – so I chose just a few flowers and several leaves at first. I had some extra time so I tackled the face of the lamb. I drew in pencil first, inked with a permanent pigma pen, erased the pencil, and colored with cake watercolors.

I’ve been working at the sewing machine a little too and have finished two small pieces. One is for the fiber store where a few of my postcards are hanging. I’ve sold two of the five they had originally, both part of my “Mountain Vistas” series. I’m hoping to put the other piece in another gallery one day. Here are the new ones. The lake scene is called “Reflections 1″ and 4″x 6″. The mountain scene is actually 5″x 7″ but framed down to 3.5″x 5″. It is called “Dusk”.

Spring Beauty

It is hard to get too worked up about a snow storm in Spring when you wake up, look out the window and see this:


It was still and silent while I was out taking the photos. Breath-taking! I love being out when it is like that. Of course, by now, the sun is out, the snow is gone off the trees and the snow is melting quickly. After all, it’s Spring.

Spring in Vermont :-D

It is well known that Spring is slow in coming to Vermont. But lest you think that we are SO far behind everyone else, especially those posting wonderful pictures on blogs (i.e. here), we thought we’d post some pictures of our own.

We have beautiful flowers blooming… um, indoors on the kitchen counter.

Here is Roger happily harvesting our first crop of “snow peas”. They are a little frozen at the moment but will be a wonderful addition to our leftover chicken for dinner tonight.

We don’t quite have cute little fuzzy chicks yet but the hens have done their duty here. Maybe next year we’ll have new little piggies to post as well.

Seriously, the maple sap is running. These pictures are of our neighbor’s small operation. We visited a larger sugar house today, hoping to see the sap-to-syrup process in action. Usually they start boiling much earlier; last year they started on Feb 17th. Today – March 24 – will be their first boil and the sugar in the sap is very low. Instead of needing 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, it will take about 67 gallons. With the higher trend predicted for temeratures it looks like the harvesting season will be rather short as well. We did get to taste sugar on snow (never thought I’d say anything was too sweet for me but this was), maple cream spread on homemade doughnuts (very yummy) and maple creamie, maple syrup in vanilla soft serve – also very good.

Oh, and the weatherman is predicting 3-5 inches of new snow tonight. Ah, Spring….

Spring? sort of

Last week I bought some tickets to the Boston Flower Show hoping for a healthy dose of Spring. The weatherman was predicting 18″ of new snow in Vermont the day before the show opened and Spring won’t arrive here on our mountain until May. We met our daughter and son-in-law for the trip into Boston. What a treat and just the ticket for a damp, blustery, cold and snowy day. The displays were lovely and the flower and plant exhibits were fabulous. I took all of 7 pictures before my camera battery died. So I’ll post the two best ones – some stunning Gerbera daisies (a little out of focus) and some very cool orchid leaves – and you’ll just have to imagine the rest… or go see the show yourself. It’s open until March 25th.

Now back to winter…

What’s not to like…

…about Mud Season? I could make a long list but I’ll just show a few photos.

This is Town Farm Rd in front of our house, looking up hill and down hill. Looks like fun, doesn’t it? I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera when our neighbor’s truck drove down. It’s awfully hard to drive in a straight line. And the mud is getting to the boot-sucking stage.

The good thing about mud season (I keep telling myself) is that it means Spring is on the way, even if it is still 2 months off. As I sit here, I can look out at the woods and they are decidedly redder. That means that the tiny buds on the trees are swelling with the promise of tiny flowers and leaves. It means that the sap is flowing. Mmmm… maple syrup. We’ve had so much melting with the warmer temps lately that there are even patches of grass appearing. I’m sure there are crocuses blooming somewhere – but certainly not here.

Great website

If you’re in the market for camping stoves, water filters, food and Leatherman accesories, check out this great website: liveRugged.com They carry excellent products, their prices are great, and the service is very good. They do not have cool stuffed wild animals and live fish or a jillion fishing poles, but the web site designer is really handsome.

Fun stops for the way home

Yesterday, on the way home from the wedding, we made several stops. Since I didn’t get to go to the quilt museum (it is actually closed for renovations so even if I hadn’t been outlet shopping, I couldn’t have seen it) or any of the wonderful fabric shops in the Lancaster area on Friday, our sightseeing day, Roger conceeded to stop at Sauder’s Fabric Store. It was pretty much on the way home, with only a little change of route and was too good an oportunity to pass up, being so close. I’d been before and knew to expect an incredible selection at very good prices. I promised Roger I would try to stick to choosing batiks, though I did do a quick walk past all the bolts and flat folds. We also checked out their bulk foods and bought some dark brown sugar and some cool little sprinkle decorations – a mixture of long green sprinkles and large red dots.

We thought we were done shopping until we saw a billboard for the legendary Cabela’s, an amazing hunting/fishing store. We decided to stop since Roger had been so gracious in stopping at the fabric store. I was thinking it would be another LL Bean, but we were in for a surprise. The first thing we saw when we walked in the door was the fishing department. It was the size of a medium sized grocery store with more fishing rods than I have ever seen, not to mention all the other fishing accouterments. There were also several huge tanks of live sport fish with identifying placards. I was thinking this was pretty cool until I came upon the Africa display. I informed Roger that I was going out to the car to get the camera. What impressed me so was that the stuffed animals were displayed running and jumping and being eaten – I’ve spared you pix of the crocodiles sharing a little antelope (yes, they really showed that), but here are the Greater Kudus trying to get away from the lions in hot pursuit:

They had an elephant, rhino and hippo in this tableau too. I was impressed.

Then I noticed right in the middle of the store a huge display of fake rocks that were home to polar bears, big horn sheep, musk oxen, moose and lots of other animals I was too overwhelmed to take in. I took an overview from the balcony on the second floor and a close up of the moose. They were big.

Then I spied the trout pond with a full sized moose standing in the middle of it and an entire room devoted to typical and non-typical white tailed deer. (I never realized that antlers grow differently – that’s what makes them non-typical. I would have learned something if I had taken the time to read all the posted info.) There must have been close to a hundred of them in this tableau and the walls were lined with mounted heads of deer, elk, buffalo, moose and who knows what else.

We poked through the camping gear and the gun counters, checked out the camoflage shelters and kayaks, and glanced at the sale room. As Roger headed out to the car, I just needed to be sure I had seen it all so I took another quick tour of stuff he looked at while I was consumed with the taxidermy. I found a shooting range and the shoe department but he was waiting for me by the front door and a close inspection would have to wait for another day. What a cool place even if you don’t need any hunting/fishing gear.

Travelin’ around

We’ve been on the move the last several days. We drove to Lititz, PA to attend the wedding of the son of our dear friends Gary and Stephanie. It was a long drive, especially since we had recently returned from a drive to and from Maryland. We weren’t looking forward to all that time in the car so soon again, but we borrowed some books on CD from the local library, packed our bags and headed out. We got about 2 hours down the road and Roger mused that he didn’t remember putting the hanging clothes bag in the car. Hmmm.. that was a bit of a dilema since we were attending a wedding and jeans and athletic clothes weren’t going to fit the bill. It was too late to turn back and retrieve said bag.

Ah, plan B: instead of sightseeing, we’ll get to go shopping. Those of you who know me well know that this was not going to be my idea of fun. But Roger does like to shop and we thought that certainly there MUST be outlets in Lancaster. The sticky part was finding them. After a scenic tour of downtown Lancaster, we stopped at a hotel and asked at the desk. We weren’t far away and a kind lady pointed us in the right direction. We cased the stores on Thursday evening so we could be there first thing on Friday morning. We had all day since the wedding wasn’t until 6:30.

It’s a good thing that Roger needed some new pants and his blazer was showing signs of age, so this shopping trip was not all bad. A shirt and tie completed the ensemble and he did look dapper in his new duds. I did NOT need new clothes but I found a nice pair of black pants and a nice sweater set top and we were good to go.

We did redeem the sightseeing part of the plan by visiting the Wilbur Buds Chocolate Factory which was a short walk down the street from our B&B. They had lots of memorabilia on display and we watched as they hand coated pretzels with chocolate and unmolded chocolate pops. And no, we didn’t make it out of the store without a few bags of goodies to sample later. We grabbed a quick meal at the Cafe Chocolate on Main St, where everything on the menu has chocolate in it somewhere. Roger had chili con chocolate and I had quiche and salad with chocolate raspberry vinaigrette dressing. All very good. We even had time for a nap before the big event.

The wedding was very nice and it was good to see our friends and share in their joy.