Fire Photos

Before picture, from maybe three weeks ago. Note the large blue storage tank...actually, there were two of them and they each held 60 gallons of sap.

After, pointing toward the side where the blue tanks were. You can see the black area extending out from the front of the cooking area. The woodpile has greatly diminished because much of it was at least partially burned, so he has finished off burning it in the cooking fire.

Charred stump that has been used as a chopping block in the past.

Trash by the road, awaiting tomorrow morning's pick-up. The blue things are obviously the storage tanks. The greenish thing between them used to be a very large trash can. The buckets are his 5 gallon pails that he used to carry the sap that he emptied out of his tap containers.

Other side of the trash pile.

The good news is that the fire is still burning and the sap is merrily boiling away. Takes a lot to shut down Poppa's Syrup Operation!

Sad news for the maple syrup operation

There was a fire at the maple syrup operation tonight. Not the fire that was supposed to be. The area around the stove burned in a small brush fire. Gone are 150 gallons of sap that were waiting to be cooked, along with the two large storage drums and a few buckets that held the sap, plus equipment, including damage to the nice big floodlights my dad used at night (I think a new cord will repair those...hopefully anyway!) I'm not sure if his woodpile burned or not. I'm at work...my poor mom was home alone when it happened. She was blaming herself until my ds7 pointed out that he's seen my dad extinguish small fires that could have gotten larger as this one did. Ironically, the boiling fire itself was fine...the sap was cooking away merrily when the fire department arrived.

Not sure at this point what my dad will do...he obviously has no storage facility now for any sap he collects. I don't know if he will rush out to replace his equipment, or call it good for the season and pull his taps. He's got a good syrup harvest even if he doesn't continue to make any more this year. He probably doesn't know at this point either...by light of day he can assess and rebuild.

God is good tho...there was no wind so the fire didn't extend toward either of our homes. No one was hurt. Nothing was damaged that can't be replaced. It happened while it was still daylight, not overnight when we were sleeping.

Japanese Tanka Poetry

DD11's language arts this week dealt with forms of Japanese poetry, and she was assigned to write a tanka, which is a traditional poetry form. It consists of 5 lines, with the syllables following this pattern: 5-7-5-7-7. In an effort to inspire her to work on her partially-complete tanka, I created one myself:

Maple trees in spring
Dull branches appearing dead
Hidden life within
Sweet sap, vital nutrients
Fire, thick syrup emerges

Amazing Hiccup Cure

Believe it or not, there's a cure for hiccups, and you probably have it right in your kitchen. Eat a spoonful of peanut butter. Amazingly, that's all there is to it! Both of my kids have tried it, and it works instantly. It's pretty funny, when they start hiccing away, to see them run to the kitchen and rummage in the drawer for a spoon so they can dive into the peanut butter bowl ;-)

Spring with the Raptors

My dad has been observing spring raptor rituals, since he's out in the backyard with his maple syrup operation a lot. We finally decided, after looking at these spectacular raptor photos, that he's been watching a pair of cooper's hawks in their spring mating ritual. They've been calling back and forth a lot. We hear them even when we can't see them. He's observed what appeared to be show-off aerial maneuvers. Today one of them flew very low over our house, so we could clearly see his feather markings, which is what enabled us to positively identify them. Very cool to see and hear!

Another sign of spring...

The annual "exit of the river ice" has occurred. Unfortunately, however, it decided to sneak out during the night, so for the first time in 7 years, we totally missed it :-( Oh well, there's always next year. It seems strange to look down at the river and see brown instead of white. Then again, it's nice to not see much white anywhere, because surely that means that soon there will be green, and flowers, and all of those nice things that make us want to be outdoors more! Hurray!

More spring

So yesterday it was all about maple syrup...today it's about cooking. My dh bought us a grill over the winter and it's been sitting in the pole building awaiting good enough weather to get it to the back deck. The deed is accomplished. He even had a propane bottle so he could get it hooked up right away! The kids were just DYING to have something cooked on the grill, so I fixed the whole meal on it. Mind you, I'm not a griller. Or at least I haven't been until now. But I think I'll be liking this! I made dilled red potatoes (grilled in foil), homemade vegie burgers (YUMMY) served with cucumber raita sauce, grilled tomatoes (yummy and dh loved them) and we grilled a piece of Indian na'an bread that was in the frig. The only thing that didn't get grilled was our salad ;-) Oh, and dessert was s'mores on the grill. I thought I did really well, for a short-notice and last minute change of dinner plans, and for not really having much in the house that could be grilled.