Tap Tap Tap Maple Sap
These are the words to the first song I ever learned to play on the piano when I was a little girl. I still remember sitting at the old piano in the basement plinking out those keys while singing along, all the while waiting for kitchen timer to ding so I could quit practicing. You can guess why I was humming this song yesterday.
It was a beautiful sunny day and the temperatures climbed slightly above freezing. Not quite prime sugaring season yet, but we wanted to get some of our trees tapped since tomorrow the temperature is supposed to be close to 40. We were just going to put one tap in the tree we can see from the kitchen window, so we could watch it. When it started flowing we would install the rest of the taps. As soon as we tapped the tree a little drop of sap appeared on the end of the spile. It was warm enough yesterday to start the sap flowing.
Since the sap was flowing we put in all 12 taps that we had on hand. We ordered a bunch more spiles a week ago, but haven’t received them yet, they’ll be put in as soon as we get them. The taps produced about a gallon of sap by dusk, it will be stored until we get more before boiling it down. It’s forecasted to be almost 40 today which should produce good sap flow. But then it’s supposed to get cold again next week which will probably stop the flow. We’re hoping for a good sugaring season this year resulting in a few gallons of syrup.
What kind of syrup is in your cupboard, the real stuff or Aunt Jemima?
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Organizing Seeds
So, I’ve got this big plastic bin full of seeds, as many gardeners do. The longer I garden, the more my seed stash grows. Some of them are old and I need to sprinkle in the garden just to see if they’ll grow, I’m pretty sure they’re way past their prime. It’s just so hard to get rid of them sometimes.
I’ve been trying to figure out a great way to organize all these seed packets. Originally they all fit in a few plastic jars and I separated them by genre: legumes, flowers, herbs, and other veggies. I now have way too many seeds for this system. I’m considering an accordion file or perhaps a plastic file box with file folders. I could organize them by type: beans, squash, greens, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, etc.
How do you organize your seeds? Any great organizational tips to share?
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Spring Cleaning
Mother said,
“We’ll start housecleaning tomorrow, bright and early.”
Almanzo hated house-cleaning. Everything in the house was moved, everything was scrubbed and scoured and polished. All the curtains were down, all the feather-beds were outdoors, airing, all the blankets and quilts were washed. From dawn to dark Almanzo was running, pumping water, fetching wood, spreading clean straw on the scrubbed floors and then helping to stretch the carpets over it, and then tacking all those edges down again.
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Farmer Boy)
It’s not spring here in NE Ohio, that will be a long time yet, but it is time however to start thinking about the spring cleaning. It’s much better to get these chores out of the way before spring actually starts, since spring is a busy time in the garden. All those chores that don’t need done on a weekly/monthly basis make up the spring cleaning list: rolling up rugs and scrubbing the floors, washing curtains, wiping down mouldings, cleaning light fixtures, clearing out dressers, organizing kitchen drawers, going through the pantry, etc.
I’ll be spending some time each week for the next month or two getting these big tasks out of the way. I already cleaned the kitchen drawers, organized the pantry, and cleaned the window moulding. Next to be checked off my list will be cleaning all the light fixtures, then I’ll move on to the dressers & closets.
Do you do spring cleaning or do you have another system for keeping order & cleaning the house?
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No Winter Garden
Last year at this time I was harvesting my first batch of spinach from the garden. Notice the sun and lack of snow, we currently have around 3 feet of snow on the raised beds.
I planted some spinach last fall hoping for the same results, but the weather turned cold very early. That coupled with a really early frost delayed the growth of the spinach enough that I don’t have any to harvest at the moment (not to mention all the snow). I should still have an early spring harvest, perhaps in late March or early April if the weather warms.
Sadly I will have no mid-February harvest of spinach this year. I’ll have to buy my greens at the market.
Do you do any winter gardening?
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Reading a Piece of History
I really like old books, especially the ones I get from the library. I like the fact that they’ve been well read by hundreds or thousands of people.
I just finished reading through the Little House on the Prairie series. My sister and I had a set of our own growing up, and we read them over and over till the bindings gave way. We fixed them with tape and now her children are reading through them. I thought about buying a new set, since I’ll probably read them many more times, but I decided to get them from the library.
I love that sometimes previous readers have added notes and underlined things they like. This is especially fun in books like this that are considered kid’s books.
The edition of Farmer Boy I ended up with had to have been one of the first editions. The pages were so worn from reading they were soft like velvet.
I wondered how many little boys and girls have leafed through this book being captivated by the stories of Almanzo Wilder’s youth.
Do you like to read old books or do you like to break in new ones?
