After we’d had several warm days of what we refer to as ‘fool’s spring,’ we were hit with 8 inches of snow a couple of days ago. The kids were so excited they could’ve burst, they thought we weren’t going to get any more snow this year so it was a welcome treat!
The consistent below freezing weather that accompanied the storm meant that there was no sap flow for the past couple of days and it gave me a little break from hauling buckets, boiling, and cleaning syrup splatters.
The kids were begging for a night hike in the snow, one of our favorite pastimes, so we got all of our gear on to head out. Though the moon was shining brightly and reflecting off of the snow, I thought of something else I had tucked away for a special occasion. The only thing that could’ve possibly made a night hike in the snow better was….. glow sticks!
What kid doesn’t love the opportunity to play with glow sticks? So we gave them 2 each and set off on our nighttime adventure. The snow was almost too deep for them to walk in, and was spilling over the top of my boots into my socks! We played with the optical illusions that whipping the glow sticks back and forth cause, then incidentally discovered how much fun it is to toss them deep into the snow and look at how they light it up!
The next day we had some friends come to visit overnight and fun was had by all! Sledding, building snowmen, tasty food, and a cozy fire inside – all were those moments that you just know are going to become one of those core childhood memories.
The chickens spent most of the snow days hanging out in the enclosed area of their coop, not feeling adventurous enough to venture out into the snow. The coop isn’t the most attractive at the moment (and I haven’t taken a picture of it); I save their feed bags throughout the year and utilize them as wind/weather block in the small run of their chicken tractor/coop area. This gives them a warmer area to get out of the weather, and it is dry. I’m definitely looking forward to when I can take the feed bags down, I do eventually plan on getting clear panels to attach for the winter, but for now I’m giving the feed bags a second life.
Today we had some sunshine and a warm up to 41F (5C) so the kids took advantage of the now more packable snow and built snowmen.
I had a feeling that the maples would have sap flowing again and I was happily surprised that they did! When I went to collect it, several of the buckets had halfway frozen sap in the buckets that made it a bit of a task to consolidate them for hauling them inside. I then had to figure out how I was going to filter it since it wasn’t all liquid. I started with my usual setup of a wide flat pan and a deep soup pot. I filtered the liquid straight into the wide flat pan when I could, and then took the ice blocks and put them directly into the soup pot to melt. Once melted, I could then filter the sap as I poured it into the flat pan. I’m still boiling as I write this, but I’m curious to see how much syrup all of this produces!
