Happy St. Pattys Day!

I just finished a tasty meal of Corned Beef and Cabbage.

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Our last 5 days weather wise couldn't have been nicer. I sure hope the Arctic blasts of winter are gone for good. The fact that it is Michigan I know we aren't done but a girl can dream, right?

Over the weekend we raked leaves and...

...demolished the old crate coop.

You served us well for 3 years but it was time to go.

We couldn't justify keeping you and your leaky roof when I have this "new" beauty.

Nothing left but the foundation.

Our yard looks less trashy now. We still have a bit of trashy left but that's how we roll.

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I collected sap until I almost got tired of it.

All of this 8 gallon container.

Plus all these.

About 22 gallons worth, and the sap is still flowing.

I had to get our propane tank refilled so I could do this again.

Melissa asked for a close up of our hook system. Our taps had built in hooks so it made hanging the jugs easy.

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Not all good news though.

The winter was a hard one for us but it was even harder on our pond. The inhabitants of our pond actually.

It looks like all of our large fish have been wiped out. Bass, large mouth and small, and our stripes. All of the big Bluegill and Sunfish.

Both of our carp too.

The ice hasn't melted all the way yet so I'm not sure if any small ones are left.

We were stocking up as a future meat source and had only eaten a few last summer.

We were hoping to have a fish fry with our camping guests this summer. Sorry ladies.

I'm bummed, I had caught and brought home most of these fish myself.

Of all the years we have been here we have never lost fish over the winter.

Looks like I need to renew my fishing licence.

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The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Dolly Parton

A tale of two syrups.

I usually make my own syrup.

Boil 2 cups of water, add 4 cups of sugar, stir till clear, add a splash of maple flavor.

Its usually cheaper than store bought and I don't care for the butter flavor most syrups add.

It's easy and I always have those ingredients on hand.

Hubby has been wanting to tap our maple trees for quite some time. Last year he bought some old syrup taps on ebay. Don't you love a guy who does stuff like that?

You tap trees right before the temps get in the 40's, so last Sunday he drilled and tapped 7 of our maples and rigged some milk jugs to collect the sap.

And we waited.

The chickens scratched.

I took a self portrait.

It got warmer and the daffodils peeked out.

We didn't have to wait long.

In a day and a half we collected about 12 gallons of sap. (it's really like water)



You have to boil it down outside unless you like your walls and ceiling to be sticky in your home.



I manned the pot.

The guys worked on the dock.

It boiled into the night.


Our first batch was thin, but tasted amazing. Our next batch, we boiled down more and was thicker.
I filtered it through t-shirt material to get out the bits and bugs.
In total we got about a quart of syrup.




Words can't describe how good this is, all I can say it was well worth the effort.
It turned cold again and the trees have stopped producing, we hope the next warm up brings more sap but since this is our first year we don't know what to expect.
We've read that some trees like silver maples don't work well for flavor, apparently we have the good sugar maples. <3>

"I am wearing shorts!"

I repeat, "I am wearing shorts!"

Hi

My poor neglected blog. Not that I haven't been doing things that are blog worthy, laundry can be quite fascinating right? Working on projects, sick kid for 5 days, and dealing with crappy weather takes the front burner and my blog, back burner.


I went on a Orchestra field trip with my son. I figured, when your kids enter high school field trips almost never come up so I jumped at the opportunity even if it meant to be at the school at 6am.

My Boy.

Not sure why this photo turned out this way, but I kind of like it.

The 9th Grade Orchestra.

The bus ride home.

I didn't even ask.

Thank you Mrs. Busdriver.

I signed up to do the same with the girl in 2 weeks. I love being a mom.

Help

I am trying to buy my seeds for this years veggie garden. Our Michigan economy is so awful, 10.6% unemployment, so I wanted to buy my seed from a local business instead of mail order. My problem is I don't want to buy from a Monsanto owned seed company. Most clerks give me the crazy lady look when I have inquired about what company their seed comes from.

Can any of you that are way smarter than me, point me in the right direction?

I thank you in advance for any help on the matter.

A whole lotta random stuff.

The lovely Angie from Children in the Corn gave me this award.

"This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his/her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values every day."

So kind of her but my question is... Are you reading the same blog as me? The blog that almost never sticks to just one topic, the blog that during the time my spell check was out for months only posted words as difficult as cat, hat, mat, sat?

Knowing I am my own worst critic, I will just say "Thank You" and trust her judgement.

So in my typical writing "style", I'll show you what has been going on around here.

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I have been in a bit of a slump in the art/craft department. This is the time of year when I should be cranking out the inventory for the summer and fall art/craft show craziness, but the winter grays have put my creativity into hibernation. Since i get the twitches if I go a week without touching my sewing machine, I did sew something.

See this chair?

No I didn't pick it out, it was a freebie. I pays to know a designer whose clients change their minds. Retail, a $900.00 chair, I got 2 of them!

I made a slipcover. Don't inspect it to close, I didn't have a pattern

(I wouldn't recommend doing it this way).

One down one to go.

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We've been doing some spring cleaning. I know it isn't spring but we are trying our best to hurry it along.

Yes, the man likes to work in his jammies too.

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T-bone barked furiously to let me know the car was parked in a different location. The funny thing is that we (T-bone and I) had just gotten home from grocery shopping, and he hopped out of the car from that spot. I wanted to park it in the sun to help melt the snow I couldn't reach under the wiper blades.

Speaking of grocery shopping, this weeks total was $33.25. I did spend $16.94 in scratch grain for the chickens ( I count it in the food budget). So my $50.19 total at least averages my $90 something from last week down to a more respectable number.

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I got some free movies. Not to keep but to borrow.

Nothing was on tv, and I hadn't checked out any movies at the library for our Friday night game/movie night, so I boxed up a pile of our movies, had my brother do the same, and we had a movie exchange. As my brother was looking through our box, he kept repeating what a great idea it was. We'll trade back in a few weeks, but it is nice to have some different movies to choose from and no cash is leaving our pockets.

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Uno and i have been practicing our falconry techniques.

What do you think?

Bunny meets Llama

I know I wasn't supposed to post anything until Wednesday when the kids are back in school but there have been good things happening and the kids are at my sisters playing with their cousins.

Great Grandpa is a Valentine baby so we celebrated his 89th Birthday on Saturday. He is currently at a facility recovering from surgery, we partied there, we hope he comes home soon.

He is the sweetest man ever, it's fitting he was born on Valentines Day.

I just got back from the grocery store and they finally brought back the discounted produce rack. I know it isn't local food, but that pile of bananas and pears was only .39 a pound. The girl loves grapefruit and that little kiwi was looking at me begging me to bring it home.

I also got discounted fresh mushrooms. Tonights meal, stuffed mushrooms and lasagna with a fruit salad on the side.

I had $100.00 to spend this week and my total came to $96.53. That was close, a little too close.

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My little business news:

I got word that the bag order is a go (from last weeks meeting). They loved the sample I gave and want to order even more than the original 10. Yay! I'll give more details later.

You may be wondering what the title of this post has to do with anything.

I got word I was put into another etsy treasury.

It is such a nice feeling when another artist admires your work.

Thanks Patty!