Country Roads Stamping

Peanut Butter Easter Eggs.

Well, you know Easter will soon be here and many organizations like to sell Easter eggs in various flavors.  Since I'm no fan of chocolate, we rarely purchase any - although we have done so to help out some organizations and the egg sits forever in our fridge - Steve will peck away at it for several weeks.  So with that thinking in mind, let me share a humorous sight here on the farm as we prepare for Peanut butter eggs.

I looked out one day last week to see Steve kneeling on the ground with all of the "girls" gathered around him.  This picture is smile inducing just looking at it, but wait until you see what is going on.

So what in the world is the big attraction?  Ofcourse whenever one of us heads out into the yard - the girls coming running immediately, hoping to be picked up and petted or maybe get a treat.  Well, this time they were getting a treat.  Check this out.

Yes, that is peanut butter - nothing like advertising for the best peanut butter here on the blog ;)  Also note that I have this jar marked "birds" so we don't inadvertently pick up the wrong jar of peanut butter - that would not be a good thing!!!  These girls LOVE peanut butter

Now I really should make something clear here - even though I entitled this post Peanut Butter Easter Eggs - the fact that they are eating peanut butter will NOT make the eggs taste like peanut butter - I say this because a preacher we used to know thought that chocolate milk came from brown cows - so it would not be a far stretch for someone to think that what a chicken eats, when flavored, will transfer to the egg - not so.  So I guess we won't actually have any peanut butter eggs!  Oh and by the way - the dogs like this treat too - pretty much everyone lines up for this when I go out to put this out for the birds.  Well, everyone except Steve and I - we have our own jar for snacking!

That's your smile for today's Saturday with Steve!  Thanks for coming by.  Enjoy your week-end. 

It's Sugar time!

As I stated yesterday on my blog, a lot can happen around here in 24 hours.  My hubby brought in some pictures for me to use on the blog and I was having a time getting them loaded where I needed them from the camera he brought me - while I was fiddling with that - he comes flying in the house and says "get ready, we have to go tap trees".  Now that does not mean we are going to play some simple childhood game where we run from tree to tree tapping them.  No, that means we have an afternoon of work laid out in front of us.

So by tapping the trees - I mean it is maple sugar time.  Now I know some of you are saying, gee, she did this before, didn't she?  and yes, I did, and yes, you need to realize that much of what we do here "on the ranch" is repetitive!  However, each year it is different.  This year, tapping the trees was wonderful!  No snow on the ground - easy walking through the woods and pleasant shirt sleeve weather!  Wonderful.  In the picture above, Steve is gathering all the buckets, to be wiped and readied to go hang on the trees.  Now realize that we are a very small hobby tree tapper :)  We have a friend that Steve went to school with that has a big sugar shack, as well as an evaporator and Steve loves to go visit Jim and just stand there and drool at all the equipment.  However, we do this mainly for our own enjoyment of the end product:

Our own pure maple syrup - lousy picture - but you get the idea.  After the buckets were all cleaned, we loaded them in the truck and with all the other equipment headed off to the woods.  The worse part of this is getting alllllllllll the buckets UP the hill without making a dozen trips.  So once again, we loaded about 16 buckets on two pieces of wood, I took the lead, with Steve bringing up the rear and up we headed on the steep, slick hill lugging 16 buckets. 

The delightful hill:

Looks much better from the top looking down

Look at that shadow - if only the ground hog was here!  Oh yeah - like that would really work anyway!

Here we are lugging them on the flat land to the trees and yes yes - my camera has the timed setting - cool!

The first thing we have to do, or rather Steve has to do, is drill a hole in the tree for the spigot to fit in:

Let me point out something unusual for you

If you look closely and I do mean closely, you will see small circles in the tree - there are about three of them in a line - those are were woodpeckers have worked to dig in the tree for bugs.  In the early spring when the hummingbirds return, where the sap is flowing, down trees, they can get a 'drink' of sugar water and locate insects that are drawn to that - just a little side note with the sugar sap.

Then the sap lines are put into the holes in the top of the buckets - immediately we could hear the sap start dripping - I tried about 12 times to get a picture of the sap dripping out but I consistently missed it.  All I got was a picture of Steve's hand with sap all over it where he was trying to help me get a picture of it.

Then we needed more buckets - so ofcourse that meant another trek back down that awful hill and then back up it - so I was nominated to make that trip - We only needed 2 - 3 more buckets and 5 more hoses so off I went - when I returned, I found my husband comfortably sitting on a tree log waiting and I sweetly said "Oh I guess I went to make the 2nd trip because I'm younger and in better shape" - he just as sweetly replied "That or you are heavier and needed the extra exercise"!  Gotta love him!  He ofcourse said - I'll be paying for that won't I?  and he did - he made the third trip down - not me !  While I was waiting on him to lug back up the hill I located this tree:

If you look hard in the shadow at the top of this tree you can see a large hole - I would stake money on the fact that this is an owl tree.  When Steve returned I asked if he heard owls here in this part of the woods and he said that he did.  This is the perfect type of tree to find them in. Back on track - we finished up tapping and setting up the trees and then headed to my parents to tap a few of their trees and here's what we found - now remember, it is February.

This is a priceless picture - mom and dad sitting in lawn chairs on the 3rd of February by a fire - roasting marshmallows no less!!! I didn't get a picture of Steve roasting a marshmallow and realized that after the fact.  Here's hoping we are doing the same thing next February.  While we were there we also noticed the turkey vultures are back - Hallelujah.  Spring must be coming early.  Well, that's all for another adventure with Steve on Saturday!  See you back next week as we have something ready to go if I can just figure out how to get the pictures where they need to be.  Have a great week-end.  I'm going to be enjoying some Steel cut oats cooked in maple syrup!  Yummm!

Saturday with Steve

 
Steve had all sorts of plans for things that he would be doing this week with our son - in -law Nathan, but the weather just did not cooperate.  Snow and cold really put a damper on a lot of planned activities.  We did take an afternoon and head down to Saltwell to visit one of Steve's high school friends that has a Sugar Shack and show Nathan how a really successful Maple tapping business runs!  Steve did manage to get work done here around the house though.  Remember that building that STeve is building that I have referred to before (See December posts) well, they worked on putting the siding on - remember this is siding from our property - trees were felled last year and then planed and now cured and being nailed in place.

 
This is the back side of the building that Nathan and Steve are working on.  I want you to see this neat design that Steve decided to cut at the bottom of the building.

 
I thought this design was pretty cool - but then it doesn't take much to excite me, obviously.  This building is really taking shape and to all of you that come here for classes - Steve is thinking that when I have large classes, open houses, etc. that I can use the garage area so that EVERYONE can be in one room - I can't begin to tell you how happy I am about that. 

 
This will be stained later but for now it is wonderful just to know that there will really be a place for him to have all his "stuff" to work with and that I can have some of the area in the basement to expand my stamp room!  That's it for today - thankfully the temperatures will get warmer today.  See you on Monday. 

Saturday with Steve

Since I missed out on Saturday with Steve last week due to the internet service being down all day I pretty much forgot to get up and do this first thing this morning.  So I am late - but this will be here for those die hards that like Steve's shenanigans even though it is a little late getting up here! 

I've put up here before our maple syrup adventures but I've added a few more explanatory pictures of how we accomplish this.  It is sap flowing time again so that means we have to gather our little buckets together and go tap some trees - here's how we "hoof" the buckets UP the long hill:

 
That is a bamboo stick that is strung among 16 buckets and looky - it is ME!  I never get on here - I'm always taking pictures of someone else - but this time Steve grabbed the camera and took the picture - now he picked up the other end and we "walked" these up this hill:

 
Yep - clear to the very top of this hill is where we are trudging - as far as the picture shows!  Ugh.  Those 16 buckets were pretty heavy by the time we arrived at the top of the hill - then we had to walk on back into the woods to tap the trees and hang the buckets.  Why didn't we use the 4-wheeler?  Because we wanted the buckets to stay separate and we would have had to stack them one inside the other, which would have made the buckets dirty.  This area is not accessible by truck - either foot or 4-wheel.  So once we arrive at the top of the hill Steve picks the trees and they are tapped:

 
Hole is drilled first then the spout is put in

 
There is plastic tubing (the blue) that extends down to buckets

 
These are checked on days that the overnight temperature has dropped below freezing and the daytime temperature has gone above freezing - that's what makes the sap flow - who knew there were all these details.  When we go check the buckets - this is how it should look inside:

 
 
OOh that looks pretty weird with the tree reflected in it - anyway, it should be clear - yesterday we had to throw 2 buckets out because it was cloudy.  Yesterday we also had an additional problem - we nearly didn't get down there in time:

 
Yep - we were cutting it rather close here - another hour and we would have had difficulty getting to the buckets!   I don't do flood water - have had enough bad experiences here to give me a very healthy respect for high water - hate the smell of it even - and it does have a very distinct smell as you sit there and watch it rush by - it is not pleasant!   Well, that's all for today - did not take pictures of the straining of the sap, which is done several times, nor the heating - which is a constant on going production here!  Hope you are enjoying your saturday!