Happy First Day of Spring!!!!

It's finally here...the first day of Spring!!! Today is a lovely day. The sky is bright blue,there is barely any breeze,and on our screen porch,in the shade,it is currently 40 degrees. We have lost more snow,but we still have quite a bit to go. This time of year is known as "Mud Season." Our driveway and walkway are a mess,full of puddles,ruts,and running water as the snow melts. Rick made trenches to help guide the water as best as he could. I told Rick we need to think about getting the driveway and walkway sealed. It's a futile task to try and keep our floor clean. Mud gets tracked in each time. My poor floors!!!

Friday was gorgeous.It hit 66 degrees here,with bright sun. I went outside,closed my eyes,and just breathed in the smells of wet earth, and fresh air. I could feel the warm sun soaking into my bones. It was heaven.

Here is our first batch of maple syrup. We wound up with approx a pint-we had boiled 6-7 gallons. We gathered about 14-15 gallons of sap on Friday.

Yesterday we finished boiling off our Friday sap.We boiled down about 8 gallons of sap and got a 1 1/4 quarts. So now we have about 2 quarts of syrup.

Yesterday morning Rick and Zach gathered more sap. We didn't get as much as on Friday. We only wound up with 4 1/2 gallons of sap. Though the temperatures were in the 40's,it took a while to get there. We had snow for the good part of the morning,and we had a wind blowing all day,which lowered the outside temperatures.This is the nature of the beast with sap gathering.

Friday was such a beautiful day that while Brother B manned the boiling down process, Rick and Zach did a good thorough job of cleaning the chicken coop and turkey cage. The chicken coop was scraped down and nice,fresh shavings and straw were put in. Runt and his harem were quite happy! They have been enjoying this nice weather,too,and the extra sunlight by giving us about 6-8 eggs a day.

Friday and Saturday folks stopped on their way by to see how the sap boiling was going.They would stop,hang around the boiling sap,and chat. We gave them each a shot of syrup to see how they liked it. We thought it was our best batch ever-and they all agreed that it was delicious!!! It was great to see folks so interested in what we are doing. We had two people want to buy some,so far.

Today there is not a lot in the buckets,so we will gather tomorrow. We had another cold start to the day,but the afternoon looks promising. We still have Saturday's gathering to process. We will do that tomorrow when we gather the rest of the sap. We had to go and get more propane for our tank,so it's too late now to begin boiling. It takes all day to process sap. Patience is a virtue!

Today I am going to make another batch of laundry soap. I am off to do that straight away.

Enjoy your first day of Spring!!!!