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Maple-ing. The Ambiance.

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Although I probably won’t go down again to boil sap, I truly enjoyed the experience.  Part of it was learning all about the process, but a lot was also the ambiance.  Not in any particular order…

The weather was just about perfect.  It started about bright and sunny (I put on sunscreen) and even when it clouded up in the afternoon, the temperature seemed just right for boiling.  Not cold enough that you really felt it but not warm enough that the work made us sweat.  There was a short rain shower after dark, but when it cleared up, the stars in the night sky were amazing.  As a city gal, I never see stars like that.

Before dinner we had tea but instead of plain old boiling water, we used the boiling sap.  Very sweet tea but wonderful drinking it outside.

There was good company while we were working.  Astrid is a big dog with a big deep bark but a big softie; after dark we heard coyotes and while Astrid worked hard to convince us that she was a guard dog, she didn’t move more than 20 feet from us.  Whiskey looks like a cat, but he is really a dog.  He comes when he is called, hangs around most of the day for petting and doesn’t seem to think the rain matters at all.

My godson doesn’t actually “farm” but is embracing country lifestyle.  He was happy to tell me about all the classes he has taken at the local folk school (bee keeping, chain saw safety, how to “manage” chickens, syrup making and to show me all the improvements he’s made to the house and outbuildings. He has some animals: chickens and a mean rooster (I have bruises to prove it) and also a small herd of goats.  He has just acquired a male, so perhaps there will be kids and milk in the future.  I shared with him the wonderful soaps that Barb made when she had goats.

He is also a terrific cook and by the time he went in to make dinner, I had a handle on the boiling so didn’t need to panic.  Several of the borscht ingredients come from their garden and it was delicious.  Just soup and toasted baguettes.  Yummy.

Children.  He has three kids – 7, 5 and 3.  I got to play Legos with the youngest.  Lots of racing “vehicles” and crashing.  The 5-year old was obsessed with arithmetic so we did a ton of “what is ten plus ten” and other combinations.  He hasn’t worked on subtraction yet, so we did some “what is three minus two”, using fingers.  There was a very lively conversation after the 7-year old got home from school concerning the weight of the earth and how you would weigh it.  He’s got a lot on the ball for seven and there was gravity walls/barriers and gravity robot discussion.  My godson brought up the planet-building spheres from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to which I replied that the weight of the earth is clearly 42.  The 7-year old didn’t get this joke but god son did!

It was just a wonderful trip, even if you don’t count the maple syrup (and a bonus small bottle of their black walnut syrup which I’ve had before and it fabulous).  I can’t imagine how it could have been better!

When was the last time you just really enjoyed something?

42 thoughts on “Maple-ing. The Ambiance.”

    1. He surprised me. We had been in the chicken coop area for at least 15 minutes and we were actually heading out when he got me from behind. He hit me hard enough the first time that I thought it was a goat. My godson says there’s no rhyme or reason as to why this rooster goes after people and on what day.

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      1. Sy Montgomery, in What the Chicken Knows, says the way you deal with an unruly rooster is to pick him up and hold him. I have not had a rooster of my own but I can nevertheless imagine that might be daunting.

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        2. What Sy is, apparently leaving out, is you need to CATCH the rooster before you can pick him up.

          I thought everyone knew, chickens are always ALWAYS one step faster than you are.

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        1. Uncle Ronald caught me trying to catch some of his leghorn hens. My, did I get a Missouri Synod Lutheran scolding from him!

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    2. Hey John, did you see yesterday‘s post? Cause after all day of talking about maple syrup I’m thinking I need to pull out your recipe again.

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  2. I’ve really enjoyed learning to knit and the women I’ve made friends with in the past year. We have quite a bit in common, besides knitting and other crafts, and we’re getting together socially more often. Many of them are getting fired up about the garden club, and they’ll be active with that soon. I’ve been hanging out at the stone house, a perennial haunt for me, and watching my friend Gary brew beer.

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  3. April starts next week. That means tomorrow night (Friday) is my annual April Fools’ Silly Songs Show. I’ll be playing many of the novelty/comedy songs that Dale & Jim Ed used to play and lots more from 8-10pm on KFAI.

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    2. TGiTH…. good to hear you chime in. Thanks for the heads up. I will put this on my calendar for tomorrow night. I love the silly songs more than anything.

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    1. I wish. My camera took a whole bunch of really crappy pictures. The header is taken from a state park in Wisconsin and it was the closest to what I had been seeing with my eyes.

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  12. I truly enjoyed watching the first episode of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light last night. It gets off to a grim start, but the rest was filled with royal intrigue, and it was fun seeing some of my favorite actors/characters again. I’m reading the book and trying to stay ahead of the series.

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  14. Lately I’ve been enjoying some delightful “cooking” videos from Azerbaijan. Tonight’s video was on cooking a turkey. I’d love to try a Thanksgiving turkey cooked like this. Below is a link to the 25 minute long turkey video; I just love the rhythm, sounds, and visuals of it all. So vivid you can almost smell it:

    It’s available on YouTube, but If you view the video on “Brave Browser” there are no commercial breaks.

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      1. I hope you do, barb. It’s really lovely, whether or not you’re a cook. Ben, I think you might enjoy it too, if nothing else because of the chickens and the setting.

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