Hi, Everyone!
The snow at Grandma and Grandpa’s house had mostly melted by last week, so I started looking for signs of spring! The snowdrops were already blooming when the snow melted off them! Lots of my daffodil friends are sprouting! My crocus friend that comes up in the grass was the first to bloom! I’ve only see one other of my crocus friends, but I keep looking!
I was really excited that Uncle Steven’s family was coming for dinner! That hadn’t happened since last September, because of the bad virus. I helped Grandma pull another pork shoulder to serve, because that’s a family favorite! Grandma found a big pork shoulder at reduced price at the store, so we had a LOT of pulled pork when we were done! Aunt Kara and Thomas made a COVID cake — decorated to look like the bad virus — to have for dessert. We all had a good time being together!
We still weren’t quite done with winter. One day, we had graupel flurries! Out at the bay, there was still ice on most of the water. I could see melting around the edges! The primrose in the herb garden was leafy and green. When we had a warmer day, my stray crocus friend opened its blossom more.
Last Saturday, we had another adventure with Uncle Steven’s family! We all drove to Cumming Nature Center in Naples NY for maple sugar days! First, we had a pancake breakfast with local cider and lots of maple syrup. It was yummy! Because of the bad virus, every family had its own table socially distanced from anybody else.
While we were waiting for James to finish his pancakes, Uncle Steven and Thomas and I looked at the wildlife displays in the visitor center lobby upstairs. I found a moose friend! Then I made friends with a timber wolf, a black bear, and a great big beaver!
After breakfast, we walked along the maple trail to learn how maple sap gets turned into syrup and sugar! The first stop was the tree tapping station. James and Thomas practiced making holes in tree trunks and inserting spouts to drain some of the sap. Modern collecting gets done with plastic tubing, but there were some old-fashioned buckets hanging directly on tapped trees!
At the Pioneer House, a volunteer showed us how the first European residents in this area concentrated the sap by boiling it in big kettles outside! When it was partly concentrated, it was taken to the sugar house in wooden buckets! That was a job for pioneer children, with different sizes of buckets and yokes depending on the age of the child. Thomas and James practiced with two different sizes of buckets! The volunteer explained that maple sap was usually boiled all the way down to sugar, because that kept better than syrup. Each family’s sugar was a big lump, so the family used a sugar devil to break it up for cooking and eating!
Our last stop was the sugar house! There isn’t any chinking between the logs of the sugar house, so the steam from the evaporator gets out. The evaporator has baffles, so the sap is exposed to lots of heated surfaces as it passes through and reduces to syrup. The heat comes from a wood fire in the firebox underneath! There was lots of firewood stacked up to feed the fire!
Sunday was another springlike day! Grandma and Grandpa took me back out to the bay. There was a lot more open water around the ice! A flock of gulls could still stand on the thin ice that remained. The water level is really low now — the lowest I’ve ever seen!
Yesterday was warm and sunny again. Grandma said we could go to Highland Park to visit my plant friends there. I saw snowdrops and daffodil sprouts, just like in our yard. There were some scilla in bloom and the magnolia blossom buds are getting fuzzy and plump!
At the Poets Garden, I saw aconites and my helleborus friends! The witch hazel was in bloom, too! I was happy to see so much spring color!
We stopped by the burrows in the lilac bushes, but we didn’t see any of my groundhog friends. A few of the bushes had green buds. The daffodil meadow on the hillside was sprouting nicely, too!
On our way home, we stopped at the Brickyard Trail to look for signs of spring there. I saw some more snowdrops, but not much else green. There was still ice on some of the ponds.
When we got home I looked for more signs of spring in Grandma and Grandpa’s yard. Guess what? There’s another crocus blooming where it’s not supposed to be! We haven’t seen any tulip sprouts yet, but Grandma and I decided to start spreading coffee grounds where they’re planted!
Love,
Lion-san
We saw all the flowers. We have snowdrop and daffodils also. Tulips are starting also. The hyacinths are poking their heads up too in the front flowerbed. The snowdrops are really pretty out the side window. The starflowers we have are starting to show signs of life. It’s nice to see green in the lawns.
We got a good laugh from seeing the COVID cake. Very cleverly done! 👍
What do coffee grounds do for tulips? So fun to learn about maple sugaring. One year we saw maple sugaring taking place real close to where we lived in Rosendale. Weatherwise so far this seems to me to be a good year for maple sugaring.
Great-aunt Betsy, critters don’t eat daffodils or hyacinths, but tulips are tasty. When Grandma and I sprinkle coffee grounds around the tulip sprouts, nobody eats them.