siesta time

Suuvi here was taking a siesta in the shade, though the temps were not even that high to require a siesta...LOL!  But she's a good helper here on our farm.

My view from our walk the other day.  Everything is still so brown here on the ridge.

Our temps today are supposed to be in the high 60's and tomorrow almost 80°...WHAT??? This spring has just been the craziest spring season especially for sugaring.  Rumor is that there is snow in the forecast...hmmmm...Hopefully if that is true it will be our sugar snow.  You can listen all about sugar snow HERE from the Little House books.

and so it begins

The syrup season has officially started and so far, the syrup is looking and tasting delicious.  Not sure how much syrup we'll be getting as the weather is not your typical weather for sap to be running.  It's getting too warm, and the temps are just not ideal for sap to be running.  Hopefully we'll get a sugar snow, or even rain for a reset.  Because we didn't have really any snow to speak of the frost went pretty deep.  Most everyone around the area is saying the same thing, they are not getting the amount of sap they normally get.  

But every year is always different, and we never know what it will bring, so we always try to keep some over from the previous year just in case of seasons like this.  Though it's not over yet we shall see what we get.                                                                                                                                                         

spring is in the air

Busy life here on our farm, new babies arrived, sap is starting to run, quilt retreats attended.  It's nice to see the subzero temps in the rearview mirror, and warmer weather in front of us.

Now the really busy work starts, gathering and cooking the sap down.  We have been tapping trees for 14 years and have changes over those years.  We don't use buckets anymore we use wine bags that we buy at an Amish maple syrup supply store.  We also don't tap as many trees and have cut down on the amount of taps we put in.  This year we tapped trees that we haven't tapped before and didn't tap trees that were not really good sap producers.

We love this time of year, going outside and taking a deep breath in smelling that fresh air and to me that is the first sign that spring is on its way.