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Monday, February 24, 2014

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Sugarin' Time

A week of collecting sap yields 14 gallons of sap.

Buckets of sap are stored in a snow bank until ready for the boil.

The boiler, or evaporator, is ready to go.

We have lots of fire wood.

Let's fire up the boiler!

 Smoke
And steam


Make one small batch of pure maple syrup!
Fourteen gallons of sap produced 38oz. of maple syrup.
Another arctic blast is headed our way which will halt the sap flow,
but we'll be back boiling when it departs.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Big Thaw

The overlook in January

The meltdown begins

 Flooding starts

 After the water receded, ice chunks are scattered on the trail.

Nearby roads are flooded

And some fields look like lakes.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

The Sap is flowing

After months of bitter cold weather, the temps finally rise above freezing.
The sap is flowing!

Monday, February 17, 2014

Fickle Weather

The past few days have been a mix of weather.

Freezing rain

Snow

And finally, blue skies.
We'll take that!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

A Winter Hike






 Heading out

Yellow dogs all in a row

We made it to the creek.
Amazingly, it still has a few open areas.

Hey, we're walking on water!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Birds

The birds are surviving the cold.
I help them a little by filling the bird feeders.

Red Bellied Woodpecker

 Downy Woodpecker

 House Finch


 Nuthatch

Tufted Titmouse

 Female Cardinal

 Blue Jay


Well hello!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Molly the Barn Cat

Yesterday we had to put down Molly the barn cat.
"Red" as we often called her was almost 19 years old,
and ruled the barn up until a few months ago when she went blind.



RIP Red

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Ice Jam


We finally had temps above freezing and then had an all day rain.

 So we went from walking on the frozen creek


To this....