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maple syrup and mud

By on February 25, 2014 in Kids, Outings

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That would sum up our day at the Maple Syrup Festival this weekend.  I should add in fun, lots of fun.  Oh and friends 🙂  We ran into about a dozen friends while there.  We were very excited to learn everything we could about maple syrup.  Our family has a commitment to eating local but living in Florida, we were never local to maple syrup 🙂  In Florida we could get cane syrup and sorghum but not maple, oh it’s so very good, yes?

It was a fun filled day of hay mazes, maple syrup sampling, festivites, tomahawk throwing, old fashioned log sawing (oh my aching arms) and momma with Matthew in the sling for about 6 hours.  He of course wanted to get down after his long nap against my body but with some areas being ankle deep in mud, I didn’t want him running around.  He was also in our famous “red shoes“, do you remember these?  I would like them to last as long as possible and with them being so old, I figured a day in mud and clay was not a good idea.  We learned how to tap our trees and got a kit (we have to first identify the maples on our property which is hard since there are no leaves to help me see which ones they are) and saw a demonstration of how the native Americans boiled down maple syrup in hollowed out logs with rocks that they heated up in their camp fires.  It really makes me think of how we take such things for granted.

I did finally find a dry spot to put Matthew down and he was very happy to climb and sit on the log there while we watched the older kids sawing away at logs.  The weather could not have been better and it was so good to my soul to be out in the sunshine all day long.  The kids seemed to be reveling in it.  Thankfully, for the past few days, the sun has been out quite a bit.  Except for the snow two days ago, I think spring is really coming soon.

We came home with some deliciously smoky tasting cotton candy, a gallon of grade b dark amber maple syrup and some secret treats I bought for Easter baskets.  The kids were so tired, most of them passed out right after dinner.

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something old and something new

By on November 14, 2013 in Outings, Uncategorized

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Our new house has almost everything we could ever ask for.  Space for everyone, oh goodness yes.  Closets galore, yep.  Bedrooms for all, you got it but the one thing that was missing is a big enough pantry.  Our kitchen in Florida though only 1/3rd of the size of our new one had gorgeous wood shelves to accomodate all of my jars of food stuffs.  Luckily, the new kitchen has this one empty wall and so I began my search for pantry shelves.  I searched high and low, both locally and through the internet but knowing exactly which kind I wanted made it difficult to settle for something else.  A quick search at Ikea’s website ended our search but the closest store is in Ohio so we made a day of it.

Halfway there, on a small country road, we came across a sign for a barn sale and since it was literally right on the road we were traveling, I stopped in.  What a cool place to be!  An old barn stuffed to the rafters with all sorts of treasures.  I felt like one of those guys on American Pickers, have you ever seen that show?  There were so many great things but nothing I really needed until the very back room.  An old Amish bench for our new breezeway, the room we enter the house through which separates the garage from the house.  Guests to our home enter through the front door but we enter through a side door and that room has so much possibility but I have not figured out what to do with it yet.  This bench would be a great start.  An old Amish bench to greet us as we come and go.  A place to stop and put on your shoes (no shoes in the house)  or just sit and enjoy the breeze.  Yes, this would be a great thing to bring to our new home, and so we talked the man into a price we all liked and he even offered to bring it home to us??  I explained to him where we lived and he still insisted that it would be no trouble at all and no extra cost.  All as his way to welcome us to the state he loves.  Sigh…. oh but we have met so many nice folks around here.  So off we went in the direction of Ikea with a new bench to be delivered the next morning.

Another two hours or so and we got to Ikea in time to eat some lunch and walk around.  Olivia had been so very excited to lay down in the little beds in the children’s rooms, she had been thinking about the cute little pencil she always gets to take home with her and the lingonberry jelly, one of her favorites.  We walked and laughed and I let the kids pretend that they lived in what seemed like every single display room.  They had lots of fun.

We returned home much too tired to do anything but unload the van and the next morning the boys and I started putting our purchases together.  A new bunkbed for the boys, new white crisp cotton curtains for most of the rooms in the house and a pantry for Momma.  I have everything almost where I want it and can’t wait to show you plus a few little projects I think you will like for your own kitchen.

Tomorrow we go to a local orchard to buy enough apples to make apple butter, apple sauce and put up apples to make pies throughout the year.  I’ll see you then, to share our adventure and Saturday I hope to share our new pantry with you.

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