Remember that old saying about April showers? We're getting them early this year. Just as the last of the longstanding, dirty, nasty snow was melting off and leaving us with our annual mudfest, it started raining. Not just a gentle, wash the world clean rain, but a days long deluge of constant ongoing wet stuff that's left our driveway a bottomless pit of quivering mud. We've gotten two cars stuck in it so far that needed a push to get out.
We did have the maple trees tapped for making syrup, and had gathered some sap, but the rest is all watered down and diluted even further than its usual 40 to 1 dilute ratio. Since it's warm and staying warm, the sap stopped flowing and just stayed in the top of the trees. I decided to try to boil down what we have collected on top of the wood stove in shallow pans and have burned up every piece of dry wood around the place and got it mostly evaporated. Now we're finishing it off by electric cooker--it was that or start breaking up the furniture!
So, since the whole place is flooded, Jim decided to try his hand at lawn fishing. Didn't catch much, but at least he got outside for a little bit. I took this picture while hunkered down inside the greenhouse, sheltering from the rain. Jim's much hardier than I am.
Happy Spring everyone!
4 comments:
wahahahahaahah That's my DaddyJim. I'm thinking McElligot's Pool by Dr. Seuss. It just LOOKS like a puddy puddle...but it COULD go all the way down, and down......
That's right!! To quote the great Dr. Seuss--"If I wait long enough, if I'm patient and cool-Who knows what I'll catch in--McElligot's Pool?"
I just want to be able to make my own syrup like you guys do! One of mine and Jim's dear wishes in life is to have land like you do (and our friend's in NC do) to live and learn from everyday. It so intrigues me to read your writings... now I don't know about fishing a mudhole in the driveway..lol
Syruping is a fun thing to do, but seems to take just about forever. We ended up with almost two quarts this year, and that'll be plenty for our needs. I hope you get your land someday. We have only three acres here, and it used to be too much to maintain, and not enough to do anything with. Now that Jim’s here with me, it’s working much better. You never know what you’ll find in the bottom of a puddle, do you?
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