Still no Sap! (or...The Winter that Never Ended)

We've had two more weekends up in Vermont, and STILL NO sap.  At least not in the quantities we need to start boiling.  About 220 gallons is required just to "sweeten the pan" on the size evaporator in our sugarhouse- and all that is before you even pour off one drop of sweet maple syrup.  The last time we sugared, in 2012, we had processed over 1400 gallons of sap by this time (late March).  This year... we have less than 200 gallons.  The weather has just been too darn cold.  It warms up for maybe part of one day, and then freezes solid for 4 more.  The ground is still solidly frozen, with a good two foot blanket of snow, and any sap that has come out is frozen solid in the buckets, tubes, and tanks.  So, suffice it to say, we are in a sad state.  

Hanging out watching Frozen with the Munson/Cameron clan

Haley enjoying Grandma Sally's birthday present

But... we are finding other ways to occupy ourselves on these days with no sugaring work to be done.  On the first weekend, Larrie, Mary, Memorie and Newt were up, along with the whole Cameron clan.  So Ciara and Aiden and Haley had a great time building forts for stuffies and watching movies and creating elaborate crafts.  We ate like kings, jambalaya, pulled chicken tacos, ribs, maple baked beans... nothing to complain about there. And it was great to see family even if the main event was on hold.  We went to visit several other sugarhouses for the Open House weekend-- most were either not boiling or just boiling water for effect and to show how the equipment works.  But there was still maple coffee, donuts with maple cream, maple candy, hot dogs boiled in sap, sugar on snow, and maple cotton candy.  I, for one, was totally sweeted out by the end of the afternoon.  My favorite sugarhouse is the one at the Green Mountain Audubon right near our old house in Huntington.  It's a pretty location, and they still use buckets (600+) and have killer sugar on snow with extra crispy dill pickles.  They had hammered a "golden tap" into one of their trees somewhere in the sugarbush and hung a bucket on it.  If you found it and sent them a cell phone photo as proof, you get entered into a drawing to win some prize.  Aiden and Andy and I looked for a good hour, I felt like I checked at least 400 buckets, but we came up empty handed.  Still, it was fun post-holing around the woods searching.

Kimball hiding in the teepee

Haley and Ciara looking for the Golden Tap

Haley and Ciara

The only sugarhouse that was boiling that weekend!

Andy and Glen fixing more coyote chew damage

Aiden and Ciara nosh on Jeni's cake pops (Olaf... no!)

What we should be doing!

At Audubon where they were boiling water

Haley digs into her sugar on snow

The sauna is getting quite a work out too.  With nothing really to do, we keep it well stoked and the kids love to run out there in their skivvies and boots several times a day.  They stay in only about 5 minutes (as long as spraying the stove with a squirt bottle will keep them entertained) and then run outside to jump and play in the snow with no clothes on.  I suspect that is the real reason they like the sauna.  Meanwhile, the adults who really would like a nice hot steam, end up with a lukewarm sit because the door is opening and closing every two seconds!  Good fun.

The next weekend was just us, and still no sap, so we made the best of it by taking a trip into Burlington for lunch at A Single Pebble.  We did the "Tasting Menu" where the chef selects a lot of small dishes for the table to share, which was delicious and saved us the trouble of having to choose from among all the amazing sounding authentic chinese dishes.  The only bummer was that a noodle dish wasn't included this time, and the kids love their noodles.  Still, they were very adventurous and tried everything that was delivered to the table.  Stuffed shrimp, double garlic broccoli, and several chicken and beef dishes were favorites.  After lunch we walked Church Street and stopped at the Outdoor Gear Exchange and Lake Champlain Chocolates for dessert.  On Sunday we actually did dump the sap buckets before heading home to NH, but really it was more for show than anything else, as they were only about 1/4 to 1/2 full.  And with big frozen ice chunks in the bottom of most of them.  Will it ever warm up this spring?  And if so, will the sap flow?  It's seeming less and less probable with each passing day.

A Single Pebble

Lake Champlain Chocolates

Haley bought a pink leash for Kimball

St. Patty's Day Weekend

Since Micah and Becky (and Larrie and Mary) are up helping mom with sugaring, we managed a nice weekend at home.  The weather on Saturday morning was perfect for spring skiing (40 and sunny) so we headed to Ragged.  It was our best day of skiing/riding this year.  Haley spent the first half of the morning going up and down the magic carpets, and was really doing well skiing by herself.  I kept asking if she wanted to try the chairlift, but not pushing her any further when she said "no thanks."  Finally after a big snack she wanted to try the barnyard chair, and after the first run down she had a huge smile on her face and said, "Let's do that AGAIN, mama!"  Yes!  It's been a rough year getting her to transition from the harness (of last year) to skiing on her own- not due to any lack of skill; she totally knows how to turn and stop FINE, but just a crisis of confidence.  I think she's finally over that!

Andy and Aiden had a joint snowboarding lesson in the morning, and that went well too.  Aiden is really starting to get how to S-turn, and also handles the lifts fine.  And it finally clicked with Andy too- the snowboarding thing - he is not falling anymore, which must be nice for his body!  On Saturday afternoon the kids and I headed over to their friends Angie and Alex's house for a playdate, and by the end of the day they were dropping into bed like zombies.

Making dog biscuits for Kimball

Sunday we headed to the Andersons for the annual St. Pattys Day/Maple Brunch- Rich and Heidi outdid themselves as usual, with eggs benedict, caramel french toast, chocolate waffles, and sausage.  Mimosas and irish coffees, kids running around like mad people, and little baby Colin taking his first toddles around the Anderson's house.  It's excellent to have good friends who don't mind when a two hour brunch turns into an all day party.  We ate and laughed until our bellies hurt, as usual.

Tapping with Tubes

Last weekend we headed up to Monkton to start our first sugaring season with tubing in the sugarwoods.  We weren't sure how much of our tubing would still be strung up in the woods after winter storms and fallen trees and limbs, but it wasn't too bad.  There were a few downed lines, but the worst problem was animal chew damage to the lines.  Some of it was definitely squirrels or chipmunks, higher up on the trees, but according to local sources, young coyotes also really like to chew the rubbery lines when they are teething.  So, in any case, a lot of chewed sections had to be cut out and new lines spliced in.  Still, I think tapping went quicker with the tubing than in previous years of having to haul 200 buckets and lids down into the sugarbush.  We were done by Saturday afternoon, and had plenty of time to enjoy the sauna and even try a little (still unsuccessful) ice fishing on Grandma's pond.  

 Now, we just need the weather to cooperate.  There have been a few isolated days here and there where the mercury reached about 38 and the taps started to drip, but the vast majority of days have been solidly below freezing (it's about -7 on St. Patty's Day as I write this!) so whatever sap has flowed out is generally frozen solid in the tubing or the bottom of the buckets on the top of the hill.  Uncle Larrie and Aunt Mary are up helping mom this week, but so far there hasn't been much to do that is sugaring related.  Not even any sap in the tanks yet.  Mom's friend Dave who owns Boyer Orchards and has a big sugaring operation keeps telling her she has to be patient... so we'll see.  We are up to VT again in five days and hope there will be something to boil!

Haley was so tired after her weekend of sugaring that she passed out IN the grocery cart!

Annual Gingerbreading Fest

The construction site is always a big mess!

Our annual Gingerbread Fest with the Camerons and Deans is a moving target.  Some years we do New Year's party houses, some years we make Valentine love shacks, some years we make leprechaun huts, and some years it is new housing for the Easter Bunny.  We never make them for Christmas; I think that must be the only rule!  Last year we used milk cartons to help hold the house structures together, and this year we went even easier and used graham crackers for construction material instead of baked gingerbread panels.  You know what?  The kids did not even notice, and they enjoyed the decorating and candy sampling just as much as ever.  

Baby Finna towers over bunny graham town

The finished village

 Candy sampling was the activity of the day.  We did eat pizza before construction time, just to try and fill the kids with something slightly nutritious before the onslaught of sugar, but it was still all about the lollipops, jelly beans, smarties, chocolate eggs, licorice and peeps.  Only Andy, who held baby Finna for the whole construction, escaped the binge.  Jeni might have ingested less than the rest of us too, since she took all of these great photos!  It was a sweet day, as usual ;)

Ciara with her mouth full (of what, I wonder?)

Hmm... let me see if these are any good before I put them on my house!

What's up with Ice Fishing?

Okay, so I haven't been ice fishing since I was probably 12 and hanging out with Micah and Paul Mullin on Fort Meadow Reservoir.  I remember it being cold, of course, and pretty boring.  I think all I remember us catching was one or two shrimpy perch and pumpkinseeds.  So my expectations were pretty low when we decided to participate in a local ice fishing tournament in Bradford.  Aiden's expectations- well, they weren't so low.  More like celestial, unfortunately.  Aiden is obsessed with fishing of any kind  at the moment.  He reads fish stories (true and not) and watches "Top Hooker" on Amazon and pretty much any YouTube video he can find of someone reeling something in.  Though he did get in some good fishing in earlier this winter in the Keys, ice fishing is pretty much his only physical outlet for this obsession at this time of year in New Hampshire. 

So we borrowed all the gear... the ice auger, the tip ups, even the cool pack basket to make us look like regulars... from Uncle Micah and then set out to Lake Todd on the Sunday of the tournament.  An hour later and only 2 holes dug, Andy was sweating and muttering under his breath about how "fun" this sport was.  Uncle Micah's auger had a broken blade and cutting through the 2' thick ice was so slow that some guy with a power auger took pity on us and buzzed five or so holes in a row for us to use.  Then setting up the tip ups, with minnows for bait, and waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  If you couldn't already guess, we caught exactly nothing, not even a credible bite.

Aiden was disappointed, of course, but not deterred.  That's because it was relatively exciting watching other people around us haul in fish, some of them sizeable.  One kid next to us caught a giant smallmouth bass- probably the biggest Andy or I had ever seen anyone catch - only to realize that no trophies were given out for bass in this particular tournament (bummer).  I thought he should have received some sort of prize for that one.  Kids were also reeling up large pickerel out of their ice holes, not 20 feet from our ice holes.  Even after conferring with Uncle Micah, we have no idea what we were doing wrong.  Other than the other guys were there first, and the fish had LOTS of choice that day with nearly 100 kids spread all over the pond dangling minnows at them.

Still, we have bitten the bullet and have now purchased our own ice fishing equipment.  A brand new (sharp!) ice auger and a handful of tip ups.  If the ice holds, we'll get out there again this winter to see if we can actually catch a fish through a hole in the ice.  Wish us luck!