Seriously, winter? I thought we had an understanding!
* * *

Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, snow, winter on April 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Funny, Likes, tagged #365Ways, fun, pandas, pick-me-up, snow on February 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Today could use a little pick-me-up, so I give you…
Pandas in the snow!
And now I’m smiling 🙂
Today was the last day of snow here at Maison J. Very exciting! Sure, the south-facing neighbors have been basking in the beauty of Spring for ages now (days at least;) but today was finally our day. Snow has melted, cardinals are singing, the trees out front are just about to bud and all is well.
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Also, the Easter Bunny says hello!
Posted in Holidays, Likes, tagged #ThingsILike, home, science, snow, Spring, Thoughts on March 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
(This is me, willfully ignoring the many, many feet of snow still camped out on my front lawn.)
Happy Spring!
Posted in Other, tagged fun, home, snow, Thoughts, winter on January 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »
This isn’t me, but it could be:) For all those in the path of the storm, stay safe and have fun!
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #MyCanada, #rukiddingme, haiku, home, snow, Spring, Thoughts, winter, writing on May 8, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Likes, tagged #finallydonewithwinter, #ThingsILike, flowers, home, mothers, snow, Spring, Thoughts, violets, winter on April 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Finally! On Easter the last of our snow melted. We have flowers for the first time since winter arrived. This post is for my mother, who picked violets for her mother, once upon a time.
Happy Spring!
Posted in Other, tagged home, snow, winter on November 21, 2016| 1 Comment »
So, this is what my Saturday looked like…
…and this was Sunday:
That optimistic little violet is now located under several centimeters of snow. Winter has arrived!
What good is warmth without cold to give it sweetness?
― John Steinbeck
Posted in Food and..., Likes, tagged #MapleWeekend, #SyrupTsunami, #ThingsILike, #VisitOntario, awesome, Ents, food, fun, home, LotR, memories, Ontario, persistence, snow, sugar shack, winter, yay on April 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »
For today’s installment of #ThingsILike, I give you maple syrup. (Honestly, is there anyone out there who does not enjoy this delicious treat from the northern woods?) Lucky me, it looks like this year’s wacky weather patterns have resulted in a veritable tsunami of syrup!
For those of you not intimately familiar with the process of maple syrup production, it goes like this:
[Maple] trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring. Maple trees can be tapped by drilling holes into their trunks and collecting the exuded sap, which is processed by heating to evaporate much of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup.
Here’s a video to showing a basic tap and bucket assembly, but I’ve seen outfits with setups running what look like miles of bright blue tubing directly from the trees to the sugar shack.
Even with modern improvements, this isn’t the sort of agricultural process that can be exported to alternate climes. The trees require cold winters and sap production levels depend on spring temperatures finely balanced between colder nights and warmer days.
It turns out that the weather this March has been pretty near perfect, at least if you are a sugar maple. Waking trees drink up groundwater during the day, convert the stored starches in their roots to sugar, and pump the resulting sap up their trunks and into waiting sap buckets.
Collect, boil, repeat, at least until the sap stops running.
Making syrup requires a lot of work and patience. The old fashioned way involves big black kettles and a steady supply of wood to keep the fire going. Even with new, more efficient boilers, reducing sap to syrup takes hours.
My mother took us to a friend’s sugaring party when I was a child. My brother and I ran from tree to tree, hauling half-full buckets through the snowy woods to the kettle and back. The fresh sap tasted like the Entish draughts of my imagination, its clear cool taste instantly refreshing. We also poured hot syrup onto plates of snow to make maple taffy. Freaking amazing.
As luck (or clever planning?) would have it, I am located in the heart of maple syrup country. Quebec and Ontario are the largest maple syrup producers in Canada.
If you happen to be in Ontario this weekend and you love maple syrup as much as I do, you’re in luck. It’s Maple Weekend and I plan to stock up for the year. Because delicious!
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