Making Pure Maple Syrup

 

What on earth is that?

Pure maple syrup, that's what!

Our son's farm in Salisbury, PA is in the heart of maple syrup country. 

We are surrounded by farms who tap the trees with blue lines that run from tree to tree, but so far, Kevin and Katie are still doing it the old-fashioned way with sap buckets. This is just a couple of the many trees he tapped.

The first week of March, Kevin was collecting the sap from the buckets every day and then pouring them into a large pan over a fire. 

Then we fed the fire every few minutes to keep the syrup boiling. 

It's a looonnnng process!

The boiling syrup creates a constant steam. Country roads are dotted with sugar camps, and the rising smoke from the fire and steam from the syrup are dead giveaways to their locations.

You have to keep a constant eye on how much sap is in the pan. It will burn easily if it gets too low. But it can be difficult to see the sap through the steam! 

Momentarily, the air will shift, and you can once again see it boiling underneath the steam. 

The sap starts out looking like water, but by the time it's close to finished, it takes on the beautiful amber hues we know as syrup, and the sweet smell fills the air.

After several days of collecting sap from the trees and boiling it down, they ended up with 7 gallons of pure maple syrup for their own use. They aren't selling it commercially at this point. That would involve big (expensive!) changes to their operation. For now, they just enjoy making it the same way generations of folks did before them. 

And now, pass the pancakes! 

Sled Riding Fun

It was too cold (BRRR!!!) to go sled riding for a couple days after the snow, but yesterday the sun came out, the winds died down, and we hit the hill!  

The hill is in the hayfield on our son's farm. 

Note for the future...mow the hillside again in late fall, so we don't have to sled ride over tall weeds full of seeds! 

But we won't let the weeds stop us! 

Watch out Pappy! They are gaining on you!

After countless trips sliding down, and climbing back up, we were coated in snow.

And we didn't care at all!

It was such a fun afternoon.

Last winter, we only had 2 of the long sleds. We also had some of the round ones, but we all prefer the long ones. We went shopping for more of the long ones, but everyone was sold out. We did have one hardware store tell us they had more ordered, so we told them to call us when they came in. Days went by with no call, so George called them. The order was delayed. He called every few days to see if they had received them yet - he really wanted those sleds! 

Finally, they came, and wouldn't you know it, we didn't get any more snow. So, we put them in a corner and patiently waited. And while we aren't always excited to see snow come because of the problems it causes on the roads, and the limitations it puts on outside projects, we are always happy to get the sleds out.

Here's to a fun winter sliding down the hayfield! 

December Snows

We had a couple inches of snow over the last few days. Just enough to cover the ground and make it pretty. We took a walk in our son's woods with a weed eater, a chainsaw, a pair of long handled pruners, and a pitchfork. The walk was to get some fresh air and exercise after being cooped up in the house for several days. The tools were to do a little brush cutting to clear a path to some firewood.

The wind was really starting to crank up on the hills, but down in the woods it wasn't bad at all. Though this fern looked like it was feeling the cold.

I was cutting some brush under a hawthorn tree, and when I looked up, I saw this bird nest tucked into the branches. 

I had to stop and take a photo of one of my favorite spots in their woods. 

Another storm blew in later in the day, and when we woke up this morning, we had another 6 or so inches. Very fluffy. And very cold! It was beautiful, but I didn't take very many pictures when we went out to shovel out the sidewalks and plow the driveway. I couldn't take photos with my thick gloves on, and I found out very quickly it was too painful to take them off with a wind chill of 10 below 0. 

But I did pull them off long enough to take a quick snap of this table on our deck. 

Isn't that cool? Love how the snow fell through the holes in the tabletop. 

I stood in the warmth of the dining room to take this one. The pine bush outside is weighted down by the snow, and I like how it looks behind one of the snowmen ornaments I painted several years ago. It would have been nicer if there wasn't a screen in the window, but I still like the effect. 

 

It's supposed to warm up later in the week, so all this snow may turn to mud in a few days. With any luck, we will get a chance to do a little sled riding before it melts. Too, too cold today, but maybe tomorrow! 

Trying our Hands at Drying Flowers

Just a few weeks ago, the U-Pick Patch at our son's farm was in full glory. Howard Family Farms in Salisbury, PA was the place to go to pick and arrange your own bouquet. 

Unfortunately, the end of the season comes when Jack Frost makes his annual debut.

The night before the predicted frost, George & I cut a row of flowers Katie wanted to dry from the U-Pick Patch, while Kevin did the same in their private patch at their house. 

It was getting close to dark, and we were hustling. And to be completely honest, we really didn't know what we were doing. But we managed to completely fill the truck bed with just one row of flowers.

The next day, George & I tied them together into bundles, while the kids & Kevin hung them to dry. Once again, we really didn't know what we were doing, but we gave it the ole college try. We were almost done when Katie got home from work, and told Kevin that technically, we were supposed to strip the leaves. Oops! But she was fine with how we did it, (or maybe she is just a good actor?) Hopefully the drying leaves won't be too much of an issue. 

Ah, well, this may be a live and learn situation. Isn't that most of life? 

They sure look pretty hanging there! Katie has plans for them. It will be interesting to see what all she comes up with! 

 

Strange Dandelions

Last spring, we found a few of the oddest dandelions on our son's farm in PA. It seemed that 3 or 4 of them fused into one, making a wide stem with multiple flower heads coming out of it. 

I have no idea if that is common or rare, but it was a new sight for me personally.

The grandkids found the first one, then we found a few more, all within the same general area. 

I'll have to keep an eye out for them again next spring! 

Scarecrows for the Wild Apple Festival

We had a lot of fun making scarecrows for the Wild Apple Festival which our son and daughter-in-law hold on their farm.

Wait a minute, those 2 on the ends aren't scarecrows!

We scattered our new creations around the field.

This guy is next to an old grain cleaner in the U-Pick Flower Patch.

This one is a short guy, with a short window and a short corn shock. 

Perfect size for little ones to pose with. 

If you look closely, you can see an arch with small pumpkins growing on it. The plan was for the vines to completely cover the arch, but a too wet Spring followed by a too dry Summer took its toll. The flowers in the background did great though! 

This one is at the top of the lane, helping to announce the two-weekend festival. 

And this guy was our biggest challenge. We named him Johnny Lee, because he is wearing grandson John's pants, and neighbor Lee's hat. But technically, he could be called Pappy Johnny Lee, because he is also wearing Pappy's shirt. 

He was the hardest to make, and the hardest to stage. We knew we wanted him to look like he was plowing. It took a little doing, and a few stakes, but it worked!

He is part of the Scavenger Hunt in the apple orchard. There is a list of 15 items to find in the orchard. Some natural, some added. Anyone who finds at least 12 of the items is entered to win a gift basket of Howard Family Farms products. 

And how do you get to the orchard? On a hayride! There are goats to admire, and pigs to feed. There are kid's games to play. Flowers to pick. A trailer load of home-grown pumpkins to choose from. 

This is the second year for the festival, and it's really taking off. 

Lots of people were there having fun this morning.... until the rain moved in this afternoon. Sigh. 

But tomorrow is another (supposed to be sunny!) day. 

Taking up Blogging Again after a Long Absence

I see I haven't posted anything since 2019. Yikes. In fact, I'm not sure I've even looked at my blog since then. Double yikes. As best I remember, my laptop had died, and for the next few years, I only had internet on my phone, which is not conducive to blogging, at least to me. I finally got another laptop, so no excuses now. 

I last talked about switching our shop to an Occasional Shop. Best business decision we ever made!! We did that for a few years and really enjoyed most aspects of it. But oh, the work! We were busier than ever, out picking for vintage items as often as we could, (the fun part), and then cleaning and pricing everything (the not so fun part). All that deserves its own post, or several posts. 

In 2023, we decided to close the shop, after being open for almost 21 years. It was time. All that furniture moving was taking its toll. And our son and his family (our grandkids!!) had moved 2 and a half hours away. We were spending more and more time on the road. visiting them and helping them get established on first a small farm, and then later a bigger one. That too will take several posts to cover!

After closing the store, we put the building up for sale. We took one last photo the day of the closing. It was so surreal. So much of our time was spent there, so many friends and memories made. But we had no regrets. We realized that our hearts were no longer in the store, they were at our son's farm. We bought a house just a mile or so from him, and for now, we are splitting our time between it and "back home". 

This was the day we closed on the house near him.

A very exciting day!!

And to make it even more exciting, when we are at this house, we are much closer to our daughter. It cuts our travel time to see her in half. We see her and her husband much more often now, which we love. A couple weeks ago, we met her in the middle just to see a movie, which is something we never would have done when we were 5 hours away from her. But now that we are only 2 and a half hours from her and can cut that in half again if we meet in the middle, an afternoon at the movies is doable. Especially if that movie is Hamilton! Gotta be in the room where it happens!

I'm excited to start blogging again. I look at it as a diary with photos. I wish I hadn't stopped. The last few days I have read all my old posts and have enjoyed that so much. Goodness, there were many that talked about things I had totally forgotten about. How I wish I would have had something like this when our own kids were growing up! And I missed out on recording a few years of the grandkids. 

Every moment is a gift. And I want to remember as many of those moments as I can.

A February Ice Storm

It was a dark and stormy night day. Cold. Rain. Sleet. Fog.

It was supposed to warm up enough to turn to rain.

Yeah, yeah. That clearly didn't happen.

We don't get this much ice all that often. It was beautiful. And thankfully, our power never went off (though some folks in our area did lose theirs for several hours).

"What is that?", George just asked as he looked over my shoulder. It's a roll of electric fencing that hangs on one of our garden posts. Electric fencing coated in ice.

If it was outside, that was it's story. It's always interesting to walk through grass that is encased in ice. Every. Single. Blade.

We had the ice for a couple days, and then it warmed up enough to melt. And now it's raining. Again.
Maybe I should take a picture of the mud.

Nah. Nevermind.

Spring - we are patiently waiting on you!!!

Cold Winter. Very Cold Winter.

What a winter! Not a huge amount of snow, but cold. As in COLD.

 A few weeks of single digit days and below 0 nights.

It did make for some pretty photos, though it was too cold to venture out and take very many.

We are very thankful for our wood stove, and the health to get in firewood. 

I've been kind of disappointed that most of the snow this winter has been so dry and fluffy. We need a decent snowman making snow! Maybe that will come in February.

We did finally get a January thaw. Check out this icicle that formed on the back of our shop during the snow melt. What a crazy angle! 

It's been a good winter to do what our new grandaughter is doing. Sleep! Ha!
At 2 months old, her favorite activities are eating, sleeping, and laying on the floor to wiggle.

And grinning.

She is getting quite good at melting Mimi and Pappy's hearts.

By the way, I see in my last post that I showed the broken display window at the shop. We got it fixed, and the guys did a great job on it.

This was it at Christmas. I need to get an updated one. Though I might need to wash the window first. And it's warmer, but not that warm!