Well, my computer is still being repaired, so I have retreated into the world that I understand. Making syrup and making spindles. I've been looking forward to this day since the sap stopped running last year! I love making maple syrup, it gives me an excuse to get outside during a time of year that would otherwise just be a transition time from dirty snow to mud. The other day when I made a small test batch, Sue held the jar of still warm amber syrup and said that it was "like holding the heart of the tree". Standing in the woods, checking my buckets (I have 28 this year, should be enough for about 5 or 6 gallons!) I love the barren stillness. It's quite a feeling to step into the shop and chuck a piece of maple in the lathe throw a scrap in the fire and realize I'd be lost without wood.
Thats one scrappy-looking dog you got there!
ReplyDeleteOne of the great travesties of the modern world is to drive the roads of VT this time of year and see the miles of plastic pipe bringing the sap to a big s/s tank in the woods. Ugly! I cherish the memories of my boyhood with a good team of horses in the woods, collecting the sap the way god intended, in a bucket. Philip
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