Garlic Sprouts and Maple Syrup

Here's a little picture (not great quality - sorry) of the garlic sprouts that are coming up from the garlic cloves I planted and covered up with lots of leaves last fall in a corner of the garden. We had an unseasonably warm day here yesterday - 84 degrees was the high according to my thermometer, and it made me think of gardening, even tho here in Michigan we can have hard freezes up through the middle of May.

The warmth made the bees really active. I have been feeding them sugar water. Yesterday they went through a whole pint of 1:1 sugar water, so I gave them more this morning. I want to make sure we get some honey this year.

Actually, I have been thinking of gardening already, and have already bought a lot of seeds. I will plant some peas today, and maybe put out a few potato sets, just in case we have one of those rare springs where we do not get a late freeze. I looked for any hints of asparagus, but saw none yet. Out in the woods, I do see the infamous garlic mustard popping up. I'll go pick some and put it in the salad greens for dinner tomorrow night.

I did get the maple syrup canned over the weekend. We ended up with just over 6 gallons, which is pretty good considering it was far from an excellent year for sap collection. Too cold, then too warm all of a sudden. It tastes great. :-)

Spring agitation

Seems like everyone I know is experiencing some sort of obstacle right now. My impulse is always to back up to when my life seemed obstacle free. So, here is a little painting I did several years ago, before I moved to Michigan, during an obstacle 'lite' time. Ladies Who Lunch was done from a snapshot I took of cows at a branding. In the spring time, I seem to miss Wyoming the most. And, the anniversary of my father's death is just a few days away. I feel like giving myself a little break, but everyone around me seems to be experiencing overwhelming pressures of some sort.

When I painted this picture, I had a structured and reasonably rewarding job, and a stable living situation, so I was painting a couple hours a day.

Boiling the Sap

This weekend we cooked a lot of maple sap - close to 100 gallons of sap, which will be turned into about two gallons of syrup after I get done processing it. This is a picture of the stove Adorable Hubby welded together, after we both got really tired of working over an open fire. After the syrup season is done, I'll move the little hoop house we have covering the stove over to the south side of the house, and use it to start my garden! But, I can't let myself get distracted by all those lovely seed catalogs - today day I am going to can some syrup! And write lessons for the on-line Art History classes I am teaching. And feed the ponies hay, and the little birdies millet and sunflower seeds, and the bees some strong sugar water. It's good to have lots to do - I would hate to be bored and lazy...

Maple Sugaring Time!!

Over the weekend it was 49 degrees here - quite a contrast to just a week ago. 40 degree days in the spring is when the sap starts flowing, so we tapped one of our sugar maple trees - the sugaring season has officially begun! Now, I need to find the rest of the taps - I apparently washed up a bunch of them last year and put them somewhere for safekeeping other than along with all the other maple sugar supplies... But, my husband has procrastinated a little bit on our planned boiler upgrade, so once again, we have stumbled into the sugar season, eager but slightly behind. :-) He'll get the stove functioning by this next weekend, and I'll tap a bunch of trees on Wednesday, so we will have a good supply of sap to boil next Saturday. Last year we made 6 gallons of syrup. This year, we hope to double that, and hold a little pancake breakfast sometime in March for our friends and neighbors to raise some money for one of our favorite charities. Well, but, for today, back to thinking about the studio and that kiln that needs to be unloaded!