Still Snow

Last month I mentioned the many ways I enjoy Maple Syrup. I want to add another to the list. I've met an expert crepe maker. Who'd have guessed there were so many hidden talents hanging out at fish camp? I spent nine days ice fishing in Northern Ontario. The lakes were well frozen and there was little snow in the bush. It was seemingly perfect. What more could I ask for? Then I discovered one of my fishing partners makes the best crepes I've ever eaten. Now, crepes smothered with fresh pineapple and maple syrup has bubbled to the top of my Maple Syrup List.

I brought home from Canada another load of rocks. I can't bring back many onany one trip because I pretty much fill the Jeep with fishing equipment, clothes, food and dogs. But I always manage to bring a few and slowly I'm getting a nice rock border around the front flower garden. I’d take a picture of my rocks and show you how pretty this batch is but I had not yet unloaded them from the Jeep when our most recent snowstorm hit. Now there's no place to put them. They're still in the Jeep and as soon as we get bare ground I hope I’ll have them placed.

This snow has slowed me down. Usually the ever-changing weather and my environment prompt me to write. I love the forward movement from month to month. In December, snow piled high excited and encouraged me. In April, I'm not so enthused. On my walks, I can't believe I'm still slogging through knee-deep snow. I want to walk lightly and see a crocus.

But then, weather like this means anything can happen. And that's the kind of life I want to live; one where anything can happen.

Sweet, Sweet March! It's Maple Syrup Time!

One of my favorite quick changes in a Northern Michigan March is the rise in temperatures during the days that launch the maple syrup season, when maple sap runs through the sugar bush to strategically placed sugar shacks. In the very old days, native people cut a hole in the Sugar Maple. They attached a wood shaving on the bottom of the hole in order to direct the maple sap towards a bark container. Later, sap dribbled into covered metal buckets or pails. Today, most sugar shacks are equipped with sophisticated plastic tubing. The maple sap follows the tubing from tree to tree and ultimately into a storage tank. At the sugar shack, the sap is boiled down until it becomes maple syrup.

Maple syrup is a true treasure because the maple sap can only be collected during the cold and brief six weeks from early March to mid-April. And, on average, a Sugar Maple will yield 40 gallons of maple sap each year, which boils down to only one gallon of maple syrup.

I'm looking forward to my annual spring binge; namely, maple syrup on my morning pancakes, waffles and French toast, maple syrup drizzled over cooking bacon and breakfast sausage, maple sticky buns, maple glazed carrots, maple butter, and the traditional March treat, hot, thick maple syrup drizzled over snow.